Category Archives: love

LOVE AND HEALING FROM FEAR

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Love. Is it the all too elusive nectar for the human soul? The base alloy of real human intimacy? The spiritual adhesive that joins lives with indelible bonds? Or, is it all of these combined and even more that rests out of the reach of words, at least out of reach of any words penned by this writer?

I do not pretend to know the answer, at least not in its entirety. I do know love is an overused word that is all too often said as ploy to get something from another human being. As a result, those who use the word love with sincerity and devotion are often not heard and not believed.

In some romantic unions, things have evolved to a place or, in some instances, always were in a place where each nothing more than a tenant in the other person’s life. In a recent blog piece I wrote about the distinction between a strategic exchange relationship and a communal relationship. The former is a relationship in which one person is seeking to get something or give something to the other in part by convincing them that the relationship is based on true intimacy. These are the relationships that dry up and grow brittle from lack of nutrition and either come to a painful end, or condemn the two people to an unhappy life because both are two afraid to claim their independence and by doing so reclaim their lives and thus reclaim themselves.

The communal relationship is the kind of relationship so many in their hearts honestly want, It is a relationship where there is real spiritual, emotional and physical intimacy. These relationships last because they have the nutrition of real love and thus real intimacy, and there is no better nutrition than that duo, at least not in this writer’s view.

But what of those who really do love someone and know they are loved in return, but cannot find a way to allow the experience, even though it is an experience the truly want and deserve? What then? I don’t know.

I don’t know how to help anyone discover they have a right to fully love and fully be loved. I don’t know how to help someone take decision making power away from their history, for it is there that the damage was done, it was there that the pain was inflicted, and it was there that the seeds of fear were sown.

What I do know about fear is that the only way to get free of it is to allow yourself to go through it. It is okay to be afraid, don’t let it scare you. And if the experience of loving someone and being loved by someone is there for you, can there be a more powerful medicine for healing from fear?

Love. There is nothing more beautiful and, if allowed its life, nothing more majestic, more nutritious and more powerful. This I believe. And I believe it with all my heart.
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FALLING IN LOVE

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Falling in love is an experience many of us hope for, yet, when it happens, doubting and second-guessing begin in earnest. For many of us, wen it comes to falling in love, the ability to allow it to happen is fragile at best.

There all kinds of theories about what falling in love is. In an article in Discovery, Professor Arthur Aaron from State University of New York at Stonybrook says, falling in love is, in part, rooted to our innate desire for self-expansion. Reading that made me immediately check my waistline. You can’t too careful.

Italian sociologist Francesco Alberoni, according to one article, believed falling in love “is a rapid process of destructuration-reorganization called the nascent state. In the nascent state, the individual becomes capable of merging with another person and creating a new collectivity with a very high degree of solidarity. Hence the definition: falling in love is the nascent state of a collective movement formed of two people only.” Moreover, “In order to understand if someone is truly in love, the individual must be put to truth tests and, in order to find out if he or she is loved in return, the beloved is also put to reciprocal tests. The incandescent process of the nascent state through these tests gives way to certainty and produces a stable love relationship.”

Reading that made my hair hurt and my eyes glaze over. No offense, Mr. Alberoni.

I am not about to say I have the answer. But I can tell you what I do believe. I believe falling in love is an experience rooted in nature itself. It is not about thought, reasoning, or intellectual agility. Moreover, over thinking and over analyzing has derailed more than one instance of true love. In fact, they play a large part in why so many of us get tangled up in doubt and second-guessing; we inflict the intellect on something that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the intellect.

Falling in love is a gift from nature itself, It is about emotion, spirituality, and feelings. There is a good reason why feelings are feelings and thoughts are thoughts. They are not the same thing!

Doubting love, doubting that you are falling in love often comes from earlier wounds in life. Many if us have grown to be understandably afraid we will be wounded again. Sometimes we are still under the spell of earlier life messages that told us we were unworthy of anything wonderful in life. Messages that are, by the way, bullshit.

Falling in love is very much like experiencing the breathtaking glory of a sunset or sunrise; it is like the mystical majesty of early morning clouds lifting off the mountaintops; or the quaint delicacy of early morning dew on the front lawn, when every blade of grass glistens in the cool morning air. When you experience any of these wonders, there is no discernible gap between seeing it and experiencing it. It happens all at once. You don’t need thought to know it. You just need to be open to it. It is the same with love, with falling in love.

One final thought, falling in love can be very scary, particularly for the far too many of us who have been wounded in life. This is why I agree with Professor Aaron when he said, “(K)indness is the strongest indicator for a successful long-term relationship.”

Remember, kindness, like love, is not about thought, reasoning, or intellectual agility either. Like love, kindness is about emotion, spirituality, and feelings. That is why they go together, and why, if you are blessed enough to have discovered both, you have not just fallen in love, you are on your way to being in love, and that, my dear reader, is the greatest gift of them all.

There is a line in a Bruce Springsteen song that says, “God help the man who doubts what he’s sure of.” Women too.

REAL LOVE: AND SO IT GOES

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I love the idea of long walks, of holding hands, of leaning on each others shoulder, in play, and in tenderness. I love the idea of sitting quietly together, listening to music, laughing in-the-belly-hard at some comedy routine, or holding each other close if one or the other or both have been wounded in life. I think two people ought to draw close, not apart, when the road gets rocky. All these things are so deep-in-the-heart-and-soul important to me when it comes to the question of real love. And if I can’t answer this question honestly when I ask it of myself, how can I possibly answer it if I am asked by a woman?

And so it goes.

OUTSIDE MY WINDOW

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Outside my window the light leaves the day and the snow continues its slow retreat into the earth. My two dogs nest near my feet and the darkening grey-blue sky for reasons I don’t fully understand reminds me of the dangerous divide between humanity life and earth life, of humanity and nature. I think of how dishonesty and greed and the all too noticeable absence of compassion for our fellow human beings drives this divide even wider. It seems to me this divide, unless closed, seals our planet’s end, unless humankind, driven by its poisonous fuels, manages to hurry it’s end with violence.

I worry for the human family, so divided by borders, skin color, sexual preferences, religion, gender, wealth, poverty, language, custom and more. While leaders of nations may know each other the people in these nations are kept in their respective rooms, segregated, their voices tempered, ignored or annihilated.

I love mother earth. I love the sky. I love clouds and streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains, the wind at night and the magnificence of thunder and the crackle-blaze glory of lightening. I love humanity and the idea of humanity. I love that there is laughter and the ability to sway with the intoxication of love. I love that music sends chills dancing on the spine and the nape of the neck. I love words that wet my eyes, words that run so deep they reach, touch, taste and tell on our very souls.

The light has left the day now; a lamp casts my writing table in a soft glow. There is a peace here in this moment, gratitude that I am alive to write these words whatever their worth. And, there is a joy knowing that tomorrow the sun will rise, tomorrow.