If you were raised here in the United States then you might be surprised to know that the answer to the question, “Did You Buy the Love Lies?” is a resounding yes.
In the recently released book The Love Lies (Sunrise River Press), the female Love Lies are defined as the faulty and flawed core beliefs about love and relationships that are incorporated into our upbringing, starting at the tender young ages of three and four.
The love lies are installed and reinforced through a variety of mediums and in a variety of ways that range from toys, books, after-school shows, sitcoms, romance novels, women’s magazines, “chick flick” movies, lyrics of so-called love songs, our parents, our observations of adults as we’re growing up, and even church. They are the culprits behind the country’s highest divorce rate world-wide and our execepti0nally high relationship dissatisfaction rates.
The book also exposes an epidemic of “Love STDs,” socially transmitted delusions, that have our approach to relationships failing the majority of us miserably and addresses the first 10 of the female Love Lies, starting with the one that “feeds” all of the rest. The good news is that for each one of the Love Lies, there is a corresponding Love Truth.
Love Lie #1: The Love Lie that is termed the “grand-daddy of them all,” Love Lie #1 is: Love is Found (outside of ourselves.) This is the foundational Love Lie that undergirds all of the rest. The Love is Found Love Lie is based in the flawed perception of love as an object or “thing” to be found in another. It reflects our fundamentally warped understanding of what love really is and is at the root of our desperate or needy behavior in relationships.
Love Truth #1: The Love Truth that counters Love Lie #1 and supports us in moving out of the delusion of love as a “thing” or object to be pursued, sought out, or “found” in another (this “other” has the alias of Mr. Right or The One, by the way) is that love is experienced within first. The truth is that love exists within each of us and is part of our inherent design. We’re told to seek outside of ourselves futilely for something that we already and always have possessed.
So how do you begin to recover and “detox” from this Love Lie and replace it with its Love Truth?
Step One – Acknowledge the Love Lie and admit its workings in your own life. Each Love Lie bears fruit in your thought process, communication, emotional reactions, and overall ways of engaging and interacting with men.
Step Two – Recognize and begin to embrace the corresponding Love Truth. Remember, the truth shall make you free. The same way that this Love Lie has been reinforced and drilled into your thinking and behavior over several decades, you want to allow time for the Love Truth to “take root” in your thinking and behavior. It is a process that requires “divine self-work” – the process of telling the truth to yourself about yourself and being willing to “detox,” heal, and re-program yourself.
Debrena Jackson Gandy is founder of The Love Academy, a powerful and revolutionary course that is changing how women and men “do” relationships. She is the national best-selling author of two previous books, an award-winning leader, has been featured in numerous international magazines including Ebony, as a guest on over 50 radio shows, and on TV on CNN, CNN Live, The Better Show, Good Day New York, Good Morning Texas, Good Day D.C., a host of regional morning news shows, and the Wisdom Channel. Jackson Gandy is also one of the hosts of TBN’s Public Report show at station KTBW Seattle/Tacoma.
