Songs
have been written about it, movies made and books have topped bestseller charts
for capturing those moments of exhilaration.
However, there is never a love story without its heart aches. No love story
seems complete without hearing about the separation and longing, the trials and
tribulations before the happy ending. Some of the most famous love stories in
fact are of love unfulfilled, love that brought lovers to their end for want of
any other way to stay together. Other famous love stories are about a few
moments of intense passion in lifetimes of
ordinary - ness and how we sigh over those moments. Is it possible to
find love that is complete and forever - without the drama or the pain?
We
often speak about how love, beautiful as it may
be, is short lived and its position usurped by the hum drum of everyday life.
We often advise others about the amount of time love would last for them and
how circumstances – marriage, babies, moving jobs, growing old etc. would
influence their love for each other. We see couples at the movies and in
restaurants, at parties and in cars who a few months ago were inseparable but
all of a sudden sit without conversation, facing different directions –
strangers in the same frame. On the other hand, when we see an old couple
holding hands, smiling at each other, the love still bringing that glow on their face we sigh at the wonder of it. Is there a formula
for this kind of joy and happiness?
I
sometimes wonder – why does the most beautiful feeling in the world also have
the ugliest manifestations? Why is the feeling that is powerful enough to drive a person to the heights of glory also
the reason for a person going into the depths of despair? Why is this feeling
so fickle? Why doesn’t love last? Why does it have so many ups and downs? Why
are love and pain considered such inseparable bed partners? Also, why is this
emotion so much more powerful than all the rest? The songs and movies and words
that have been sung and filmed and written for love far outnumber anything
written for peace or compassion or even joy and happiness… Why? Have we over
romanticised this emotion and inflated our expectations?
There
are off course many forms of love other than the more romantic form of love
being mentioned here. There is the love of
parents and children for each other. The love between friends, the love between
siblings, the love for one’s pet. There is also the love of doing one’s
favorite activity, the love for our favorite possessions and the love for being
in a particular environment. Love is a multi dimensional concept and yet one is
always plagued by the vagaries of love irrespective of the object of that
love. Love seems to be the underlying theme
of our lives and yet is so unstable!
This
brings me back to the question - why the most beautiful feeling in the world is not also the most reliable feeling in the
world. We’ve all experienced love, so we know it exists – we also know that
there are some relationships which manage to keep the love alive so there is
perhaps a silver lining to this predicament of “impermanent love”. Perhaps we
need a new approach to love? Is it possible that we are looking for love in the wrong place,
or for the wrong reasons? The majority of us are "educated" to look for
love externally; we begin by wanting the love of our parents and then our
siblings, relatives, teachers, pets and friends. After a point of time we begin
our quest to look for that one special person who we feel would love us the
most and in return be loved the most by us. We want to see the love in that
special person’s eyes because it makes our lives have more meaning. We are
encouraged by everyone around us to be loved, be approved of, be good - be safe
- and a lot of times it means hide all those things about yourself which may
not be loved or approved of! What confuses me is that love is about including
everything so how can one exclude those aspects?
So we
look for love and some of us are lucky to
find love and we feel joy! After a while, however, we find that this love
becomes ordinary – we begin to lose the thrill it gave us to begin with. No
longer is our loved one singing our praises all the time, now we are also shown
the blemishes. Similarly we discover that this hero, or heroine, of our dreams
has a spot or more themselves. We then begin to panic about whether or not
we’ve made the right choice, could there have been someone better suited. Were
we in any way duped or naive while making this decision and is there anyway of
getting out of it? By this time we have usually bound ourselves to each other
with vows and conditions or with threats and promises and as a reassurance we
now try to ensure the other person plays their part. To avoid losing love we
chain it and then slowly stifle it. It is like the example of holding sand in
the palm of your hand. The tighter you grip it the more it slips out. What begins
as" love" turns to insecurity and control?
How
would it be however if we were to look for this same love internally, within ourselves? Could it be that it would fulfill
us just as much as being loved by another? Would it be the same if the love we
showered upon others, hoping to receive it in return, we could shower upon
ourselves? The first thing that comes to mind might be “Me? How can I love
myself, I have so many flaws, I am not lovable.”
Interesting, considering this answer comes from the same person who announces
to the world that they love their partner in spite of the partner’s flaws…so
flaws in others are acceptable but flaws in ourselves make us unworthy of our
own love? We spend hours speaking with another to understand them but shy away
from spending a few moments, speaking to ourselves to understand what is within. After all, we are with ourselves all
the time; we do not need a cell phone to stay connected or the internet to
share our lives with our selves. We do not need to wait for the self to call us
or long to hear our own voice. The ego doesn’t need to get involved in who
would call who first – the self calls me or I call
the self is not a question we would agonize about. We don’t need to spend hours
waiting beside the phone either, or keep our cells switched on all the time for
that (just in case) moment. Can it be that as one rises in love for oneself one is
more able to receive love from others and has the ability to give more love to
others?
An experiment that one can try is every time you have that longing
to reach out to another or are waiting for that phone call, text or mail;
recognize that as a sign of your self reaching out to you. At that moment of
yearning, spend some time going within and giving love to yourself. Put your
arms around yourself; listen to some music you enjoy. Eat something your body
enjoys, watch a movie you love. Just go within and spend time with yourself at
that moment in any way that you can. Every time the yearning makes itself known
speak to your self and ask your self what it wants, what it is feeling and give
it to yourself. Perhaps in the beginning you will do it mechanically and not
receive a response but over a period of time when your self knows that this is
for real and you mean it that you love it, it will begin to respond and you
will feel the response as joy, as peace, as contentment. You will also find
the yearning for that other person magically vanish, without your even
realizing it! When one is in love with oneself - every bit of
oneself - good, bad and ugly one begins to feel the freedom
from expectations - from oneself or others.
The more I love
myself, the more I become clear about what I want. The more I become clear
about what I want the more confident I am that I deserve that which I want. The
more deserving I feel, the easier it is for me to ask for what I want. The
easier it is for me to ask for what I want, the more the Universe gives me what
I want. The more I love myself, the more reasons I find to love myself. The
more I love myself the more I vibrate at the level of love and I attract those
who vibrate at the level of love and give me love. Come, join me on this exquisite journey of self acceptance
and love! May every day be a celebration of that Love!