Put people in a room and start talking about commitment and here’s what you’ll get: a puzzling mix of excitement, hope, and happiness as well as resistance, anxiety and fear.

Here are questions I get on committing:

When is the right time to expect commitment from my partner?
My partner is pushing me to marry and I don’t feel ready? how long should I wait?

How long should I wait?
I’m just recently married. Barely knew my husband before that. We’re having problems in our marriage. Did we commit too soon?

Now, to make a soulful relationship work you need 3 ingredients:

A dash of Chemistry – that’s the mysterious magical pulsating chemical reaction that brings two people together.

A sprinkle of Compatibility – It’s the practical lifestyle, social status and shared values & desires. It’s the mentality, the temperament, and inner culture that makes you both click and feel you’re on the same wavelength (Discover more here).

A splash of Commitment – it’s the deep intentional (even devotional) YES to the relationship and to make it work. Commitment is a crucial component to building and maintaining a relationship over the years.

Here’s how the anatomy of commitment looks like:

Commitment gives a direction and a purpose and it allows us to experience deeper love and intimacy. It allows you to move forward rather than round and round in circles.

When you commit, more of you is invested in your relationship so you give it your all. You care for it. And in return, your relationship thrives in magical ways that it wouldn’t without genuine commitment.

Commitment gives you emotional safety, where you can be who you are and express yourself and feel vulnerable- that allows you to relax in the relationship. To feel at home.

Truth whispers: commitment doesn’t protect you from loss, pain, and disappointment. Yet it really sets the tone of both your and your partner’s intentions. Clear soulful intentions are power.

Commitment creates freedom. Yes. Freedom. The liberating kind. I know many have a negative association with the word “commitment”. Many men feel that. Many women too. I’m one of them so I speak from experience and feeling. Here’s what I’ve learned. We resist commitment because we identify it with a loss of freedom. That’s terrifying for those of us who have freedom as a central core value in their life. I know now that commitment has a liberating expanding effect. It frees you from scattering your emotional energy in many directions and allows you to fully focus it on one person. The true freedom is to experience abandon, immersion, surrender, trust and letting go not only to your partner but to love itself. That happens when you’re with the right kind of person.

Why do we fear making a commitment?

Well, It isn’t really the fear of commitment per se but it’s really an unconscious underlying fear that we’ve got to bring to the surface if we want to lead a fulfilling love relationship.

Here’s what deep, deep, very deep down this fear could be:

It’s a fear of being hurt. If you’ve been heartbroken, dumped or divorced- you may have that reservation to giving your heart totally to someone.

Important distinction: it isn’t committing and loving the person that causes so much pain. It’s making a commitment to the wrong person.

It’s a fear of the future. You’ll catch yourself having these thoughts: “will I love her forever? How can I promise that and then things might fall apart. What if she cheats? what if I fell out of love?”

Important distinction: if you think that when you’re committing it means that you’re promising your partner to be feeling and behaving the same way in the future, none of us know what the future holds. There are no guarantees. A genuine commitment can only be a commitment to loving the person in each present moment for as long as the relationship allows us to love and accept ourselves too (rather than a commitment to the time our love will last).

It’s fear of turning out like your parents. (or not like your parents if the bar is set too high). Part of the challenge here is that we inherit our parents’ picture and definition of commitment. We look at how they interact and we decide that we’ll have the same dynamics with our own partner. You forget that you get to choose your own experience and definition of what commitment looks like and feels for you. And to choose, you’ve got to be raw honest about what do you really desire from a relationship, how do you wish to evolve as a person in your life so you pick a relationship that supports your growth.

Truth whispers: before jumping into long-term plans, it’s important you and your partner have a discussion about what commitment means to you. Real. Honest. Truthful. And to update your discussion about commitment whenever you feel that its meaning has changed or evolved. If you’re already married or in a committed relationship, you can renew your bond at any time by having a truthful heart to heart conversation about that.

It’s fear of choosing the wrong person. Here’s what goes on in your head: You worry that one day you’ll meet someone better. Someone you’re absolutely compatible with. And you’ll look at the partner you’re married to and think “Oh my God! what have I done”.

Truth bomb: that means you have a strong desire to be aligned and deeply connected with your partner on a gut level. That exists. You’ve got to trust your feeling and your deep desire. you won’t get the reassurance and guarantee that the relationship will work. It’ll be up to you to choose a partner you’re compatible with, to trust and to commit to making the relationship work.

It’s a fear that you’re not worthy of having the love relationship you deserve. What you think is what you’ll get. Self-sabotage is a destructive and painful journey. It’s not believing you can actually have and experience what you’re yearning for.

Truth whispers: be kind to yourself. You’ve got to do the work of learning to receive and saying YES to what feels good. Raising your love standards is crucial for someone who desires a meaningful relationship (watch the videos here).

What does commitment look like in action?

At every stage of your healthy relationship, your commitment will deepen and you’ll see yourself moving in a flow *the relationship flow*.

The first level of commitment looks like this: You want to be together. Monogamously. You feel it. You’re spending more time together.

Truth whisper: A relationship can’t grow without monogamy. And if your partner isn’t ready to offer you that, then it’s not the right relationship for you.

The second level of commitment looks like this: You nurture the bond. You both want to make it work. It feels reciprocal. You’re curious about each other. You communicate feelings. You share any road block. You’re open.

The third level of commitment looks like this: You desire to spend your future together. You’re ready for this when you created a healthy partnership. You feel sure about spending your future together. You have no desire to check out any other potential partner. You feel loved and appreciated by your partner which actually makes you consider spending your future together.

At this point, you and your partner are also ready to eliminate any doubts and obstacles that come in the way of a successful commitment.

The fourth level of commitment looks like this: You take the leap to formalise the relationship in a way that feels good to both of you. You have trust in the solidity of the relationship foundation and that it will survive whatever adversity it faces. You both feel excited about exploring deeper levels of love and intimacy. Heart expanding feeling.

These levels of commitments are important signals in the relationship that allows you to feel the commitment in action and in a practical sense. It has to feel reciprocal. If there’s no sign of any of these,  the relationship will be difficult, toxic and nearly impossible.

Making a commitment to the right person will emotionally and physically liberate you. Making a commitment to the wrong person will imprison you.

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Here’s to committed liberated love.

Want to create the love you’ve always desired? Find out more here.