In this episode, your host, Leandra Costa, talks with Relationships Done Different Facilitator Layal Alnajjar about Finding The Fun & Joy In Relationship. Layal is a Relationships Done Different facilitator and creates classes in the Middle East. Layal used to struggle with relationships and found herself choosing from a space of lack and need. She believed she needed a partner to ‘complete’ her. Through honouring her relationship with herself, she has discovered how to create a life of joy and abundance.   Key points from this episode’s conversation Living a life of total ignorance   When choosing a relationship, where do you choose from?   Switching from functioning from a space of need Finding the joy in your relationship with yourself Tools to get out of the space of need and lack Living a life of total ignorance Before Relationships Done Different, Layal lived a life of total ignorance. It was a litany of judgments, and she believed she was always wrong when it came to relationships. The first  Access class she took was not Relationships Done Different, but Talk To The Entities!  However, with the entities and that relationship with the universe, the invitation to be a RDD facilitator became clear. Being You Changing the World changed things for her. It clicked for her that she could be herself and that being herself was okay, and she began to seek more. The first relationship she realized she was sucking at was the relationship with herself. She recognized that she wasn’t demanding enough of herself, and she struggled with the idea that she didn’t fit in with others. And without knowing how to fit in, she acted from the place of  wanting to show others how different she was, so they could judge her. She believed she needed to struggle.  Now Layal doesn’t have the need to show others she is different: she knows she is different.  When choosing a relationship, where do you choose from? Something Layal has noticed in her facilitation of Relationships Done Different, the sessions she has and the Access classes she takes, is that often people are seeking relationships out of need, and not out of the acknowledgment that a relationship could complement their lives. People feel there is a lack within themselves when they are not in a relationship, and that in the eyes of society they are wrong.  They can’t enjoy their lives, even if their lives are full of excitement and joy, as there’s always this nagging feeling of lack.  For example, there was a time when Layal used to feel like she was always the third wheel with other couples. The feeling of the third wheel was so strong that she started to think that there was something wrong with her, and that she shouldn’t go out.  When she acknowledged that it was okay that she wasn’t in a relationship, she could create a relationship from a space of abundance and having another person as a complement to her life, instead of completing it.  Switching from functioning from a space of need In Layal’s first Relationships Done Different class, even before becoming a facilitator, she had an ‘ah-ha’ moment. There are so many questions that you don’t ask yourself when you are or aren’t in a relationship. And when you have those questions coming at you, it’s like eye-opening. Creating a relationship was never in Layal’s realm of possibilities before. She felt lonely, trapped, sad, depressed and, even though her divorce was her choice, she still felt inadequate. There wasn’t an inkling of thinking that she could create, firstly, a relationship with herself. That was never on the table. She always thought people got into a relationship in order to feel complete and that relationships were the only way to feel complete. But what is ‘complete,’ really? That’s the lack, and the need. And why would you choose lack and need? Instead, she started acknowledging that everything she does and all the people in her life are