LOVE. The four letter word everyone likes to understand and possess.
‘What is love and how can I find it?’ I get asked daily. Like a magic pill, seemingly available aplenty, everyone wants to get their hands on...
Love, although simple, isn't that straightforward. It is like a precious gem, with its many facets, reflecting the light. For you to truly appreciate it you must understand it’s complexity yet true simplicity, clearly separating all that ISN'T it.
Like with anything in our reality, there are many masks of love, hiding its shadow side. Jealousy, anger, resentment (controlling and abusive behaviours as their extension), are all driven by its opposing force - the FEAR. Removing the mask of fear is our first obstacle in finding true love. It is like cutting and polishing a diamond to reveal its true beauty...
Amongst the many faces love has, like a spontaneous emotion felt in the moment (an expression of this warm ENERGY towards others), a courage to finally be true to oneself (an expression of CHOOSING oneself out of self-love), or a faith in the higher good in the face of adversity (an expression of respect and TRUST in the workings of the Universe), love is sadly, more often than not, just its concept. A tranquilliser we like to foolishly sedate ourselves with and get addicted to. A fake idea based on our assumption that what we see around is the real thing. We see couples displaying affection, religious groups happily singing along, people proudly belonging to a working team, and we assume that it is love because we see others smiling. We may not know that their smile is hiding countless insecurities and unhealthy needs which aren't about love but its profound lack.
We assume that to find love we need others to be there for us to be able to express it. And of course we need to be acknowledged back for expressing it! Because without this it wouldn’t be true love, would it? We believe that love is a TWO-WAY EXCHANGE. That if we don't get it we will feel cheated and lonely. We get restless, feeling uneasy when alone, because we believe we need others to finally feel content and happy with who we are, accepted and loved...
‘Why do we actually NEED love?’ I asked myself. 'Why are we forever seeking it?'
‘Because we don’t know who we are, not really knowing what we are looking for’, I concluded.
We only seek that we don’t believe we have, yet absolutely need to feel. Our need is felt at our core, in that we actually ARE but aren’t aware of. To live a genuinely fulfilled life, our seeking is really an attempt for understanding who we truly are! It is finding the long lost connection to our truth.
Our love seeking is driven from somewhere deep within of each and every one of us. From a place BEYOND our mind. And this is why understanding love isn’t enough.
We may feel torn due to the tug of war between our genuine desire coming from our core, our heart, and the ‘all knowing’ attitude of our mind. We feel divided, disjointed, when this key desire goes unfulfilled. Living a false concept of love, by being in a relationship with a partner, we feel somehow discontent: Our life full of stuff, yet within something is still missing. Our life just isn’t what we have imagined it to be...
Deep down we know if we are truly happy or not. Starting with the big things we happily overlook whilst blindly following our illusion, we bicker over the small ones. We get petty, grudging, spiteful. Life is no fun anymore.
When our life falls apart (together with our illusion of love), we actually feel relieved...
Excited to start anew we set up a new profile on a dating site. Blaming others and love for our pain we like to soothe our aching heart in yet another relationship, not realising that this is our chance. A real chance to see that there came a point when our heart shrivelled and our head has grown huge. Overcompensating by thinking way too much, chasing the thought of love, we actually FELT very little. Being out of balance, having lost touch with our core we stopped being true to who we are.
Going through life trying to understand love, instead of FEELING it, is our second stumbling block.
To find love, we must stop building walls around our hearts and allow its flow without the fear of being hurt.
’This is easier said than done!’, I hear you. Believe me, you are not the only one who is hurting. We ALL did! Without an exception. We did because we believed that love was something which was OWED TO US. When, in fact it was something we've already owned. We didn’t get that the first person who benefits from feeling love isn’t our partner but US.
You are the conscious, courageous GIVER, who’s soul feels nourished and joyfully alive when s/he expresses his/her loving intent. Why would you not want that for yourself? Why would you cheat you by being emotionally unavailable? And if it is received with thanks isn’t really your concern...
...because all the love you truly need is already inside you.
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2018 Michaela Patel