The key to true love – A true story of love, passion and heartache

 

People need to find a way that’s tried and tested that will help them to survive adversity and thrive.”

Melody’s book was launched at The Gutter Bookshop on Cow’s Lane on Tuesday, February 18.

Where are you from and what is your background before writing your book?

So, originally, I am from Zimbabwe, but I moved to Ballycullen in 1999 and have lived there ever since. My husband and I came to Dublin from Zimbabwe to study and really loved Dublin, so we decided to stay.

I received my Master’s degree in Information and Library Studies. I’m also a librarian at the Technological University of Dublin in Tallaght. Unfortunately, my husband passed away in 2008.

This was a momentous event in my life that led to me also becoming a certified life coach and relationship coach as well as writing my first book ‘Why Self-love is the Key to True Love’.

What can readers expect from your book and can you give us a brief overview of it?

It’s split into two parts. The first part goes over why I am writing the book and what happened with my husband that was the catalyst for my journey with mental health and self-love.

I talk about my journey with my husband and in general the journey women go through in their relationships with men. Men don’t see like women do and they understand things differently.

With women you can speak to them about deep things and feel that safety and security, but most women don’t get that from men.

Even my relationship with my brother works in the way that he comes to me to talk about his problems. I am there to listen because people don’t want you to fix their problems, they just want you to lend your ear.

The second part of the book goes into answering big questions. What is self-love? Why is it important and how can you get it? What is true love and what does that mean?

When are we receiving love and when are we giving it? All of these questions are complicated and you can’t find the answers overnight. The most important thing to remember is that all of those things take work and you just need to keep going until you find that in yourself.

What inspired you to write this book and what was the writing process like?

There were two main things that inspired me to write my book. The first was obviously my husband. I discovered that I had done a lot of work on myself and in my relationship with my husband, so I wanted to do something to pay tribute to all the work we did together.

There were times when it was really difficult. There was a time when I was thinking what was the point of putting all that work in, if he was just going to die. Getting through that thought process was very hard for me, but once I did, I realised how much life he lived, how much work we spent continuing to love each other every day and how much that was a huge part of me.

The second thing that inspired me was all of the things I learned from my relationship with my husband and learned on my own since he passed.

There is nothing special about me, except that I found an answer to what a good relationship looks like and I wanted to share that with other women.

There are a lot of things I’ve learned along the way that I wish someone would have told me sooner, so that is what I want to do for other women.

The writing process was tough. For a very long time I kept telling people I was writing a book, but I was really just talking about writing a book for the longest time.

The main reason was because when I would try to start writing, it would take me back to the beginning of my relationship with my husband and it was so painful. It was a lot of trial and error, but it showed me that I needed to find myself first before I could look after anybody else and I became more joyful.

Eventually, my business coach gave me a little push and I started outlining the book and then filling in the gaps. Overall, that process took about six months.

Melody Chadamoyo

Why do you think mental health is an important topic and do you think it is talked about enough?

I do think mental health is talked about enough, but not to the depth its meant to be. What do you do? How do you just breathe? That’s hard to figure out when you are in that low place. I also think it is important to talk about the depth of mental health. It’s also important to talk about how we are becoming more disconnected from other people as technology progresses. We need that connection with other people when we are struggling with mental health and we often do not get that.

In terms of relationships, there are really three mistakes people make when getting into them that can affect mental health negatively. The first being that many people are only looking for what they can get out of the relationship, putting their needs over their partners. They think about what is good for them and not what is good for the other person. It is important to step into the other’s shoes and really think about the happiness of both.

Secondly, people don’t take the time to talk about the important things. Do you want kids? How many do you want? Who is going to work or are both of you going to work? A long-term relationship can’t be successful if you are not open to having these conversations with each other.

Lastly, people tend to put all their eggs in one basket. By that I mean that they make their partner the sole source of their happiness and the solution to their problems. You must find happiness within yourself! Your partner is not there to fix you, they are there to support you.

Have you written any other books and do you have any future projects?

I haven’t written any other books myself, but I did contribute a small part to another author’s book in 2015. I blog a lot though and make videos. It’s funny I started backwards actually. I started making videos and then started writing. I have lots of projects currently underway.

Mostly, I have video and live online course. They include topics like, ‘How to heal from heartbreak’ and ‘how to maintain your healing and live it every day’. I find that most people are not able to love fully because they are holding onto past pain and that people want to be in a relationship, but don’t know how to.

I aim to help people figure those things out with my videos and online courses. It’s important to look at the values you have and outline those, so you really know what you’re looking for. Most people are looking for the usual tall, dark and handsome, which means nothing.

You need to find someone you resonate with and focus on connecting both your heart and your head.