The Many Faces of Love - guest post from visual artist Veronica Blanco

I was once told, “never fall in love because you’ll only end up getting hurt.”

Mind you, this came from someone who had just broken up out of a 10 year relationship, so of course his opinion wasn’t going to be positive.

But growing up I’ve always known that love has it’s challenges.

There are many faces of love and it’s certainly not all smiles.

There’s infatuation, where you’re constantly sneaking a touch of the hand, teasing each other and planting adoring kisses on the cheek and forehead.

There’s also excitement, where you bring in new ideas into the bedroom, take control of the moment or explore new positions.

And of course, there are also often arguments and tears along the way.

There are many other faces of love but these three faces that I explore as an artist.

My name is Veronica Blanco and I’m an artist examining love and relationships in my artwork.
 

Veronica Blanco is a Toronto based visual artist concentrating in painting and drawing. She received her BFA with Honours in Visual Arts from York University in the spring of 2014. Her work is passionately personal, a visual examination of love and relationships. Inspired by personal moments and the people around her, Veronica explores the intimacy, passion and even struggles between couples. She's intrigued by the power of the human figure to allure us and the messages found in body language.

www.veronicablancoart.com

Seducing Success and Letting Go of Guilt

It’s been a fun week! My fast fix facts for this week are:

• Join me and Anthony from the Be Yourself and Love It podcast having far too much fun chatting about what is sexual empowerment and why should we want it - catch that here

• I was part of the super cool Seductress Speakeasy Series - watch or listen to my awesome friend Robin Hilton Bowen and me talking about our favourite ways for women to use pleasure as fuel for success, as well as me embarrass myself doing a breast massage demo.

• Work with one of the world's top 5% of coaches in the field of love, sex and relationships for student rates! Yes, I mean me.

I’ve been putting it off but now that I am coaching full time I am raising my rates to bring them more in line with industry standards. I do a free session for everyone who want to see if this is for them (obligation free). If you book a free session over the next 2 weeks and decide you want to go ahead you can work with me for the old rate. Book your session here. I work with singles and couples for weekly or fortnightly sessions. 

Stop Blaming Yourself

I grew up feeling guilty. While I wasn’t raised Catholic, I like to think I can punch above my weight when it comes to generalised guilt.

When my relationship wasn’t going so well, I blamed myself. When my partner cheated, I put it down to me being too immature, not interesting enough, too demanding. Not exciting in bed. Just wrong. When my marriage ended the weight of failure and shame was almost more than I could bare.

But the more I work with people on sex, love and relationship stuff the more I see how many of us are walking around with this terrible weight of responsibility. It can totally freeze over our personal lives when we feel like we’re inevitably going to hurt someone else or get hurt.

• ‘I should have been different, I could have saved us.’

• ‘I shouldn’t have even been in that relationship’

• ‘I shouldn’t have hurt him/her...’

Can you relate? What past or current guilt and shame are you carrying around?

But we all make mistakes. None of us emerge into the world knowing how to be perfect in life at anything, let alone things involving other people.

In my case, I realised I wasn't going to stop being human anytime soon. So I decided my manifesto would be:

'I will get things wrong, I will screw up, I will hurt people. But I will learn and I will make better decisions as I go.
My mistakes will be the architects for the woman I become.'

When I learned it was possible to work on my own issues so that I could set myself free everything changed! - for myself but also so I could be in relationships with other people where I wasn’t playing games or relying on my partner for my self esteem or identity anymore. My life, and relationships, are 100% better in every way.

So I have only one top tip for you today - forgive yourself! You’re doing the best you can.

If you want to learn how to go deeper with this, get in touch. I would love to help you.

Lots of love

Ruth