Khalil Gibran
From a certain age we all begin to think of love, in a curious longing for what we know so little. We tend go through elementary phases of innocent romance, obligatory crushes, and the occasional teenage relationship before anything very serious comes into our lives. And even through all of these progressions in ones budding love life, true love may remain a fleeting glimmer on a distant horizon. We are sadly aware that no one is guaranteed true love in this lifetime and many never find it. Many more languish in abusive or self defeating relationships that they want to believe is true love but hope does not make it so. There is a simple reason so many cannot find love in another, and it's no real secret to reveal. True love is self love, until we learn to love ourselves we can never truly love another.
For most people self love is an elusive goal or not a goal at all, as if it's importance were not at all known. In fact many people grow up feeling that "self love" is "selfish" or "self centered", as if it's conceited to love ones' self. If this describes your understanding of self love I am asking you to consider just the opposite, there is nothing more selfless, more generous, than to love yourself exactly as you are. Do not consider your faults, they are simply the other side of your strengths. Your faults fade in the presence of your love and you will see that your faults have always been your strengths working without the nourishment of love. When you have self love you do not seek it with a desperation if you seek it at all, you emanate it like a radio tower and attract it back to you. Like attracts like, those with self love attract those with self love; those without attract those without.
Self love is a spiritual, not superficial goal, it is a basic level of enlightenment that simply puts one on a path that will continue to expand their consciousness as long as they maintain that self love. The universe is love down to it's smallest bits and in it's complete form, within each one of us is a tap into that bottomless well. This love exists beyond the boundaries of time and space and is therefore eternal and shared by all things; plant, animal, mineral, past, present, and future. The knowledge that one can be alone and still have love is the antidote for the fear and desperation which guides many in their search for true love. There will never be a cologne called "Desperation" because desperation is literally repulsive, one intuitively understands that they are being asked to love someone who does not love them self. This same rule applies for salesmen, you are more likely to make a sale if you too would buy the product.
One may have a lover and still not have self love, because as we all know sex is not necessarily love. Chances are neither lover has self love if we follow the like attracts like principle, but there are other possibilities. One lover may see that the other is at the doorway of self love just waiting for someone to invite them in, or they may both be in that threshold as they meet. But it's all too common for two people without self love to stay together for a very long time without this precious element and sometimes even preventing each other from attaining it. One person in this relationship can begin to attain this love and if the other does not follow suit they will soon vibrate out the door to find another mate. But these self loveless relationships often go on long past the point of being mutually beneficial because losing the relationship would mean losing love. The sometimes sad truth is that all relationships are temporal, one can only find comfort in the knowledge that love itself is eternal.
Relationships have so much to teach us, especially with mutual love and self love. But there are also many pitfalls to be avoided, though falling in is one way to learn all about them. It's important to understand that your life follows a path and very few people share your charted course. In the terrain of love we more often cross paths with people who are coming from different places and heading in different directions. We meet because our paths bring us to the same place and time where we can share at least that much in common, but chances are we can no more harmoniously trade our routes than we can trade our shoes and expect them to fit. But relationships, especially marriage, force one or both of these courses to drastically change. Over much of human history it has been without question that the woman gives up any plans or goals that conflict with those of the man, the mans course becomes hers.
When you see your course on this physical and metaphysical landscape and have the greater vision of self love, you can see the potential to simply share a path with a lover for a while, as long as it is mutually beneficial and before it becomes mutually destructive. I am in no way suggesting that love can be destructive, but holding onto something or someone beyond it's natural expiration date is destructive, like drinking sour milk. I assure you that aligning relationships with sour milk is not a pessimistic view of love, perhaps some people should be asking themselves "Why buy the milk when it expired last week?" When two people simply share a path for a while they are braiding their two paths together, they may go his way, or her way, or find some compromise between the two. But giving up ones path completely, or compromising both can eventually lead to mutual resentment, blaming each other for goals not realized. Walk together for a while but do not forget your path.
As a self proclaimed pagan I naturally find flaw with the "Institution of Marriage" but I don't secretly or publicly wish doom and failure on any married couples. I do sympathize with them however for the impossible goal they carry, a potentially lifelong burden. "Til death do us part" is an unnecessary and potentially destructive element of marriage, or "merging." Love flowers when two people have a mutual appreciation for each other, when they can overlook faults to see and utilize the gifts that they have for one another. If one believes that they are "stuck" with the other they almost immediately begin to dread the others faults, and "til death do us part" quickly becomes a curse filling the relationship with bitterness and resentment. Marriage has historically set a great imbalance between the genders in their respective roles. For millennia men have been able to achieve success after success in their careers, while most of our mothers and grandmothers, great grandmothers and so on, we're left with the task of "keeping the family together". This goal is often never fully realized because time keeps marching on and the family could always fall apart the next day, no "Mission accomplished" banners for mom.
Though I'm not a true practicing pagan I follow the logic of the hand-fasting rituals, some specify that the two are bound together for a specific cycle but not limited to that time, others simply leave out "Til death do us part." No marriage or relationship is guaranteed love, but one does not need institutional marriage, or even a relationship to begin to love ones' self. The escape hatch of divorce is becoming increasingly utilized for those who become disillusioned in their marriages, but I'm suggesting that some relationships can survive healthy and happy for many years without the lifetime guarantee, and in fact that impossible commitment may be the instrument of undoing for many couples. Years ago I noticed that with the coming generation all step parents were becoming step-grandparents, and now they are becoming step great grandparents, this trend is irreversible even as it speaks to the reversibility of marriage. But even after a bitter divorce or split, it is important to go back and see the other for their gifts and not let their faults spoil the better qualities they shared, hopefully this process can be mutual.
No matter where you are in your life, teen crush, young love, young parent, not so young parent, there is one thing you simply must do to improve the quality of your love life and life in general, love thyself. Just as the inscription at the temple of Delphi instructs us to "Know thyself" we begin to see that until we know our selves we cannot truly know anything or anyone else, the same is true for love, that we must first love our selves before we can truly love anything or anyone else. Do not seek love, instead go deep within yourself and discover it there. Discover your thing, is it writing, playing a sport, music? Whatever it is, do your thing and focus on nothing else and love will fall all over itself to ring your doorbell. Even if you're in a marriage or relationship, with or without self love, ask yourself what your "thing" is, or what your thing would be if you were not in your current relationship. Then do it anyway, even if it causes friction in your relationship, allow it to begin to correct your life as you attract like elements into your world.
Love your self, and do your thing, nobody else can do either of these for you.
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