We all want to give and receive love, to be acknowledged, cared for and to know that our lives really do matter.
How do you find true love, especially for women over 60, without sacrificing your sense of self-worth by feeling forced into chasing after love in an ever changing outside world?
As we find ourselves bombarded this month with all things relating to love, there is no better time than now to reinterpret and reframe what true love means to you.
To guide you through this, I have put together a three-part series for Sixty and Me readers titled “Finding True Love After 60.”
In part-one, we will pull back the veil of The Seven Myths of Love & Happiness™. In part-two, we will explore what it means to reunite with your true, authentic self. To conclude this series, I will share with you five profound processes to reframe your inner perception of self-love.
A Luncheon Changes Everything
True love resides in you. It can be enhanced by other people and life experiences, but it cannot be given nor taken away by anyone or anything outside of you.
How is it then that we have all felt the painful sting of being rejected, betrayed, and emotionally distraught by the seemingly gut-wrenching ways in which we can be hurt and experience deep loss with love?
There are many answers to this and most of them lead back to The Seven Myths of Love & Happiness™.
Like you, I was raised, educated, and unknowingly influenced by these myths throughout my life. I did not, however, become consciously aware of them until much later in my life.
It all started at a luncheon with two of my long-time friends. There I listened to my sorority sister’s heartbreaking story. She sadly shared her dismay that due to her age, there were a lack of options for love, happiness and fulfillment in her life. Mind you, this was coming from a bright, educated and pretty woman.
I experienced gender discrimination early on in my entrepreneurial career and was exposed to age discrimination in Hollywood. Now I was seeing the lies and myths about love, happiness, and aging play out in the lives of dear friends.
I could not stand by and accept this.
Leaving the luncheon that day, I was not clear on what I would do, but I vowed to do battle against these myths and stereotypes about love, happiness, and aging that so deeply affected my friends.
Uncovering the Seven Myths
My research, coupled with personal experiences, revealed the sheer magnitude of damage these myths and stereotypes inflict on society. They are not just a daily reality for people in the 60 and over club. Tens of millions in younger generations are beset by them as well, particularly women.
So, just who or what are The Seven Myths of Love & Happiness?
- Myth of Scarcity
- Myth of Self-Worth
- Myth of Love
- Myth of Prince Charming
- Myth of Aging
- Myth of Physical Beauty
- Myth of Shame and Blame
At first glance, these may not appear to be much. But make no mistake about their power and influence. Woven into cultural and ideological truths and passed down to each generation as guideposts for finding love, happiness and security in life, each of the seven myths are protected as immutable laws of life.
Although the myths drive us to achieve far more than we once thought possible they also inflict deep-seated pain and a lack of fulfillment, while stirring up prolonged bouts of angst, confusion, and suffering of all kinds.
So, how do you break free of the influence of these myths and begin cultivating a deeper sense of inner love for yourself? And if these myths are so pervasive, why are they referred to as myths?
Are These Myths or Reality?
Even if you are just now hearing about these myths, you likely have spent considerable time and resources battling their effects. There’s also a good chance you didn’t refer to your outer obstacles in life as myths because these experiences looked and felt all too real.
The seven myths frame a false reality that appears to be real through your beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions of life and love. In this false reality, the myths trick you into seeing beneficial solutions to finding true love and happiness in all the wrong places.
To create a new reality, and one where you are not in a repetitive loop of chasing after love, requires a deep reexamination, reinterpretation and reframing of what true love means to you.
In all my research and personal experience with these myths, the following three areas routinely stand out as the most universally effective for breaking free of the myths.
- Be consciously aware of the seven myths.
- Consciously observe how the myths influence your beliefs and affect your emotional well-being.
- Love yourself unconditionally.
What truly makes you feel loved and fulfilled? What stories or beliefs did you grow up with as a child, and later invested in as an adult, that unknowingly led you to give away your power by seeking true love outside of yourself? In what ways do you currently invest your time in lovingly honoring and valuing yourself through self-love?
