What's love got to do with it?

What's love, but a sweet old-fashioned notion?

A feeling of love helps us bond together at the start, but this is just a taste of something that is much much deeper. The love that keeps use together requires far more engagement with self and other, sharing in life’s mystery, with open curiosity in a constant state of presence.

Unfortunately I think few really appreciate the meaning of love after the initial euphoria of bonding. After that wild and out of control feeling while lost in the mists of hormonal stimulus, chemically induced haze of sexual lust and the adrenalines rushes stimulated when, just by the touch of a hand makes your pulse react.

“Am I in Lust or am I in Love?”

Lust is driven by the sex drive and the biological imperative to reproduce, which may mature to being ‘in love’ with someone, we might describe as our lover. However, it takes a lot more introspection for this to evolve into something of life long significance. And yes it can be scary to feel that way.

Meanwhile, many spend their life searching for someone to love them like their mother did as a child. Expecting to find someone who will accept them unconditionally like their mother once did. However, I have news for you, love cannot be outsourced ……..

I believe that the success and fulfilment of relationships depends on a dynamic relating to each other, with deep trust, integrity and authenticity (oneself and other) measurable in the open sharing of vulnerability. True love enables this in its deepest form, because it is held within ultimate trust.

Practicing response-ability is another essential component, taking ownership of one’s own ‘stuff’, respecting the other and allowing appropriate space for each other to be themselves. Relationships are about space for self, space for the other and space to come together, where these spaces are defined by clear boundaries.

Live true to oneself first and foremost, because you have nothing to offer to another if you cannot be happy in your own company. Far too many people burden their relationships by making their happiness the responsibility of the other. Happiness like love cannot be outsourced.

Loving relationships are expansive because the other becomes an extension of self. Therefore, Love for me is about considering the others best interests as my own. This can also be a test of my capacity to love someone, because it requires consideration for their best interests when in fact it may not be in my best interests let alone preference.

Something to remember in long term relationships. Love is actively shared through service to self and other, such that the feeling of love is derived from the actions of love and with reciprocity in a dynamic process. A dance of giving and receiving and giving back again with gratitude and acknowledgement.

But what do we know of true love?

No matter where we find ourselves in life, we will always have met love in one form or another, and there is always a feeling that we have got it figured out, but not quite completely. The experience of past relationships, from our primary care givers as children, through our first romantic courtships, dating, hookups and marriages, may leave us older and wiser.

However, the journey to true love is a solitary one, even though we spend most of our lives trying to find it in others. It is a unique journey with a multitude of twists and turns for each individual. There are no words to describe it with clarity, it is a lived experience that can take us to the point of despair in aloneness to then find love in oneself.

Because love is an energy that comes from within, a rich warm fire inside one’s heart, fuelled by self-aware and self-conscious attention. This love is strong and it starts with self acceptance and the wisdom of knowing oneself, in a constant state of presence, before it can then be shared with the world, with integrity in its entirety.

There is no road map that I can give you, there is no definitive path, it’s a unique blueprint for each and every one of us. A rough road full of sharp rocks and pit falls. Only complete and utter presence, courage and perseverance can lead us home….. To Love!