01.07.2002
Reflections on Love and Broken Hearts
What
is a broken heart. What is love. If you've ever had the good fortune to feel
deeply in love with another, then you know amazing nature of your mind and emotions.
From the heights of ecstasy to the pit of despair. Giving your heart completely
to another can result in the pain related to loss. Losses from death, or sometimes
even worse, rejection to some degree. And just what are these painful feelings
that can lead a person into sleepless nights, the lack of ability to function,
and for me, the complete lack of hunger. We can point to this or that and say,
"that is the cause,", but is it really?
No one can make
us feel what we feel. We feel what we feel on our own, which is why we each
person can respond so differently to the same situation. We feel as a result
of how we think and see the situation. When we are confused, we don't even know
what we think. It's our understanding of ourselves that we are confused about.
We may feel that the situation is complex to some degree, but it is our own
self understanding and our ideas about what the future holds that drains our
life from us. We create our feelings, no one else does. Sure, we feel our feelings
in relation to our experience, but our feelings are a reflection of us more
so than our environment. Our environment presents itself as it is. We present
ourselves as we understand ourselves to be and then we feel.
What is this feeling
of love that so binds us to one another. The expression "chains of love," expresses
the idea that love is a kind of connection or bonding to another person. Self
approved bondage of the most wonderful kind. Self inflicted if we are feeling
sorrow or pain as a result. Worth it? I'd say so. The painful at times forces
us to see things in a new way. If we don't, we may decline in spirit and may
even die, as so many do whose loved one has died after years of depending upon
each other for those feelings of love and support.
For me, love brings
the sense of god into my direct experience. And when it turns sorrowful, I turn
to that god presence even more. I'm here. I'm alive. I'm Duane. Duane can feel
sad and sorry and decline in spirit, or Duane can wonder about what is really
going on here. As I look inside, I find that there are issues that are inconsistent
with my views on reality and life and god and love. I find that I don't really
believe as much in the goodness of my path as I sometimes think that I do. I
still get concerned that I may make a mistake and go down the wrong road. Like
a student that's messed up on his test which will result in low marks.
Life gives us the opportunity
to change for our own betterment. Not necessarily someone else's betterment.
I may want to change in ways that my lover may want, because the person my lover
wants me to be is someone that I want to be. But I may like some of me as I
am. Self understanding is a great step towards enabling us to express ourselves
to our lover with the greatest possible clarity. It allows ourselves to be clear
about our needs and why we want our needs met. That may lead us to see that
our needs may not be needs for the reasons we may had previously thought. Our
needs may be for little things that our partner doesn't see as being significant
because that is not how they feel love. Those needs may have to be met in order
for love to experienced. That makes even the seemlingly trivial needs, needs.
And we are here partly to have our needs met.
So two lovers may
not feel that they are able to meet each others needs, while still, at times,
feeling deep love for each other. If each lovers' needs, even seemingly trivial
needs, relate to aspects of each lovers' personality, then real love would suggest
that the differences are worth struggling to surmount. If, on the other hand,
the needs of one lover cannot be met without challenging deeply held values
and beliefs of the other lover, then to change ones ways may create a contradiction
between one's values and one's actions. Eventually I can imagine resentment
emerging and often without recognition of exactly why, and showing itself in
perhaps little things that then seem trivial and yet are important. So one lover's
hurt may not be completely understood by the partner and may even seem like
an unnecessary request, want or need. Unless it's understood what's causing
the frustration, stress tends to accumulate other areas begin to become more
irritating until you have a mess of emotions and misunderstandings.
01.26.2002
Part 2
But if you love
a person, then it was suggested to me that you want to make them happy. So whatever
their needs are, you will want to try to fill them. I thought about this and
I realized that this makes sense. The difficulty arises when the needs of the
one you love seem to deprive you of your own needs. If your partner truly loves
you, then they will want to make you happy as well. When lovers' needs conflict
with each other, that is when the greatest potential growth can occur. And if
the love is really real, then I believe that there will arise a solution that
brings happiness to both. But if the love is not that deep, then parting may
be the best solution.
If
people really love one another, then they will each change for the better. Love
will call us to want to make our lover happy. So what is love? We can find a
new lover that meets our current criteria, but is that all that there is to
love? Is it something more? Why committ yourself to love one person? I think
that the reason may have a lot to do with the fact that shared honest, caring
experience engenders love for one another. So the longer that you are together,
the deeper love can go. But that kind of love can be between friends and family
as well. When it comes to being in love, I believe that we are talking about
the additional ingredient of physical intimacy. Deep emotional and physical
intimacy and trust. Mutual love and trust are essential and that is why it hurts
to see someone we love be with another person in a way that compromises that
deep intimacy and trust.
So a nice and juicy
carrot exists for committing yourself to one relationship. More love. But as
we can see, that kind of love that grows and grows requires us to grow together,
not apart. We do that by changing together or never changing, if it's perfect
the way it is. I'm destined to change and I want to change. I want to change
with someone. It's how I feel the most love I know how to feel. It's not the
only way, but I think it's a good way. To grow together, trusting one another,
loving one another, and feeling home with one another. That is romantic to me.
But is it really romantic? What is romantic is in the eyes of the one being
romanced. Never forget that.
I was once told
at the time of my mother's death that understanding is what brings love about.
The more we understand each other, the more we feel love for one another. It
takes a willingness to listen to each other and a willingness to let go of our
own ideas about the way we think that things have to be. After all, we've all
experienced being wrong about things that we once strongly believed were true
and have all changed throughout our lives. We will continue to change. That
change can divide us from one another or unite us. All you need is love.