Two Steps to Loving Someone–Crossing all Borders

2 Steps to Loving Someone

There are times when we will come across people in our lives that seem so different from us that we don’t know how we could ever get along with them, let alone love them. I am here to tell you that it is not only possible but can be a wonderful experience where you can create meaningful relationships you may have otherwise missed out on. It starts with just two steps:

1 – Love yourself. It is extremely difficult to love someone else until you really understand yourself and what your personal design looks like.
The components of loving yourself are….
-Know your authentic self and really understand your attractiveness
-Know all the traits and characteristics that come with your personal design
-Be able to support your attractiveness and preferences without anyone else having to sign off on it (support yourself)2. Celebrate the person you want to love. If you truly want to love them it is critical to begin with celebration.

2 – Celebrate the person you want to love.If you truly want to love them it is critical to begin with celebration.
You can start by…
-Learning their traits and characteristics
-Take the time to understand their design
-Know that opposites attract. While you will probably agree on some things, most things you will see differently
-Learn how to truly understand them while at the same time staying true to your design
-Slow down and listen

When learning to love someone social issues, race, culture, religion and many other issues can become a barrier in a new relationship. The truth is, sometimes they are hard to overcome! Luckily when I approach a new relationship I simply get to just concentrate on that person’s design and the equation of those two simple steps, initially.

Tommy and Brook

When I think of this equation, I think of one of my best friends in the whole wide world, Tommy Bassett. My husband and I adore him. He is truly a friend that I love and could not imagine my life without him.

I met Tommy in a salon one day, years ago. I had just started working there that day and just like any new day on the job, things were intense.  Everything was new to me and status quo to everyone else there. I saw him standing in the back room. Tommy intrigued me and I immediately fell in love with his design. He is the most amazing version of a Saturated-Grayed person with just enough Blackened to be as real and witty as the day is long (in our methodology that means authoritative and private, meticulous but very down to earth, initially introverted).

I, on the other hand, am Saturated and Whitened equally, with very little Grayed and fumes of Blackened. Authoritative and spontaneous (again, in our methodology that means clear thinker, yet very spontaneous and social, most of the time quite extroverted).

In other words, we are complete opposites!

Crossing All Borders
When you truly love yourself authentically for who you are, and celebrate and love the other person for who they are authentically it crosses all borders. The love you learn to have for a person’s authentic imprint knows no bounds!

Brook & Tommy presenting Human Art at the Global Hair Expo in Australia in 2008.

As time went on Tommy and I were able to work side by side and learn more about each other. We had many discussions about each other’s designs and their differences. He caught on to the theory of Human Art so quickly and before we knew it he was on tour with me. We were doing a lot in the fashion industry as far as designing trends based on a person’s design and personality. We had contracts with some major companies and found ourselves on stage everywhere from Las Vegas red carpet shows to European fashion week in Australia presenting hair trends. We also spent many hours in New York working.

We also found ourselves spending a lot of time learning how to be friends. We were both hair dressers, so we thought that was one thing we might have in common; but our approach to that was even sometimes different. It struck us as a little odd that the two of us who had nothing (literally nothing) in common could be such good friends. But our differences as far as social issues, religion, and sexual orientation didn’t come up as much as our designs did. We were so fully involved with celebrating our designs we forgot to spend the same amount of time on those differences.

After one particular event in St. George, Utah at the beautiful Green Valley Spa, we sat down and addressed the differences in an attempted to find one of these issues we had in common.

The contrast went as follows:
Brook                                                                        Tommy
Religious. I call myself a “Molly Mormon”                Loves general spirituality
I have a Traditional marriage                                    Different sexual orientation
15 years older.                                                          15 years younger
More Conservative than liberal                                More Liberal  than conservative

This is just to name a few…

It is important that when I describe these it is in no way to promote a particular cause or lifestyle or to make a stance. It is only to point out that you could not get two friends on more opposite ends of the spectrum. However, we were determined to find something we had in common. After a lot of discussion we found one thing we completely agreed on: we both really love almonds!

Most importantly, we were excited to realize that we could be so different, but by staying completely true to ourselves and at the same time truly celebrating each other’s opposite design and what that really meant (and still means today) we could cross all borders and have a true friendship that is so meaningful.

With that realization I was so happy to know it really does work. There we were, two totally different people, and yet such great friends. There it was, the one-two punch:
First, love yourself and your authentic design
Second, celebrate the other’s authentic self as well

I encourage you to take the time to truly understand yourself…Then forget yourself! Take equal time to celebrate the person you want to love. You may not end up with a friendship like mine and Tommy’s every time, but you will find a respect and appreciation for others that you may have missed before and you will both be better people because of it. I can promise you that.

Remember, everyone’s a masterpiece.

~Brook

What are your thoughts? Is there anyone you’ve had a similar experience with, or someone you’d like to try this with? We’d love to hear from you, leave a comment below! 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.