Denna Babul - Love Strong: Change Your Narrative, Change Your Life, and Take Your Power Back!

Advance Praise for Love Strong

Denna is that tough-love girlfriend everyone needs, but not everyone is lucky enough to have. With heart and humor she will tell you straight what role your early childhood messaging about relationships is playing in current your love misfortuneand then how to actually get past it once and for all. She is a Godsend.

Nicola Kraus, Bestselling Co-author of Th e Nanny Diaries

A SAVIO REPUBLIC BOOK

An Imprint of Post Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-64293-449-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-450-2

Love Strong:

Change Your Narrative, Change Your Life, and Take Your Power Back!

2020 by Denna Babul, R.N.

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design by Cody Corcoran

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

posthillpress.com

New York Nashville

Published in the United States of America

To my daughter Sophie Bleu, may you always know the power and magic you have with in you to love.

To all of the women out there that have struggled in love. I got you. We got this. It is time to take b ack your power.

Contents

Unp acking
the Past

I once heard that if a womans father was an alcoholic, she could be in a room with a hundred men and the only one who would catch her eye would be the one with a drinking problem. Why is that? Is it a familiarity that we seek, or something deeper programmed into our DNA? The fact is that our family of origin, the experiences of members of that family, and reactions to those experiences introduce us into a room before we ever even say hello. We are walking stories of our pasts looking to find commona lity in others.

At some point in our lives, we are shown a fork in the road. One direction leads us down a road of magic and intense emotion, leading us to challenge our histories, and the other course takes us down a safer pathone that will guarantee perhaps a more guarded life but will also keep our hearts out of harms way.

You are here for one of two reasons. You took the magic carpet ride, fell in love, and lost your way, leaving you flailing through life looking for another adventure, or you took the safe route and are bored to tears. I have taken both paths, which is why I am writing this book. I want to help you get the love you want by showing you exactly who has been in the drivers seat in your relationships.

It is your subconscious relationship mind that has been making most of your decisions. She is the part of your mind who is not fully aware of what you want but continues to influence your actions, feelings, and many of your choices. You can blame her for your snap judgments, like going home with your ex-boyfriend even though you know you will regret it in the morning, or that Old Town Road song getting stuck in your head on a loop all day long. According to most cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about 5 percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions and emotions depend on the other 95 percent of the brains activity that is n ot fully awake.

I am here to wake up your conscious rel ationship mind.

We are going to go back through your life and take a look at how and why you made the decisions you made. In doing so, we will attempt to wake up your conscious relationship mind so that she can finally get in the drivers seat. Think of her as your highest emotional self. We want to make friends with her and tap into what she knows in order to take your power back on ce and for all.

Lets Disc uss Breaking Up

You are here because you want answers. You may have already mastered many aspects of your life and found happiness in those areas. Your career is on point. Your friendships are rewarding, and your mini goldendoodle gives you all the affection and kisses your heart desires, but romantic love is still out of your reach. You are here because you have yet to master the one thing you want most in your l ife: true love.

Many women today spend the majority of their lives in the drivers seat. Because they may have had to take control early in their lives, it gave them the confidence not only to know what they want but to have the tenacity to go after it; however, in love, wanting it and going after it does not always lead to th e best results.

Although you may desperately want to, you cant always make the people you love, love you back. You also cant ask or expect your partner to heal you. He does not know all of your pain and is most likely not trained to help you figure it out. He may want to, and may even try for a time, but eventually he will give upbecause while he can enrich your life and grow with you, he cant fix you.

The issue, whether you know it or not, is you, and up until now, you may not have been willing to examine your family-of origin relationshipsor known that you should. So, you may not be fully aware of how much they are ruling your adult relationships. In relationships, the load has to be equal. To have a successful, loving partnership, both people have to a) want it, b) want to work on it, and c) value it. If the equation is off or heavily emotionally weighted on one person, the relationship will collapse under the pressure. Sound familiar?

I am sure you can think back to relationships in your past or maybe think of ones in your present in which the weight was or is solely on your shoulders. The reason for this is that your partner picker is off. Take a beat to reflect on your choices. Have you always chosen people who were ready to give and receive love? Have you perhaps chosen someone who was not willing to give enough, so you turned yourself inside out to try to make it work, only to be left heartbroken for longer than you care to admit? Maybe you have been the one who was unable to give? You thought you were giving, but you were taking. Did you expect too much? Did you want him to heal the inner child in you who still needed protection? These are the types of questions you will answer throughout the book. To get out of your head, you have to heal those parts that are damaged. Healing equals freedom, and freedom equals opportunity. If you dont have the freedom to make real, conscious choices, the opportunities you are desperately seeking will not appear. Instead, you will have a limiting belief of what you deserve. Therefore, you will bring only those types of relationship opportunities into your field of sight. I know it is trippy to think about all of this, but it could not be more accurate.

Inner Conflict

Think about what inner relationship conflict has been on a constant loop in your head for years. Where did it originate? What about that conflict is true? How has it been controlling your choices? What healing needs to take place? In short, what theme do you want to kick to the curb that has been seriously underserving you for years? To get you started on your way to freedom and new opportunities, lets look at some common personal relationship conflict themes that might currently be in charge of your subconscious decision-making. These are listed merely for recognition. Do not put a check mark by any of them, because, girl, you are not taking them with you.

I fe ar abandonment.

I f ear commitment.

I am a control freak.

I am codependent.