book review: the pathway to love

 

"While love is always present and available to us,
it usually takes two hearts, two minds, and two souls
to find our way there."

Julie Orlov 

 

As anyone who has been in one knows, relationships are complicated. They are, for most people, one of the most complex aspects of life. Winding your way through life's relationships and managing to have successful interactions with the ones you love is no easy feat. Luckily for us, there are some great authors out there sharing their relationship advice with the world. A book recently sent to me, The Pathway to Love: Create Intimacy and Transform Your Relationships through Self-Discovery by Julie Orlov, presents a roadmap for not only successfully navigating through relationships, but also for becoming a better person in the process of understanding and maintaining your relationships. Julie believes that loving relationships develop in four phases and she uses her book to explore and help readers understand these phases. Below are the four phases Julie illustrates in her book and these offer a great glimpse into the quality content you'll receive in her work: 

 

Julie's Four Phases of Love
 

• Object-Fantasy.  In the first phase, we project ourselves, our needs, and our past onto a stranger. Then, we become committed to making sure that our fantasy comes true or that our worst fears don’t. Because this phase triggers so many issues, intensified by anxieties and hormones, it is often difficult for people to differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t. “In romantic relationships, this phase can easily trick you,” Orlov cautions.

 

• Self-Discovery.  In phase two, we begin to see the other person for who he truly is, and react to his less than perfect behavior. We also begin to reveal our true selves. Fantasies are lost, disappointments surface, and the real work of relationships begins. As Orlov demonstrates, this phase offers opportunities for realistic self-assessment—of our beliefs and expectations, our vulnerabilities, and our biases and lack of tolerance—and for practicing empathy and compassion.         

 

• Personal Transformation.  In phase three, we fully accept our significant other for who she truly is, without manipulating her opinions, choices, or convictions. We also take full responsibility for our own feelings, thoughts, and actions, without blaming our better half for the worst outcomes. This phase, as Orlov stresses, demands an ongoing commitment to self-reflection, self-control, integrity, and honest communication. The payoff? “Experiencing deep and profound love becomes possible,” Orlov declares.                            

 

• Relational Transformation.  In the fourth and ultimate phase, the relationship goes beyond simply meeting the needs of both individuals. The relationship takes on a life and meaning of its own, affecting other people in the couple’s lives, family, and community. “A shared purpose and vision emerges,” Orlov attests. “Each person in the relationship supports each other in working toward that purpose. Each person lives into the vision.”             

 

While becoming immersed in each fictional couple’s drama, readers will learn how to apply lessons from the story lines to the issues in their own relationships. Throughout, Orlov emphasizes her perspective on relationships as precisely that—a point of view, not an absolute truth. Rather than make any unrealistic promises of happily ever after, she focuses on empowering readers with a process from which they can make their own path in relationships, even when relationships resist following a linear path. “Just because you’ve progressed from phase two to phase three doesn’t mean that you will never revisit phase one or two,” Orlov tells her readers. “In fact, it is entirely possible to live in more than one phase at a time.

The book focuses on the premise that many of us might be afraid to admit: our relationships are mirrors into ourselves. Through the stories of four fictional couples, Julie helps readers take a closer look at these relationships in order to better understand not only our interactions, but ourselves as well. If you're in a relationship and want to make the most of it -- or even if you're not in one at the moment -- this is a great book for making the most of your love life. To buy a copy of your own, click here. 

Comments

[Saggleo]

Great post...and I understand and can relate very well to the points Julie Orlov makes and that you touched on. Reflecting back on a past relationship, the section of Personal Transformation has probably been the best description that best describes my issue in my last relationship and what I've learned to look out for in future ones. Those who manipulate with negative intent can sometimes take a while to recognize, not taking responsibility for their actions yet making it seems as if it is your fault, and having these unrealistic ideals/expectations that they themselves can't live up to, but place on others is a recipe for how a relationship will never work. Certainly not one for me.

[positively present]

Saggleo - Thanks! I'm glad you liked it and could relate to Julie's words. And thank you so much for sharing your personal experience related to this post. I agree that those elements will do nothing but create a relationship that doesn't function properly.