Nowadays, the issues of “Love” and “Attachment” come up more and more, and therefore, therapists sooner or later are asked to deal with these.
It is important to talk about a “solid core” which is necessary in order for someone to observe and improve oneself. This core is crucial to our existence as it helps us have as much energy as we need by ourselves and be happy in our centre as often as possible.
Everything begins and ends within us. What others do is of collateral importance. Action-Reaction is what usually underlies a relationship, and, therefore I will not focus on this. What is of interest to me is what is inside me. I am interested in finding out why I let myself cling to others or to situations (attachment). I am interested in observing why is it, that when things don’t go as planned, I automatically sink into rejection, self-pity and defeat. These are the secret keys that our Ego uses to unlock our obsessions.
Attachment stems from human needs and feeds on personality weaknesses. So, is it, that deep down, we like depending on something or someone? The answer is yes, as this is from where we pump the energy we are missing or where we find the excuses we need in order not to evolve.
We are almost all deep into attachments. Of all kinds. Attachment to our partner, to our family and kids, to work, to material possessions, to substances, to ideas, to our professors and many more.
In Buddhism, it is clearly stated that the source of human problems is the attachment to material goods and passions. This article revolves around the latter one. Attachment means focusing on the energy of a result and of action/reaction. Attachment means to desire someone but only under your conditions, to love this person only if he/she fits in the boxes you have in your head, to want only a specific result out of your relationship with this person and to fail having things work out between you two in a different framework from what you have preset. And as much as you cannot achieve what you want, the more and more you get obsessed, leading to self-defeat and eventually to the trendy disease of our times - depression.
Unconditional love is a feast of joy.
I will try to make this energy more specific through inanimate words, and, I hope that one understands that this is a lesson I will be experiencing and that I will be trying to comprehend as long as I live. Therefore, even today that I am writing this article, I am just attempting to approach this issue, and that’s about it.
Love, is selfless. It means to love, appreciate and respect the other person for his/her whole being, to wish him/her well, to feel happy when he/she is happy, even if - and this is where the trap lies- this person is not with you, doesn’t give you what you desire or doesn’t behave as you want (at this point a lot could be discussed about whether we, ourselves, know what we truly want, whether we behave correctly and so on and so forth).
It is not about parental love. Allow me to say, that, our parents adore us indeed, but, in many cases, they are the first who, unconsciously, plunge us into guilt, manipulate us and in fact may not accept us for what we are. We often remind them and mirror their dark side (I say all this with love, as we have unconsciously agreed - bringing our energy forward - that this is the way our relationship is, in order for us to evolve as their children and for them as our parents and, then, for both of us as human beings within this relationship). In effect, we ought to be grateful towards them.
Unconditional Love is deep, everlasting, and bright, while, at the same time it is not self-centered and demanding. This doesn’t mean that I accept the other person with any behaviour towards me. One thing is “I love you and I will love you”, and, another thing is “I set my limits”. The latter one is positive for both sides because this way we all undertake our responsibilities. Within the energy of Love, I can go on with my life, even if the other person is not part of it. I am well, I am happy for you, but, I also respect who you are - your past (by showing compassion and understanding), while at the same time I respect who I am (therefore showing compassion and understanding towards myself). The ability to love. The case might be that the person I choose to love is not in my life anymore and I feel sad. Shouldn’t I, though, contemplate that if this person hasn’t passed by my life, then, the seed within me would have remained uncultivated? Because we all intend to cultivate the sentimental seeds of others and they do the same with ours, in order to learn how to love. Like flowers and insects do. When we were little, we knew how to love, but, growing up, we seem to forget how to do so and, this is the greatest challenge we are facing: to remember to love in our essence and let to be loved.
Learning how to love truly and essentially needs a lot of training.
I imagine that you are thinking that such a thing doesn’t exist…well, it does exist and it is one of the greatest releases that a human being can experience. Unfortunately though, we are selfish and scared. When this energy came my way and I had to get in the process of this lesson (and I am still at this point), it all sounded Greek to me. Thanks to my teachers and thanks to Energy (Life) that makes sure that challenges of this sort come our way, I have managed to translate some of this Greek.
To the people that have crossed these sacred and difficult paths of self-knowledge and self-therapy, I owe a huge “thank you”. I also need to be thankful to the people who through their behaviour (that from time to time I considered it to be unacceptable) have challenged me again and again to be confronted with this lesson of unconditional Love, of limits and of the solid core. I am grateful.
To conclude, I would like to add a note of optimism. Let’s observe ourselves without feeling guilty or being judgmental and let’s try to walk along with the other person through our fears and the loneliness of our soul in order to reach unconditional Love. Together – this is what makes this journey even more worthwhile. Nobody is superior to somebody else. One helps the other, even if this is not readily perceived.
Some important remarks (from the speech of Thich Nhat Hanh – Being Love):
- The ability to love others is defined and depends on our ability to love our self.
- It is not possible to say that we love others if we don’t allow them to be themselves. This is slavery. This holds true for our self too.
Light Love Gratitude
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