Experience has taught me that one of the most beautiful and yet challenging aspects of what it means to be human is an intimate relationship.
The environment we grow up in often provides the soil in which we plant the seeds of what we understand as LOVE. Young people need good role models so that their choice of an intimate partner makes a healthy evolution possible. Self-love, knowing our desires and needs, understanding which experiences keep us unfulfilled, frustrated and sad is a learning curve, sometimes a steep one. Life mostly unfolds according to the choices we make.
Youngsters who witness a parent accepting only love crumbs from underneath the table might come to the sad conclusion that this is what love is all about. Already from a young age onwards their expectations about experiencing love are set low. We are seemingly born with a deep hunger for fulfilling love, and so the often fearful search for more begins.
Love, however, cannot thrive in an environment of fear, fearful control or fear of being who we truly are. The most effective fertilizer for love is, I believe, freedom.
Jaquelyn Strickland
Sending you warmth from my soul to yours
Charlotte
Tamarin
MAURITIUS