As the summer is about to let the fiery golden Autumn step in, our heats tremble with light emotions, revitalized by the warm sunrays of the late summer sun. Perhaps, this is the right time, to delve deep into the complexity of our intimate relationships. A new perspective, driven by Love, but also one that is not afraid to embrace Fear as well.
Setting The Scene
Imagine that you wake up in a cold misty morning. You are somewhere high above the noise of the city where you've left all your worries. The sun hasn't risen yet, but it's bright.
You raise your glance upon the high mountain range on your left and begin to count the seconds to sunrise. You are shivering, and you know that you can only cope with it for a few more minutes. You are eager for the sun to show up above the green pines.
Take a note of how this makes you feel. The essence of this feeling is Fear.
Whilst rubbing your arms and shoulders, you hear a the song of a distant bird. On the opposite side, another bird raises her beautiful voice. Then another bird closer to you joins them with the gentlest of notes, yet full of strength. You feel like you are a part of the nature, waking up from its deep sleep. As soon as you begin to smile, the first few sunrays dash through the branches of the tall trees and crash on your face with empowering warmth. You feel the warm stream of photons penetrating your skin, reaching somewhere deep inside your chest. That warmth quickly turns into overwhelming joy. You happily stretch your arms now warm and full of energy. Then you stumble upon the sudden realization, that you're carelessly whistling a tune that resembles one of the bird's songs.
This overwhelming warm and joyful feeling is attuned to Love.
Now, let's talk about people and relationships. In our meditation on people, fate and will we mentioned energy particles, and the one truth that we covered in the fundamental meditations.
The Essence of Desires
As we saw there, people are not lone units, but rather they are part of a large interconnected network of energy particles. Because of that, no matter what the minds and words say, the heart will always seek a connection with another human being. This urge follows the bipolar principle of the universe, immersed in the everlasting dance of Love and Fear.
Do you recall how you felt while awaiting the sun to rise above the mountain ridge? The fear that you will not be able to cope with the chilly touch of the morning mist. The rejection of the unpleasant reality, became a desire. The desire for the warm touch of the sunrays. The pleasant feeling that your entire body craved. This desire is still fear in it's essence. Being alone in the cold darkness is one the most dreadful realities a person can face. This fear is virtually the same as the fear of death. The stronger our attunement towards Fear, the stronger and more desperate our desires are. Rejecting the reality of walking to work renders us desiring a bicycle, a car, or even a jet plane. The stronger our Will is, the higher the chance of shifting our reality to the one we desire. Being projections of Fear, our desires are not rooted within our true self (Will), and as such their satisfaction cannot lead to any real, genuine happiness.
Luckily, it's not all that gloomy. As you might have guessed it already - there are desires attuned to love (following the Law of Duality). And you are absolutely right. Now it's time to recall some special memories. The ones when you wanted to make someone happy, just for the sakes of their wellbeing. Can't do it? Here, let me help you! Remember when you wanted to give the bigger piece of cake to your younger sibling or a friend. Remember when you wanted to help an old lady cross the street. Remember when you wanted to teach your colleague an optimized way to use a certain app, which would save them time and effort. All those are examples of love-attuned desires. Desires which made you want to channel your inner world outwards. And it's okay if you never came to do any of those things. It means that you simply let your fears take over: your feared that you might not have enough cake; the fear that the bystanders will think of you as a pushover; the fear that your colleague will get angry that your trying to micromanage them. That is only natural, and you must accept that! And remember that fear is not always bad. And even though I cannot justify the first two in any way, the third one could've saved you a big scandal at work, as your full-of-personal issues colleague report to HR. Now that we have a better understanding of the nature of desires, let's see how they sneak into our relationships.
