As a Modern Love Coach committed to helping women (and men) expand their capacities to love, I often create terms that shed light on behaviors and thought patterns that kill the aliveness of love and relationship.

There is one syndrome I have coined that is especially insidious; I call it the “Box and Bow Syndrome.” This is a condition where we try (mostly unconsciously) to fit people we “love” into our cute, little box (with matching bow) of who and what we think they should be, how they should do things, and in what time frame or manner. I put “love” in parenthesis because we can see that in trying to change someone to fit into our neat and comfortable box of who we want him or her to be to make us feel more at ease, we are not really loving them at all.

This phenomenon is sneaky. Box and Bow Syndrome sneaks up on us like the beautiful, ominous morning fog, creeping ever so slowly and subtly in, until we can no longer see who or what is in front of us. Many times, we are so unconscious and conditioned to acting in this way, we do not see why employees quit, friends stop calling and lovers leave. Often it takes an outside perspective to even wake us up that Box and Bow Syndrome is happening at all.

In Loverships (relationships where love is the main focus) this is one of the most infectious of unconscious patterned behaviors – why? Because when one starts projecting their wants onto the other person, many times that person is so insecurely eager for the love of the other, they miss that Box and Bow is happening or completely ignore it all together. To face and feel the pain of another’s unconscious projections of how, why and where you “don’t measure up” is usually too hurtful to receive and digest. So we pretend we didn’t hear it or feel it and slip into a familiar slumber. And soon, we find ourselves, in order to protect our tender hearts, slowly making our own “suggestions” to our lover about what it is that we desire. If not caught, discussed and worked through, the relationship is soon over.

How then do we wake up as to whether or not we are inflicting this kind of unconscious judgment and overall rejection onto others? Ask yourself these questions:

1) Where do I offer unsolicited “support” my loved one by offering suggestions as to how he/she can change, be better, more of something/less of something?

2) Do I have stringent judgments about how this person is managing and living their life?

3) Can I open to this person’s point of view and accept it as my own?

Many times, if we look deeper into how, why and where we want to put people into a Box about how they “ought” to be, we start to see our own deep fears and insecurities that we are not willing to face in ourselves. We can start to see our own arrogance. We can start to realize our own ignorance. We begin to see we have forgotten the magnificence of this person. We start to discover and acknowledge they possess their own creative gifts; have special magic and talents, and why we love them. Here we find the truer meaning of Love – Acceptance. To accept others is to accept ourselves ~ herein lies the foundation of meaningful and powerful relationships.

Let me know what you think about this. How and where you are putting people in “boxes” and struggling with love? I want to know.