Summer of Love, part three: The Art of the Slow Burn

Stop confusing intensity for intimacy, learn to love in a new way.

Was it love or was it just a wild heart on a beach in Victoria?

Ok summer lovers, we’ve considered what it means to root then rise into love. We figured out the value of surrender in connection. What comes next? How about we just, like, chill for a bit in this space?

The qualities of summer love include some pretty sexy things: we show a little more skin. We loiter in fun places like sunny patios and hot beaches. We take time to wander in the woods, packing cute little picnics to have in secret coves. We decide, at least once, a swimsuit works as an outfit. We stay up past our bedtimes. We ride bikes and visit wineries and through it all our cheeks are flushed and our hair is a little bit messy and you know what else creates those conditions.

I can't wait to fall in love with you. You can't wait to fall in love with me. This just can't be summer love, you'll see. This just can't be summer love (L-O-V-E). (Justin Timberlake)

Our bodies are meant to move more in the summer, the heat is intended to draw us out of hibernation and into a more playful spirit. Extra intensity is a good ingredient for a good time in the summer months. But this is where we can get into a bit of trouble…

Intensity does not equal intimacy, but our nervous systems don’t understand that.

Summer has come and passed. The innocent can never last. Wake me up when September ends. (Green Day)

Shared experiences create bonding and stability in relationship, but lots and lots of shared experiences while looking sexy and doing playful things can trick the heart into thinking the connection is more real, more lasting, MORE than what it might be.

Taylor Swift opened almost every night of her one bajillion dollar Eras tour with Cruel Summer, a song all about the bittersweet qualities of summer love, with hundreds of thousands of people scream singing the lyrics back to her. Summer love is obviously a universal experience.

Love is so fun in the summertime. The parts of us that step forward in these connections don’t often get to come out and play. They’re the ones that resist having to wear hard pants at work, they are the first to say yes to a happy hour, they choose jewellery and other embellishments to inject a little cuteness and fun in to the every day. When summer love hits, these are the parts that are like YES, PLEASE, reason and rationality be damned.

But remember: anything led by just one part of who we are comes from a young, immature, incomplete place. When you look back on something you experienced and wonder how did that happen? the answer is always just that a part of you took over for a little bit.

I never will forget those nights, I wonder if it was a dream. Remember how you made me crazy? Remember how I made you scream? Now I don't understand what happened to our love. (Don Henley)

This isn’t necessarily reckless, and it’s often super fun in the same way waterslides and ice cream and all nighters are fun, but it is unsustainable. Your summer love doesn’t need to come with heartache. There’s another way.

Enter: the Slow Burn Relationship

The slow burn relationship is one that develops over time, allowing feelings, trust and connection to deepen at a pace that fits your nervous system and personality rather than the wishes of your most impulsive parts.

For those with anxious attachment, a slow burn relationship will require you to redefine how you experience of love.

Anxious attachment requires love to come with a lot of validation in the form of attention like frequent texting or hearing I love you, but sometimes in more aggressive ways like expecting the other to reduce how much privacy they enjoy (show me your phone) or other relationships they’re involved in (your mom doesn’t understand us). Insecure attachments like what anxious or avoidant people experience require all kinds of evidence as proof of the other person’s interest, because the world has been scary, unsafe and unpredictable, so conditions that mimic that sensation feel intolerable.

Quick check in:

Have you ever loved without intensity or obsession?

Have you taken time to build trust through consistent care and mutual respect instead of huge demonstrations of care that skip to the good part?

Do you know how it feels to love someone on a Tuesday morning or a Sunday afternoon, and not just Friday night?

If you have a friend, then yes. You have. It’s a failure of society that we categorize “platonic love” as separate from intimacy when the features of friendship are what makes for a good, steady love in romantic land, too.

Gentle warning:

Shifting to a slow burn relationship might involve uncomfortable stuff like wondering does this person even like me?

Without the usual chaotic scaffolding - prove it - slow burn love feels less juicy, less real. Honestly, you’ll probably feel a bit triggered.

That’s ok. You will handle it and will grow so much because of it.

Remember, it’s just parts of you stepping forward to signal a sense of unease or danger. Those parts of you are just doing their job. Keep soothing them and they will soften back.

Imagine how fulsome you can love when you learn to heal those parts and bring your whole heart to a connection instead.

I still remember when thirty was old. And my biggest fear was September when he had to go. A few cards and letters and one long distance call. We drifted away like the leaves in the fall. But year after year I come back to this place just to remember the taste of strawberry wine and seventeen. The hot July moon saw everything. My first taste of love, oh, bittersweet. (Deana Carter)

Isn’t love without proof or guarantee just a “situationship?”

