Fear and LoveThe topic of love has been popping up in my head quite a bit over the last few months. If you've read any of my stuff then you can see that I like kicking around ideas. I find that endurance training seems to induce some sort of meditative state where ideas seem to flow a lot easier. Here are some observations about human nature (mine?) and love... There are few sensations better than what we associate with being in love. Can you remember them? The quickening pulse, the shortness of breath, the longing, the electricity... What about the physical sensations -- the first touch, the first kiss, when merely holding hands was enough to make your insides tingle. Powerful stuff. A very dear friend used to describe the sensation as having Alka-Seltzer for blood, heavenly bubbles in our veins. Love is the perfect defense, a great neutralizer in the face of anger or aggression. It is near impossible to maintain aggression or anger when you are faced with love. Damn frustrating too. Have you ever been afraid of falling in love? Have you known a situation where it was a "problem" that one person was in love with another? Have you even felt vulnerable, weak, or out of control due to your love for another? Why fear love? Society tells us to go out and get laid. To pursue sexual, conditional love. I'm not even sure if that qualifies as love. Perhaps it is some form of lust. What I have been thinking about is a deep spiritual love. Accepting and not grasping. An appreciative love -- full of an appreciation of the magnificence of creation (be it trees, dogs, people, whatever). That seems a lot healthier and a lot less risky to me. It can also be very satisfying, once you get your head around the concept. The idea that I have so far is that you aim to fall in love with as many people and as many things as possible. Completely fill your life with love. Direct love at everything you come across. Try to literally "be love". Send as much warmth and kindness out into the world as possible. I've been trying this for about two months and I hope my friends will forgive me if they couldn't tell! At a minimum, it has had some amazing results with strangers. I keep getting all kinds of favors and freebies. This is nothing new for me because I seem to have really good luck. As the luck keeps rolling, I can't help but think that perhaps there is more to it than blind chance. Oh, but it is so hard to keep the mind from grasping at the objects of a heart's affection. My conditioning always tells me that "more is better" but I can't help noticing that maintaining a certain amount of anticipation in any situation seems to heighten my pleasure in it. Perhaps there is a balance that needs to be found. Balance just seems to pop up everywhere. Let's explore fear for a while. Assume that you love someone. What is the worst that could happen? Well, I guess they might decide that they don't love you. Does that change your love for them? Does that change the pleasure that you get from being with them? What do you want from them? Why do you want anything from them? The best part of love is that there are so many case studies to work with in one's mind. I've been running these cases through those questions above and I keep getting the same answer. There is NOTHING to fear. The worse case scenario still feels pretty good. Sure you may feel shitty for a day or two but if you face reality with acceptance and love, then all the negativity rolls away really quickly. Now how do we make that worse case scenario feel good. For me, it all comes back to self-acceptance -- self-acceptance with a twist. When I look around, and inward, I tend to see that difficulties in love are always caused by a lack of acceptance. Acceptance of the way things are, acceptance of the way the other person is, acceptance of ourselves. If we aren't satisfied with ourselves then odds are we will fail to find satisfaction in another. In fact, I think it is pretty much guaranteed. How do we learn to accept ourselves? That is a tough one. The other day, I had someone ask me if I thought people were happier in Asia. I love questions like that. Huge sweeping generalizations! After a little thought, I said that I thought, in general, people were pretty unhappy everywhere. Not the most positive way to start a conversation at a Sunday bar-b-que! I did make two exceptions, Thailand and India. I didn't know why at the time but those countries just came to me as happy places. Sitting here now, I realise that these are probably the two most accepting cultures in Asia. There does seem to be a link between acceptance and happiness. On an unrelated note, she also asked me if I liked Asian women. Seeing as she was Caucasian, I thought a little about my answer before saying, "Sure, they're awesome!". That might not have been the answer she was looking for but it gave me a huge grin on the inside. A little later (just before she excused herself) I added that I really like everybody so long as they are cool. I think the pleasures of the East leave a few people feeling threatened. You know, we are really all the same! ;-) OK, so the theory is fine and dandy but how do you implement it? Total acceptance. Totally accept the other, totally accept yourself and totally accept the current situation. This doesn't mean that you jettison your personal standards -- in fact, I think the highest ethical standards are essential for spiritual love. For me, acceptance does not imply complacency or tacit agreement. For me, acceptance implies non-resistance, most importantly non-resistance to our own hearts. When we listen to our hearts, we will find the right way to go. Listen inwards, and respect outwards. Non-resistance combined with a deep respect for others (that's where the ethics comes in). If the person is not worthy of respect then I guess you can lead by example or move on. My angers, fears, and jealousies all seem to stem from internal resistance. As I lower (and some day eliminate) my resistance to the present, everything gets so much easier. Does this make me a pushover? I don't really know. I said to a buddy the other day that I am 99% negotiable, but please don't push me on my 1%. My friends might see it the other way around. Still, I am trying.
Some of the above is influenced by my most recent read, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, By Deepak Chopra. |