Love at First Sight

I knew Toni's interview was going to be a good one. We connected over Source Bottle (Google and explore immediately, especially if you are in or in need of great content!) and we were chatting about ways in which we could collaborate on a post for Dates and Plates. One of the subjects she suggested was love at first sight. I was in hook, line and bloody sinker.

Toni is the founder of the Toni Reilly Institute, an organisation that takes people on a journey to transform their life be it confidence, love, relationships or purpose so they represent the best version of themselves to the world. I trust Toni can do this. Her warm response to writing this blog post truly warmed my heart.

And she is honest. This post comes straight from the soul and doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to answering some of my questions. I had so many "WOAH" moments, I could hardly wait to share it and let you all mull over this fascinating topic and what it might all mean.

You can check out Toni's work at:

http://tonireillyinstitute.com/.

Toni, as a regression therapist and really working with people to overcome emotional bruises to live life with purpose, what do you most commonly see as the drawback for people embracing healthy relationships both in love and life?

Relationships are the most important contributor and teacher to assist us in overcoming our emotional bruises.  Believe it or not the bruise starts well before we end up in a love relationship.  Our partners, dates or any sort of love interest interaction poke and prod us just as they are designed to. 

The biggest drawback is insecurity, bruises begin as children by reducing our self-worth, the reactions people carry out are borne of deep down feelings of rejection, betrayal, humiliation or abandonment.  Most of us do not realise that we have these bruises (or any issues) until patterns appear in relationships causing us to question WHY ME? 

You may notice that some people experience many partners who are unfaithful, or quiet ones who don't communicate well, or co-dependent ones.  The behaviours all relate back to certain bruises and we continue to attract relationships (not just love ones) to assist us overcome the challenge set up by the bruise.  So when we feel like a victim of others, we are not, they are actually helping us to learn, to value ourselves.  As much as we look outside for someone to make us happy, potentially falling into the 'there is someone perfect for me, who completes me" the reality is no-one completes us, and we will only find the one who complements us when we feel mostly complete (secure and confident in who we are).

One of the things that I really wanted to discuss with you was love at first sight. I am a romantic and would love to know that there are people out there who have experienced this first hand. Can you share a story with us?

I adore love at first sight!  I wrote about my experience of it in my book AWAKE The Purpose of Life and Why You are Here.  I don't think people can truly comprehend or believe this until it happens to them. 

The first and most important factor in a love at first sight meeting is that it is reciprocated.  Realistically it might not be an instant knowing that you will be with this person but the energy is so strong between the two people that the compulsion to start and continue something together is unstoppable, and it overrides all morals, or social rules.  I believe our lives are set, so fate delivers us to one another at the pre-destined time.  To us, it feels so random, though when we sit back and investigate the 'meeting' the synchronicity becomes evident in orchestrating the meeting.

Has your experience with love at first sight been from personal experience or through your work with clients?

Both.  Many relationships begin with this knowing, a recognition at first sight or meeting.

For me, I was married, it was in trouble but not finished.  I went interstate with a close friend for a girls weekend.  This was only the second time I had ever done such a thing. This part may not be romantic but to me it is!  My friend and I were in a strange city and were given a list of bars to visit from some girls we did not know who were sitting near us.  Anyhow, we ended up at this particular bar through a chain of events and I went to get us a drink.  As I stood at the bar I felt a shot of energy, like a big zap between me and the person to my left.  I looked over and saw a man.  I am not shy so began silly small talk.  I was certainly not looking for someone, just out having fun with my friend.  Anyway she grabbed me and we explored the bar, I wanted to find him again.  We did and that was the beginning of the most incredible love, the love of my life, it twisted both our lives into pieces as both of us were partnered with kids.  The compulsion was unstoppable.  And I fought it to an extent, I know what is 'right and wrong", but I did not want to stop and adhere to morals, it felt like I couldn't!

For me there is this romantic notion of eyes locking, sparks flying across a room, is it this simple or is there something far deeper occurring when people experience love at first sight? 

It can happen with or without the sparks and eyes locking though there will be elements of attraction and compulsion that are beyond any other meeting, no matter how many dates, one night stands, marriages or crushes we have had. The deeper reality is the coming together of two souls as agreed, with a planned path and script to follow.

One of my reasons for starting this blog was to write about people and actions that people can take to help find love or create confidence to get out there and give different things a go, not just for love but for happiness in life too, what could people expect from a session with you and what kinds of directions can the sessions take on?

My passion is confidence and self-worth when these aspects are healthy then our happiness contentment in life is unlikely to come through another person.  Though this is when a really compatible person may appear or an existing relationship improves. 

As long as we look to other people to blame or feel victimised by them for the way that we feel we are not valuing ourselves.  No one can make us feel worthless, sure their words or actions poke and hurt, but they only hurt us because deep down we believe it in the first place.  Relationships are so amazing, but they are kind of tricky, so it is good to know about ourselves first, then second to gain an insightful understanding of our own personality traits and characteristics, and lastly, those of others.  Knowing this is gold, it propels us out of victim mode, stops us being nasty to ourselves or  blaming others, we become empowered to set boundaries for how we allow people to treat us.  Sometimes our greatest enemy is ourselves, in the case of being a martyr for a partner or putting ourselves down. 

My sessions or more group now, presented as training and seminars where I guide people to visit the place where their plan was made, before they were born.  Regression is recalling memories from childhood where we recognise the beginning of our bruise, or past lives where we recognise a similar feeling or situation we are in now or we visit home, all aspects of regression facilitates communication with the soul and that is why clarity arrives.  There is no human doctrines there to waiver the persons perception, their clarity is pure and they know it, they sense it and they feel it.  Such a beautiful thing.