I was torn between a few books. The Wife Between Us was my first thought. It’s an amazing book that isn’t about what you would think at all. It has twists and turns that keep you on your toes. I believe I’m going to go with one of the more recent books I have read though. The Mastery of Love. My therapist suggested it a few months ago. I thought it sounded extremely cheesy. It took me a few days, but I really got into it. It’s hard to explain, so I am going to add some of the notes that I highlighted from the book.

-Sometimes the little child inside you comes out – the real you that stays at the age of two or three years old. You are living in the moment and having fun, but there is something pulling you back; something inside feels unworthy of having too much fun. An inner voice tells you that your happiness is too good to be true; it isn’t right to be too happy. All the guilt, all the blame, all the emotional poison in your emotional body keeps pulling you back into the world of drama.

-If you are in an abusive relationship, it is because you accept that abuse, because you believe that you deserve it.

-No one in the world abuses you more than you abuse yourself.

-Most relationships between lovers are just like a relationship between a drug addict and the one who provides the drugs. The one who has the biggest need is like the drug addict; the one has a little need is the provider.

-The provider can control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by giving more doses, fewer doses, or no doses at all.

-If you take your happiness and put it in someone’s hands, sooner or later, they are going to break it. If you give your happiness to someone else, they can always take it away.

-It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, you are never going to be what that person wants you to be.

-Love is unconditional. Fear is full of conditions. In the track of fear, I love you IF you let me control you, IF you are good to me, IF you fit into the image I make for you. I create an image of the way you should be, and because you are not and never will be the image, I judge you because of that, and find you guilty. Many times I even feel ashamed of you because you are not what I want you to be. If you don’t fit that image I create, you embarrass me, you annoy me, I have no patience at all with you. I am just pretending kindness. In the track of love, there is no IF; there are no conditions.

-And every time you remember, you punish me again and again and again for the same mistake.

-You don’t have to have all the attachments to the past. All of us can change, and it can be for the better.

-But what is going to happen if you are starving for love, if you don’t have that love in your heart, and someone comes and says, “You want a little love? You can have my love if you just do what I want you to do.” If you are starving for love, and you taste that love, you are going to do whatever you can for that love. You can even be so needy that you give your whole soul just for a little attention.

-We want “someone who needs me” in order to justify our existence, in order to feel that we have a reason to be alive. We think we are searching for love, but we are searching for love, but we are searching for “someone who needs me.” someone we can control and manipulate.

-She creates an image of the man and tries to deny what she doesn’t want to see. She lies to herself. She really wants to believe the relationship will work.

-Artemis didn’t need Hercules at all. She felt a strong need to have him, but of course it was only an illusion. – The one thing on her mind was to get Hercules, and it became an obsession until she was no longer happy. – She didn’t see the truth; she only had Hercules on her mind. -When she was with Hercules, she felt so happy to be with him, but she knew he would leave and she became jealous and possessive. Every time Hercules left, she suffered and she cried. She hated Hercules, but she loved him also. – Of course everyone in the forest noticed the difference in Artemis except her.

-We keep hunting and hunting, but in the wrong place, because other humans don’t have the love we need.

-Don’t believe yourself. Don’t believe all the lies you tell yourself – all those lies that you never chose to believe, but were programmed to believe. Don’t believe yourself when you say you are not good enough, you are not strong enough, you are not intelligent enough. Don’t believe your own boundaries and limitations. Don’t believe you are unworthy of happiness or love. Don’t believe you are not beautiful. Don’t believe whatever makes you suffer. Don’t believe your own drama. Don’t believe in your own Judge or your own Victim. Don’t believe the inner voice that tells you how stupid you are, that tell you to kill yourself. Don’t believe it, because it isn’t true.

-If you do not love yourself, you can’t love anyone else either.