Ah, the dreaded situationship. For those not familiar, a situationship is a romantic, sexual or intimate relationship without clear boundaries or roles. Language people speak in the land of situationships sounds like this:

Let’s just see what happens.

Babe it’s so much easier to be with you without a label on it.

You’re such a free spirit, I wouldn’t want to tie you down.

The differences between a slow burn relationship and a situationship are delicate and nuanced. These offerings are general and might not apply to all circumstances:

1. A slow burn relationship has a sense of direction - you’re both moving toward something solid but don’t feel a need to rush to get there. You’ll have said things like I want to be with you but let’s take it slow or maybe I have a tendency to get all in too quickly and I kind of lose myself, can we take it slow? Commitments are made and care is demonstrated. A situationship feels confusing and the emotional uncertainty is triggering. You don’t know where you stand. You start altering your behaviour in hopes of being accepted.

2. A slow burn includes mutual effort to check in and demonstrate interest without having it be constant. You live your lives, but show a lot of care for each other. A situationship has one person just fine with very little involvement and the other overthinking the energy until they find themselves manipulating, controlling, demanding clarity.

3. A slow burn emphasizes safety - in how you approach intimacy, in how you understand exclusivity, in the ways you receive each other with intentionality. A situationship activates your scaredy-cat parts, ever alert for danger. If you feel anxious, insecure, unseen, unappreciated, your nervous system might be telling you it’s time to go. Listen.

How to have a slow burn relationship

Much of what I write on this substack is to encourage you to support your own nervous system through living and communicating in ways that neutralize the reactions of your parts and support steadiness in that juicy Self energy of compassion, curiosity and connectedness. I repeat this theme because it’s hard work and deserves a nuanced look.

For a lot of us, taking it slow is a lot harder than encountering the intensity of the rush. To be mindful, deliberate, grounded and regulated requires skill. Patanjali says yoga calms the fluctuations of the mind and people who practice regularly (I’m talking, like, hours per week) are probably there.

If you don’t have a regular practice for regulating your nervous system, having a slow burn relationship will be a lot harder.

It will also be harder if you have a history of unexpected, painful experiences with love (of any kind).

It will be more challenging at certain points in the menstrual cycle, if you have one of those.

This is a big old caveat to say meet yourself where you’re at, do your best, and engage in this kind of love from a place of self-honour, self-respect, and self-love. If you try and then stumble now and then, phewf. You’re human, after all. This is an offering for grace, not a new regimen to apply to your life in a way that makes you feel bad about yourself.

You know the bar down the street don't close for an hour. We should take a walk and look at all the flowers. 'Cause I'm alright with a slow burn. Taking my time, let the world turn. I'm gonna do it my way, it'll be alright. If we burn it down and it takes all night. It's a slow burn. (Kacey Musgraves)

Qualities of the slow burn relationship:

🫀 Know how to sit with uncertainty. Experience your relationship in the present rather than in any stories you tell yourself to interpret it.

🫀 Pause before reacting to feelings of inconsistency or surprise. Ground yourself and reach out from a place of curiosity rather than condemnation. Can you help me to understand? vs Why did you do that?

🫀 Avoid rushing to label the relationship, especially if you’re using a title to validate or confirm your feelings or status. Just be in the connection. Let it reveal its nature over time. And if it doesn’t, and that matters to you? Bless and release.

🫀 Let your love story unfold without using control tactics to get what you want. Authenticity is super sexy, whereas strategy feels like being played. Your integrity is on display here, too, so be mindful of how you show up. To be soft and receptive is brave and hardcore. Go, little rockstar.

🫀 Enjoy the slow pace. Let it show you whether you even like this person. Does your body feel calm around them? Do you like how they tell stories, the way they carry themselves, the content of their energy? Are they nice to you? Are you comfortable with their relationship to substances, exercise, food and rest? Do you admire anything about them, like their goals, or their heart? Without the rush of intensity, there’s space to see with clarity. Trust what you see.

Don't wanna get ahead of myself. Feeling things I've never felt. It's kinda hard for me to explain her personality and everything brings me to my knees, ooh. She shines me up like gold on my arm. I wanna take it slow but it's so hard. I love to see her face in daylight. It's more than just our bodies at night. But she's really temptin' me, ooh. Do you think I'm being foolish if I don't rush in? (Leon Bridges)

The most healing, revelatory love doesn’t sweep you off your feet. It teaches you how to stand still, and stay. If the other can’t meet you in that space, they were never meant for you to keep, so have some fun and let it go.

xo
Leanne