Tough Love?

I have been told by many people over the past year that I love to talk about love, and I suppose they are right. Unearthing the true meaning and sentiment of love after living a life where self-pity obscured its existence, is like finding a sparkling jewel in the darkness that you though had no prospect of possessing anything beneficial at all. Once you find such a precious jewel, you make a necklace out of it and keep it as close to your heart as possible. You look at it often and hold it tight in your hands to ensure that finding it wasn’t a dream. And you can’t help but show it to everyone you meet! ‘Look at how magnificent this precious jewel is!’, you say as people walk by, hopeful that sharing a glimpse of it would prove to them that they could find the same.

No wonder I am so fascinated by my discovery of the true meaning of love (to wish someone happiness and wellness without limitations or conditions) when it seems that its meaning is so distorted in our world these days. Love doesn’t hurt, even if the band Nazareth says so. Dating myself? Possibly…Be quiet 😉 It doesn’t need anyone or anything else to complete it, even if Jerry Maguire says so. Furthermore, love is never bitter, it is only ever sweet, even if Kanye says so! Have I regained some of my youth now? In short, I don’t blame anyone for thinking that love has a negative connotation with the way we refer to it in our society today.

Us humans engage in actions that will inevitably lead to suffering because so many of our societal beliefs gain power without any true independent analysis. When did Taylor Swift’s views on love’s inevitable transformation to pain become the only data required to prove that when we feel pain it must mean that love is part of the equation somewhere. Love is never part of a painful equation. Pain that comes from the heart is more likely to come from attachment. But don’t take my word for it…turn of Taylor’s catchy tune for a bit and mindfully reflect on the difference between love and attachment, and how we often interchange them senselessly.

Our delusions continue when we learn to only equate love with our own happiness, and have no idea how to practice anything outside of ourselves. How can we expect to reap lasting bountiful emotions when we put so much pressure on someone else to ‘complete us’? This assumption alone weaves a level of selfishness and self-grasping into our minds that has nothing to do with love at all. If we truly possessed the wish for everyone to be happy and well, we would never attach ourselves to them; it simply wouldn’t be necessary. Furthermore, we would be happy with ourselves, and see clearly how attachment can only lead to jealousy, envy and anger. And how jealousy, envy and anger are what actually lead to pain.

In order to find the transformative jewel of love, we must deliberately take a stand to reverse negative tendencies of attachment, and exchange them with new positive, self-less habits. Luckily, the more we explore a topic, regardless of how difficult it may be, the more we come to understand it. And I certainly can’t think of a better topic to explore than the topic of love. ❤

 

 

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