I have spent most of my youth and adult years searching for love. I have been going from one bad relationship to another for too many years. Regardless of how horrible my experiences were, I have always kept hope in 'love' and bravely moved forward. This time around, after my marriage ended and also watching so many of my close friends and family suffering in bad relationships - I began to question my understandings of love.
Mystical Love.
I was taught as a child that love is the natural affection you have for God, country, family, community and your culture. As I got older I came to my own understanding that it was to care about someone unconditionally and unselfishly, to do all that you can do for those you love. Also began attaching ideas to my understanding of love as I read works on Che Guvera and other social revolutionaries: that it was this incredible mystical force that drives the whole universe; that could heal all societal ills. Reading Sufi poetry led me to see it as something even higher as unison with God ; finding unison with the self.
Finding Knowledge on Love.
Recently, after acknowledging that I may have a misunderstanding of Love, I began to Google 'what is love'? I first searched the history of the word itself and I found that Love shows up for the first time in the English language from the word Leubh (from a language indigenous to India) in the 13th Century. Leubh was described as 'care' and 'desire'. Love (Lufu original Old English word) was defined as 'deep affection'. Huh, WHAT?! Hold up - 'Care and Desire' are not the same as 'Deep Affection'; somebody screwed up! No wonder that we continue to carry the legacy of broken homes and hearts - most of us don't even know what LOVE really is because the core definition of the word is wrong! Of course I understand that word Love has evolved overtime to mean something new and different from the original, but I also understand that this is in part of the problem - Love as we know it is not a law or fact, its just an idea.
After conversing with my mentor (Peace to Sunez) and reading further on Love, I now understand Love as a sincere effort towards myself, and to love someone would be to share this sincere effort with them in order to build together. Nothing mystical involved and it is absolutely not selfless - rather it is has everything to do with the way we treat ourselves and how we work with others in order to progress.
Becoming Wise to Love.
In my marriage I had continued to love unselfishly, regardless of how I was treated. This was foolish of me, I was unselfishly giving away my sincerest efforts to someone who was not sharing the same with me - simply not building with me. I was exhausted and still we were stagnated: its like one leg being shorter then the other, so as you try to move forward you only keep in the same old circle. Try to clap with one hand. Now this really has nothing to do with my ex wife or my ex's in general, regardless of how well intentioned she or they may have been, my past relationships were a result/ consequence of my misunderstandings of love.
Being that I would try to find someone to be in love with in accordance to my old definition, I would usually choose people that I had some attraction to. We would build off this attraction and then over time begin to share affection just from being around one another. This was the key issue though, we would build relationships off of attraction versus love - for I thought love is something that will come in time and of course the deeper misunderstanding was affection is love.
What is Attraction?
It is within my understandings that there is an attraction when someone has a trait or characteristic that we'd like to have for ourselves. Attraction is based more on what we desire to be or to have versus who the other person really is. Usually once we are attracted to a person then we begin projecting our thoughts towards them and we see what we want to see - a mirrored reflection of what we projected. It has nothing to do with who that person is, how that person is - we just see a reflection a mirrored reflection of *all that we want to find in a partner* within them. Later as we really get to know the person, we are of course disappointed to find out that they are completely different then what WE made them out to be. I remember my grandma teaching me that if I'm attracted to someone, figure out exactly what are the things that I am attracted to and then try to embody those traits (i.e. sense of humor, beauty, physical fitness, personality type…) Attraction should not be the start of a new relationship, but rather a learning experience of what we lack within ourselves and therefore may want to change.
My Understandings of Love
I should share love with myself and then those that share love with me ; share a sincere effort towards myself and then someone who shares sincere effort towards me. First step would be to meet someone single who loves themselves, who shows that they have taken the time to develop their mind, body and spirit. Second step would be her showing that she is ready to share her love with me. I need not worry about losing out on women that have strong defense mechanisms up and is guarded and will only show love once I break through those barriers. Experience has taught me that beyond those barriers is usually deep rooted issues and once your there you usually end up wishing you could rebuild those broken barriers to keep those demons locked up. So the woman from the jump, just from the way she chooses to exists, I should be able to see if she can share a sincere effort. Thirdstep would be to just take our time getting to know one another as we begin building.
Love would be for us to build together that which is mutually beneficial. The relationship should be supportive and a source of inspiration. If it has become an impediment to my life's journey - then I'm building with the wrong person and end it quickly (i.e. don't marry them anyway and start making babies!)
