Healthy Love

“How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships.  Love does not want or fear anything.”  ~Eckhart Tolle

I believe this with my entire being.  I would go further and say that healthy relationships allow love's expression.  Unhealthy relationships are fearful, chaotic, and filled with the words of illusion.  (“You complete me”  “You had me at hello” “You bring out the best in me”) etc. etc. etc.

That isn't love.  I think we've created a culture of love addicted people.  Wounded and seeking the fast track answer to healing.  Holding close the idea that someone out there can take you away from the way you are feeling or can offer you a perspective of yourself that let's you feel “more alive” or “wanted”.

That isn't love.  It is fear.  It is hurt.  It is destined to crumble because you are putting a pretty picture over the hole in the wall and pretending the hole doesn't exist.

I've been there in my life (and truthfully, how many people haven't been?).  And I have also honored relating with love in a healthy and emotionally nourishing way.  being present.  Being within the moment and holding no expectation that this other being will make my life ok.  Just loving the presence and the beauty of that person.

Night and day.

So, here is my question.  What kind of expectations do you still hold for the relationships that surround you?  What happens when you let that go?

Re: Healthy Love

My greatest expectation is that those who love me will not place expectations upon me. I’m a freedom-mongerer of sorts- chaotic by nature. My expectation is, oddly enough, quite hypocritical and wounds all my relationships.

I try to utilize my heart more when the resentment from this expectation arises. I try to understand both my internal position and that of the other person. It’s hard.

But when I succeed in transcending the separateness and connectedness between myself and others- when I can hold down the fort and send out the troops of yum yum- THOSE moments are great moments of definition and clarity which I treasure.

Again and again, I look back into this treasure. It spawns my words, and over time, it creates my deeds without me.

When I fail… I create ruin above and below me. I divide myself from the universe, and myself from myself. I take control and thusly lose it. I suffer greatly- and bring suffering to the doorstep of those I love most.

Re: Healthy Love

Do you know…. I have been trying to get back to respond to this for a couple of weeks.  (Omega's busy time is upon us).

YES.  That is the sum total of what I could come up with.  YES.  When I use my mind…. I am rarely in the present moment.  Of course, I can assess things and I can determine what comes next… but when I use my mind to create an understanding of an emotion or allow fear to mentally construct a greater trap to hide behind…. sabotage!

Re: Healthy Love

Sabotage- exactly!

And the only way out is deep self-honesty… which is to say- a complete surrender to what already is- not what could be.

You know, I just reread this entire thread, and in reading the beginning I was struck by the Tolle quote on love. Love does not want, need, take, push, control, judge, limit or even… give. And yet… it accepts all these things!

love,
dave

Re: Healthy Love

I really love what you just said.  Love does simply saturate every single thing.  It is the stuff that comprises the entire universe.  I think FEELING it is a matter of letting go.

Anyway… just got home.  I will write more about this later!

Jill

Re: Healthy Love

The only thing that I truly request and expect from relationships of any form that I am in, is quite simply, honesty.

Re: Healthy Love

honesty matters to me a great deal, too!

I think if a relationship is peppered with deception and dishonesty… it isn't healthy and it isn't love.  That becomes a series of manipulations acted out of a fearful place.

Re: Healthy Love

I aim for the ideal - to love without condition - which to me means without attachment. Promoting another person's happiness can often mean getting out of their way and supporting the choices they make for themselves.

This is a lot harder to do when I am sharing a household with them. Then I must balance loving and being supportive with working as a family and team to get all the tasks of daily living completed. This is where expectations come marching into my life.

My husband and I chose, out of love for each other, to make a life together. Our children did not get to choose us. We, the parents, chose to be teachers to our children in terms of passing on our knowledge about living life to them. The toughest balancing act is to love and teach without demanding fulfillment of our own agenda.

I'm working on it. I don't succeed all the time but I give it my best.

Re: Healthy Love

I have a HUGE soap box where parenting is concerened.  And it starts with the knowledge that it is a relationship that was not actively chosen by the children.  (the ethereal beliefs aside).  I LOVE WHAT YOU WROTE.  I feel so incredibly grateful to hear a parent put that out there.

You're right.  Fine act of balance between boundaries, and honoring another's path and also parenting.  Unconditional love.  I truly enjoy Eckhart Tolle's work.  He has a way of saying things that keep sticking with me.  It makes relating a much more simple thing for me as well!

Thank you for sharing this!