Power Of True Love

Mind & Spirit : NST Life & Times 21/9/2010

http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/Mind_spirit_Poweroftruelove/Article

BY CHIM LI YEN

THE opportunity to live in physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual intimacy with another person is one of life’s greatest gifts. A healthy relationship involves two people creating a rhythm together. Walking hand in hand is different from walking alone. To walk gracefully, both people must adjust, not just once but countless times. This dance requires hundreds of tiny shifts in thought and feeling.

The beloved is a high-stakes proposition. He or she is the best and worst of all worlds. We have no power to deal with another person’s power effectively until our own is pure and intact. Knowing this, we begin to understand the relationship between our search for the self and for the beloved.

A relationship is both a journey into intimacy with another and with self. It is so easy to lose ourselves in a relationship. Sometimes, we tend to forget who we are in order to fit into the world of our beloved. We sacrifice our true desires and compromise our needs to keep the relationship alive. How can we truly love another if we have neglected ourselves?

The beloved is not who we hide behind. The beloved is who appears before us as we emerge from the shadows of our delusions. Love is an extension of our own minds, reflecting back to us in what seems to be another person’s smile. It is not something that comes into us for someone else.

Our love is not co-dependency. Co-dependency is what happens when we don’t know how to apply our love, where to put it, what to do with it. Most people today are wounded from past experiences which they have not totally recovered from.

The search for someone who isn’t in pain is unreasonable until we ourselves are healed of our own dysfunction. Till then, we will be led to people as wounded as we are so we might be healed together. No partner can save us, deliver us or bring meaning to our lives. The source of our salvation, deliverance and meaning is from within. We have to keep giving up ideas of what we think love should be. Love is never that. It is what is unfolding right now between two people. It is the way we keep touching each other through each other’s pain. It is the way both people keep finding each other on the other side of their fear.
Alas! That is not the romance we are accustomed to — we grew up reading fairytales and watching romantic flicks with happy endings.

We can damage a relationship by our expectations and demands that the relationship make us happy. In actual fact, no one can make us happy. Part of the problem is that we expect love affairs to always feel good. They don’t. We cannot blame a relationship for throwing us off-centred.

No man can convince a woman she’s wonderful but if she already believes she is, his agreement can resonate and bring her joy. This is our function in each other’s lives: To hold the space for each other’s beauty that our beloved can leave us and we can still feel in his absence how beautiful we are.

Nobody is excused from the great work of self-acceptance especially in the context of an intimate relationship. The more intense our relationship is, the more essential it becomes that we take time alone to love and accept ourselves. We end up betraying ourselves if we give that job to our partners. Our partner’s love and acceptance of us can never be a substitute for our love and acceptance of ourselves.

We need time to internalise, to breathe and be alone. It is part of the cycle. Every relationship must fall apart from time to time so deeper intimacy can be achieved. However, the models of relationships we are familiar with don’t allow for this kind of interpersonal transformation within the context of a committed relationship. People either stay together in a frozen state or they remain distant and uncommitted.

Loving oneself means taking good care of our bodies — eating well, getting enough sleep, exercising. It means taking time to feel and to express our feelings authentically. It includes being aware of our thoughts and choosing thoughts that contribute to our happiness as well as connecting with the Source within us on a regular basis.

Real relationships require us to be committed to the other, yet retain the freedom to be ourselves. It requires that we keep telling the truth as we move together through our sadness and pain.

No relationship is easy. Everyone tests the depth of our commitment to ourselves and others. Gradually, selfish love dies and is reborn as unconditional love. There is an immense sense of appreciation and reverence for the beloved. Our hearts will be more open and we will gaze more deeply into each other’s eyes.

May you be blessed with the courage and patience to experience the transformative power of a true relationship.

• The writer is co-founder of The Violet Fame Holistic Shop and Therapy Centre in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. Check out the website at www.thevioletflame.com.my