Gazing in the Mirror

February 1 - A Whole Month For Love

We cultivate love when we allow
our most vulnerable and powerful
selves to be deeply seen and known,
and when we honor the spiritual
connections that grow from that
offering with trust, respect,
kindness and affection.
~ Brene Brown,
The Gifts of Imperfection

Love is an essence, an atmosphere,
which defies analysis, as does Life
Itself. It is that which IS and
cannot be explained: it is common to
all people, to all animal life, and
evident in the response of plants
to those who love them.
~ Ernest Holmes

Love is so important to human existence that we give it a whole month of every year to contemplate the value of it and the reasons why we love the people or things that we love. I think this is a good thing. Love is unique in human experience and can include a sense of "attachment" or "affection" towards some one or some thing. Love can motivate and inspire the accomplishment of tasks that would be otherwise impossible. Love has many expressions – romantic love, parental love, sibling affection and nationalistic sacrifice are some of the forms we recognize some kind of love occurring within. Mercy and compassion have their seeds in an ability to give of one's self to something one cares about.

Most humans seem compelled to seek love and the romantic type of love has a high value for most people. At the same time surrendering to love can be a very scary thing and for a very good reason. Love is dangerous if the person one is in love with is dangerous. Love will motivate some people to behaviors that they would never do otherwise. I know this personally for I have "been there, done that". So when we feel ourselves strongly attracted by instincts to love a particular person, we may find our fears kicking in as well and it is about the best reality check we may have available to us. People in love do not always have a rational perspective when it comes to the person they have been strongly attracted to. Such attractions may function in deep, largely unconscious realms of our brain at the biochemical cellular levels.

People will often cling to a "fantasy" of love even when their romantic partner does not treat them in a truly loving manner. Believing one had love and then has lost it somehow for whatever reason can be a debilitating and painful experience. The safety and survival of the human species has been highly dependent on our ability to form strong connections with other people – in partnership, marriage and in community or through organizations such as traditional religion. Some believe the strength of this attraction harkens back to the original union with our mother from which it was necessary for us to separate in order to grow and develop further.

The reality of Life is that we do not always have significantly loving persons in our proximity. Sometimes we are a bit alone and isolated. Depending upon our quality of life immediately before such disruptive occurrences, they may be felt as welcome relief and freedom – or as sadness and rejection. Loneliness is an indication that one of our deepest human needs is unfulfilled. Although virtual social networks can relieve some of the loneliness we might otherwise feel and provide an outlet for some of our need to "belong" or be heartfully connected with other people, these channels do not completely replace the need for physically present persons to provide intimate human contact.

I do believe that society has promoted some very unrealistic expectations about whether another person can actually "complete" us perfectly and fulfill ALL of our needs for human connection. In a world of population intensity any one of us can create connections with other human beings of some higher quality, if we simply make a genuine effort to do so. We can look to those things that we are genuinely interested in through which we can expend passionate or committed actions and in the course of fulfilling a need for purpose and meaning also acquire supportive and loving companionship.

We can also learn to be self-sufficient and emotionally independent by providing LOVE to our own self first and then giving from that connection to Love to other people and it is likely that some of these will be capable of returning our sentiments in genuinely caring, supportive, friendly and yes loving responses. When we are able to fulfill our need for appreciation from within our own self first, then whether we are alone or in a group of other people, we have an inner personal strength that allows us to function within any average, comfortable enough, condition of existence – including solitary time spent alone. It is wise not to be dependent upon other human beings to fulfill our most important personal need, even though it is natural to be interdependent with other human beings. Our value and self-worth should always be clearly understood by our own self first and not defined by other people.

~ perspective

There is no reason to allow
loneliness when all that's needed
is to reach out to another person.
Our loving connections to other
people are sometimes brief and
temporary but when we are fortunate
they are stable and lasting.
Writers write to open their
perceptions to those who read and
having entered the mind of the writer
the reader is never entirely the
same person afterwards.
We are never entirely separate
entities because whatever I do
someone else will be affected and
if I help someone or make them smile,
they may help someone else or bring
a smile to another person.
Wholeness IS because everything is
hooked together with everything else
somehow.

#affection #attachment #attraction #compassion #danger #fantasy #fear #loneliness #mercy #mother