In her first essay, Life is not a race (2019), comedian Léa Stréliski urged readers to slow down, turn away from the anxious demands for performance and success that shape our lives and societies, and get back on track with the connect essential. But what exactly is the main thing? What is beyond this race that determines our actions, our ambitions, our relationships with others and with the world?
The answer is at the heart of her second book, The Recipe for Love, in which she undertakes a reflection on the search for love, but above all on the search for oneself, one’s true desires, one’s true essence. All with a good dose of tenderness, humor and self-mockery.
That’s the title that caught my eye first. Applying vacuum salesman language to something as basic as love is utterly ridiculous, but it makes me laugh.
“The title came to mind first,” she recalls while sitting in a café on Plateau Mont-Royal. Applying vacuum salesman language to something as basic as love is utterly ridiculous, but it makes me laugh. In love, as in life, as soon as you think you understand something, something happens to you that takes you somewhere else entirely. But I do have a very present “self-help” page. So I wanted to draw on my experience and my romantic relationship – which I consider quite successful – to offer advice and reflection. »
The comedian is aware that he is approaching this extremely complex subject from a privileged position. “In order to ask such questions, you have to be through the survival phase. They must have a roof, food, time, which a small percentage of people on earth have. So I try to be as down to earth as possible. »
A complicated cake
According to Léa Stréliski, the recipe for true love requires very few ingredients. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. “The recipe is simple, but the cake is complicated. It involves a lot of work. »
As flour, an essential element, she cites intimacy, a relationship one must first establish with oneself before one can dream of forming strong bonds with others. “The key is self-awareness. Try not to lie to yourself, to live in harmony with who you are and what you want, even if it scares us. It is much easier to wear a mask, maintain an unrealistic image on social networks than present your truth to the world. It’s a crease we inherit from childhood to receive affection from our parents, to respond to the image they have of us. However, it is impossible to create authentic connections if we lie to ourselves, as no one can know us, let alone satisfy. »
To express this truth, to put it at the service of your personal development and that of your couple, you must also be able to get angry; a feeling that women have little access to, being repressed, repressed and weeded out from early childhood. “Women, we’re more likely to be brought up to be pretty, polite, and helpful. It was so ingrained in me that when my psychiatrist talked to me about healthy anger, I didn’t understand it. »
Rather, healthy anger, far from descending into violence and destruction, would be fruitful, a source of progress, peace, equality, introspection, and protection. “After years of work, I have come to understand that healthy anger protects what is fragile. This learning is even more important in times of social networks, where we tend to stay all at the same address and believe that all opinions are equal. I don’t agree at all. There are things in life that die if we don’t protect them: children without a voice, who are beaten up on the way to school, who are sent to the front; democracy ; The poor; the minorities. »
In the couple, this ability to get angry and “put a foot” is essential for both sides to self-actualize, to grow, to be true to themselves, to achieve some form of equality. “My husband doesn’t feel threatened by my voice, my public visibility, my dream of being on stage. My ex felt like it was affecting his manhood. What is certain is that this relationship was doomed to fail. Our significant other needs to be able to hear what’s important to us, that the very foundations of our being aren’t trampled, that that person is carrying that love with our lives. »
Call for intimacy
Since we carry with us the wounds of the past, that we were hurt, that we were scared, that we experienced grief, it is normal to let love into our lives at an arm’s length to protect us from possible suffering. . “My husband lost his girlfriend in a car accident when he was 20 years old. He experienced the unimaginable. He could have gotten stuck in his darkness and demons. But he made the decision to transform that love into something bigger and, most importantly, to allow himself to love again. Love takes courage. He often tells me that when people die, all we have is the certainty that we loved them as best we could. »
According to Léa Stréliski, one of the problems of our time is our tendency to confuse love with admiration. “The ego is a trap. We mistakenly think that love is counted in likes. She dreams that our obsession with results, achievement and recognition will give way to a society that defends fragility, love and respect for souls.
“My book is a call to intimacy, which for me is the opposite of ego. I want it to be nurtured, preserved, studied and taught from primary school onwards. I want it to be everywhere in our cities, in our neighborhoods. Think of them to keep joy, beauty, poetry, harmony and love. »
The recipe for love
Léa Stréliski, Quebec America, Montreal, 2023, 180 pages