Singles, couples: how to wake up love? | Florence Escaravage | TEDxCannes

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

In this didactical talk, Florence Escaravage shares the keys to her innovative approach: how can we wake up in us and in others a lover asleep? What are the conditions for the magic to work? We are all perfectly able to find love in a few moths or to get our significant other to fall in love with us all over again!

We are all programmed
to love and be loved.

It's in us.

It is our genetic programming necessary
for the reproduction of the species.

But love is magic!

For this magic to work,

certain conditions must be met.

But too often, we block
this emotional circulation

without knowing it.

Yet, we are all capable, if we will,

to find love in three months.

So I would like to tell you two things:

first,

it is the opposite of what you can read
in women's magazines;

secondly,

it relies on the opposite dynamics

of that which consists
in lying on a couch.

Why is it contrary to
what is said in women's magazines?

Because in women's magazines,

you are often told you should talk
about your strong points;

that what kills love is control -

control over your image,

control over what you want
to reveal about yourself.

So you are told that you must
talk about your strong points,

that you must be self-confident,

and all that seems natural to you.

I often meet women who are beautiful,

have a great job,
are smart, are self-confident.

And yet, they can't find love.

If we had to wait for self-confidence

to find love,

there would not be many babies on Earth.

So I will take the example of two singles:

imagine Paul and Virginia.

They meet for the first time
around a drink.

Paul is a serious man,

he will want to appear
intelligent, but also friendly.

Virginie is a little more bohemian,
so she will want to show

how eclectic her life is,
how unusual her activities are,

and then she will also want
to talk about her travels.

So that exchange is bound for disaster.

It so happens that when you want
to show yourself in your best light,

when you wish to arouse admiration,

without knowing it, you block
the circulation of emotions.

And that's a disaster.

Imagine a cursor on
the range of your personality:

at one end, you gather
all your sources of joy:

what makes you tick, what makes you
wake up in the morning,

what makes you very joyful,

And at the other end,
you put what, in your journey,

constitutes your trials,
but also your doubts, your questions.

The more you advance in age,

the more you tend to place
that cursor in the center -

what you do, your movies, your readings,
your outings, your travels.

The more you advance in age,
the more you need to be reassured.

In fact, you must do the opposite.

Sometimes, you get to meet
someone only once,

then you might as well
be yourself, only stronger.

Because this is the only way
to truly display our personality,

to let go of your control,

and then to establish a bridge of exchange
so as to let emotions circulate.

Secondly: why is falling in love
or finding love

the absolutely opposite dynamics
of lying on a couch?

Because when you are at the shrink,

you're into introspection, into analysis.

When you want to fall in love,
you are into receiving, into opening up.

When you are at a psychiatrist's,
you try to understand;

to understand yourself,

understand your expectations;

when you fall in love,
you are totally into receiving,

you must allow yourself
to be surprised by a personality,

you must be carried away,

and you must not listen
to this little voice that judges,

that will tell you that this person
does not meet your requirements.

For Paul and Virginia

to have a fiery history,

they must return
to the state of an adolescent;

this teenager,
with his emotions, his moods,

and the somewhat cyclotomic
activity of his moods.

Imagine him coming out
of a period of withdrawal;

by opening up to the world,
he's all about receiving from others,

and his attention isn't caught by
the first or second person passing by

but the third one;

he's all about connection
with this passing person

so he doesn't control himself at all,

and he can totally receive.

You will tell me, "OK,
it's all very well, but exactly,

around a drink, how do you do it?"

In order to create love reciprocity,

you must wake up a sleeping being.

Waking up in yourself, but also
for the other, a sleeping being,

it means resonating strings
that do not vibrate often.

It's about asking questions

about what drives our life,
what drives us,

what makes us joyful,

about perhaps a difficult journey,

about the look back on
such or such experience.

I can already hear some say,

"Oh, no! But on the first date,

you don't go about
asking intimate questions."

But these are not intimate questions!

Instead of asking,

"What's your job, how's it going?"

maybe, "Why did you choose this job?"

Instead of asking,

"Ah, you play golf...
And where do you play?

How often do you play?", you ask,

"Why do you play golf? And tennis?

Why did you choose this career change?"

It is the only way to express
what lies deep within you.

And then finally, you realize
that it is not every day

you get the opportunity
to look within yourself

for answers to these questions
about your choices.

This is the only way to free

and set up this exchange bridge
that allows emotions to circulate.

You fall in love with someone
not for what they do, or how they do it,

but for why they do it.

Do you know these Russian dolls?

Imagine that in you,

you have several Russian dolls:
the biggest is the one that controls.

Well, if you really want to fall in love

and be in an exchange
where emotions circulate,

you must look not for the doll

that controls, judges,
thinks, is intelligent,

but this smallest,
very whole doll at the bottom,

which is the one that, like the tree,
wants to grow, receive light,

transform, be touched.

Because you all know
that being in love, falling in love

is to be revealed to oneself.

I can already hear some people say,

"No, I do not work like that.

I let myself be guided
by physical attractions

or I let myself be guided
by intellectual attraction."

Fine.

But you can fail.

You can fail if you do not enrich
your attractions

with all that very raw material
which constitutes us.

Many people come to see me,

who are sometimes divorced,
single, and who tell me,

"I have not fallen in love for years,"

or "I ask for too much,
I cannot find the right person,"

or "I do not meet enough people,"

or "I am not interested
in anyone at the moment!"

Well, in fact, you are misinterpreting.

In fact, these people,
when they meet someone,

only get 10% of their personality.

Because if they really establish
a bridge of exchange

where emotions circulate,

then they receive 100% of the person.

For couples, you'll tell me,
"OK, that's fine,

but falling in love with
your significant other

does it work the same way?"

And here I say a big yes.

For a couple, it's about
reconnecting regularly

with what moves us in the other.

When we separate, when we cheat,
when we distance ourselves,

it is because we lost
the connection between us.

We all evolve!

Fifteen or twenty years later,
we are not the same anymore.

It's not that bad.

But just because of exchanges,

we connect regularly
through what makes us vibrate,

through what makes us sensitive,

then we touch the other's vulnerability.

You know, vulnerability
has nothing to do with weakness.

Vulnerability is what is fragile,

it's our doubts, our questions.

Because you know,
someone's strength, you see it,

you see it all the time.

On the other hand,
vulnerability is rarely shown.

We often separate for the same reasons
we have loved each other.

You remember Paul -

fifteen years and three children later,

he's going to get irritated, upset
about Virginie's very bohemian side.

And Virginie will be irritated
by Paul's rigidity

and his very orderly mind
over things and the world.

And yet,

they were precisely attracted
fifteen years earlier

by this difference,
by this very different matter

that had in fact, perhaps,
awakened something in them

that their education had stifled.

If the couple connects regularly,

if the couple sets up these exchanges,

then it is still easier to accept the idea

of the other's difference.

If we want to get out
of the differences-irritate-me stage,

that's when we really understand

what love with a capital L is for,
what a couple that lasts is for.

Because it is much easier
to accept the alterity of the other

when we connect regularly,
when we engage regularly.

The important thing I wanted
to tell you about the couple

is that is when you connect,

it is much easier
to understand that the other,

Is actually an invitation to go

and wake up in us this part

that maybe our education
has buried, has stifled.

The other is an invitation

to go reveal colors,
other colors of our personality.

Love!

(Applause)