Do you know what the Eurovision Song Contest is?
It’s the longest running annual TV Music Competition, with acts from over 40 countries, from all over Europe, with over 200 million viewers watching at home from all around the world.
And every year, it becomes an even bigger show, with more lights and more dancers and acrobats, with quicker cuts and more special effects, fireworks and wind machines.
All the acts try to outdo one another, there are huge expectations put upon the artists.
And the winner is often the one with the most spectacular performance.
But a few years ago, in 2017, something changed.
The winner, the winning performance, shocked quite a few Eurovision fans like myself.
Let me tell you what I learned about relationships from Eurovision.
It all started as usual – with all the bright visuals, and dancers and pumping tunes.
All the countries had rehearsed so long, and so hard, and there was obviously a lot of money spent on international music producers and song writers, and costumes and pyrotechnics and so on.
But then, the act from Portugal was on.
There were no dancers, no flashing lights.
No background singers,
Just a single guy, called Salvador Sobral.
And where the others songs were happening on the big stage, he was standing in the middle of the audience, on a very small round mini-stage, with people surrounding him
In a black jacket that was a bit too big for him.
He had this weird seemingly uncut hair, with a kind of man-bun at the back.
He looked kind of funny
But then he started to sing his song, very softly, very slowly.
In Portuguese – almost everybody else was singing in English.
He had this weird hand gestures, he moved around the microphone. While he was delivering this beautiful touching song, that almost nobody could understand.
He even improvised a bit – sang the song differently than in the rehearsals.
And guess what?
He won this year’s Eurovision song contest.
With his laid back attitude, almost like he didn’t care about his looks, about the staging, he just focused on the song, and he wanted the audience in the arena, and the over 200 million viewers at home, he wanted everybody to focus on just this one moment, to focus on his music, and nothing else.
And he won, ahead of all the other well rehearsed acts with all their effort and their exact choreographed moves, all their money spent, all their huge expectations.
So, you might say – yes Tom, that’s a nice story – but what does it have to do with my relationship?
Well, ask yourself this:
Have you ever tried to prepare the perfect evening, or the perfect date night,or the perfect vacation, and then it all fell apart and it didn’t work out as you expected?
Like all the other countries competing in Eurovision, don’t we often put a lot of expectations
on ourselves, on our partner, on our relationship, try to control everything, only to feel very disappointed when not everything goes as we planned it?
We put so many expectations upon our relationship
And, on the other hand
Have you experienced situations like this guy winning Eurovision for Portugal,
where nobody expected anything particular, but something beautiful happened,
a very special evening,
a deep talk with your partner
maybe something as brief as a hug or a touch, that was unexpected, but that you could fully appreciate in that moment.
If we try to get rid of some of our expectations
Something like a perfect romantic evening, or the perfectly planned weekend with our family,
If we get rid of those expectations,
we automatically get rid of our anger when those expectations are not met.
And instead, if we appreciate the magic in the moment,
as it appears
Everything changes.
And you will find the passion and intimacy again, just naturally.
You don’t expect it, and you appreciate it when it happens.
If you want some help in finding those special moments, and learning to appreciate those moments, get my Couplific Passion Back System completely free by clicking here.
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