Today is Valentine’s day. The day of red roses, red chocolate hearts and red cards; the day of love and Love.
We say we love many different things: We love people, pets, foods, movies, music tunes, art pieces, cars, sports… And yet, there are two distinct ways of love in our lives: the love we have for people when they fulfill our needs, and the Love that we are, that is our true nature.
The ‘I love you for fulfilling my needs’- roller coaster.
This is the type of love children have for their parents and friends. It is also this type of love we often practice in our relationships. We are happy and fine with our partner as long as he or she is they way we feel comfortable with; as long as they say they love us; they are there for us. We love them for being on our side when we are angry at someone else. This type of love invariably invites struggle, because it is based on needs, and when needs are not being met, which sometimes they won’t, there may be anger, fear and hurt.
In moments when we think that our partner does not fulfill our needs (does not appreciate us, agree with us, love us, understand us, and support us), we may feel bad. We then conclude from this painful feeling that our partner did something wrong and we feel justified to get angry at them and ask they change their behaviour.
Let’s just invent a small example: we are cooking dinner (forgive me for being all inclusive) and they come home one hour late without warning. We get angry because we feel that we are being disrespected and we let them know that this is unacceptable. In that small moment, the ‘love’ is gone; we replaced it with anger. Why? Because of the meaning we gave to our partners’ action: Unconsciously, we choose to believe that their action means something bad about us: that we are not being respected, that we are not good enough, that we are not loved, etc. It is literally as if we grabbed into the fear-based part of our mind and pulled up into the present moment a bunch of negative beliefs about ourselves we have carried for eons. We then immediately throw those beliefs onto our partner, so that they become the bad ones, and we are the innocent victim. The result can be anything from a little incident to a huge drama. Can you see it? The core of every conflict is our hidden need to prove that we are not at fault; that we are innocent. Therefore, if we feel bad, it must be someone else’s fault, so then we make others wrong. That’s how we think when we identify with our personality, which is the same thing as to say our fear-based mind. This is the anatomy of every conflict we have with others, and each time it happens we ‘lost’ love, or that’s how it feels like.
Love is unconditional, infinite and immortal.
All spiritual paths teach in some way or other that our true nature is Love, because we are an extension of Love. This Love (with a capital L) is unconditional, infinite, immortal, eternal and omnipresent. It is the ground or the essence of ‘us’; it is what ‘we’ are when we step out of the personality with which we normally identify.
When we look from beyond our personal beliefs, from beyond our view-points, and from beyond the roles we are playing here, then we naturally look at others with Love. We then don’t need anything from them, because Love is whole and complete, it lacks nothing. Being aware that we are Love, we just radiate Love, and it is very inspiring and healing to others. This Love has no judgment, it embraces all and everything exactly as it is. The feeling of such Love is deep contentment, peace and joy. In that state we are being open, spontaneous and light. When we live in that state, we are Love loving Love, and it is our true nature. It is you and me – all of us. We all have access to this Love-state, or Love-affair.
What about bad people?!
If we are all Love, and we are all the same, then there can be no bad people, there are only people doing hurtful things sometimes. When we come from the fear-based belief system we all have the potential to act in hurtful and nasty ways. Thus, when we receive or witness hurtful acts, and when we commit hurtful actions ourselves, a healing way would be to remember again that we are all Love, and that this person or ourselves, forgot that in this moment. We can then have compassion and let go of the incident. On the behavioural level, this does not exclude the need to take corrective action, but we can then do it from a peaceful place, instead of from an angry or hurt place.
As a Valentine’s gift, I’d like to offer you this process:
Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and allow your body to relax deeply into a chair. Look with your inner eye at a person you feel hurt or angry at. Look into their eyes now, and see how you feel. Think of what they did that is hurtful to you, and realize they did that because of some beliefs they have, because of some role they play. Watch also the role you play in this incident: are you playing a victim role? Just watch.
Then, imagine that what happened between you is nothing more than a collusion between two different view-points, two sets of beliefs, and those are not you. Look now beyond those roles and view-points, into the essence of the person in front of you, and see if you can feel the Love. Can you see how you are the same Love, playing those roles, those conflicts, and that it is not important any more? Allow yourself to feel the Love that you are, and let it merge with the Love of the ‘other’. Can you feel Love loving Love?
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Marlise Witschi, M.Psych., Alternative Counsellor, is the founder of YourHealingWay, a psycho-spiritual system to heal yourself, your relationships, your business and your life. You may sign up for my free audio healing session at: www.internalfreedom.com.