Of desires and relationships
I already gave you a few examples of desires that are intertwined in our relations with our siblings, friends, and even strangers. But what about our partners? It is absolutely the same with them. Why? Because it is still you who is desiring! Let's reflect on this hypothetical: You are 33, in a relationship for 3 years, physically and financially well; however things aren't going well between you and your partner. To get a better understanding of the current situation we need to Let's start from the begging of relationship. At the beginning it was the desire of connecting with someone else physically or mentally - I'll leave that to your own judgement. This desire, as we know, could have had two motive love and fear. In the case with the former - it was your willingness to share your happiness with someone else in a romantic way; as an example for the opposite, the following fits well: "I'm 30 and still single, if I don't find someone now, I'll be forever alone!". The first case brings positivism, while the second one is brings desperation and anxiety. You eventually meet a person who is charming, not ill mannered, funny, a bit weir but nothing extraordinarily. You get together and eventually move in together. In the first case you kept your positivism radiate and enjoyed your time with your partner; in the second case your fears and anxiety made you act in a way that's not natural for you and keeping acting up slowly but surely builds up into a lot of stress, and you are afraid that your partner won't accept you for who you are and won't forgive you the deception. Eventually, tension builds up between the two of you. In the first case you reach out to your partner, asking them what's wrong and have you done anything wrong, but the last time they said something mean to you and you're hurt. In the opposite case, you dodge these conversations and think to yourself "why won't they leave me alone", until someday you actually reply to them "oh, just let me breathe for a minute!". In the first case you forgive them, because you love them; in the second case even though the stress of not being yourself in this relationship suffocates you, but you still not coming forward or breaking up, because of the fear of being alone after that. One more year passes in a likely manner, and now you are at the end of your strengths for keeping this up and you need to make a decision...
Perhaps, you already realized how you can be either of these partners, where the situation is going depending on you letting be controlled by your love or your fears. What is key here is if you'll let your Will take over. Let's see what could happen if you do. Even though you love your partner with all your being you are only being hurt by them. You are anxious if this will be one of your somewhat decent evenings together or just another "scandaletti" Bolognese - arguing loudly, throwing things in your anger, and shutting door in such a manner that your neighbors the next block know that it's time for their favorite TV show. Then you cry because this is not your normal behavior and you can no longer cope with that. You break up with them and move out. You patch your aching heart and move on. Or do you? You often think of your partner and check the social media profile. You often fantasize about being able to fix the things before they broke up. You being thinking that you were able to do so much better. You believe it in your heart. You ignore your friends telling you to let them go, because you know that you are able to make them happy. Until one day you meet with your ex in a club and after a few drinks and spending the night together, you decide to give this relationship a go, only to spend the next 5 years just like the previous two and then you are heart broken, alone and already hooked on anti-depressants. 5 years later your are still alone, while your partner is in a healthy relationship with your no-longer-best friend. In the other case, you eventually are so fed up with your act and seeing your partner hurt, that you come forward and confess to them that you don't like the movies you are watching, that some of their friends are really annoying, that you want to have a dog, that you miss the hobby you abandoned in favor of this relationship, that the pain your act is causing your partner hurts you, too. You partner breaks down in tears not knowing what to say. Embarrassed, you leave your partner alone in the room and go out to clear your head. It's time for have dinner, so you go back home. There's plenty of food on the table, but nobody speaks, nor eats. You say "good night" and but instead of your bed in the bedroom you lay down thinking of how to move out as soon as possible and all the hurt that you've caused. The voice of your partner interrupts your thoughts - "It's okay. I chose the movies, because I thought you like them. My friends are a bit annoying to me sometimes, but I thought that you like them. We can get a dog, and you can show me your hobby. It won't happen if you leave tomorrow!". Your partner's willingness to forgive you flushes the tear canals in your eyes. 5 years later you are still together, you've got two kids. Instead of going to the cinema, the 4 of your are going out in the near park, accompanied by your 5 y.o. golden retriever. When you get back home, you have the dinner in the kitchen, furnished with furniture, which you made in your backyard - from the chairs, to table, and to the cupboard. And they your partner says "I'm so happy I didn't do the same mistake, which my then-best-friend did all those years ago!" I believe you are now able to see the consequences of letting love and fear take over the control of your life. In the first case, we saw how the loving desire to make someone else's happy transformed into the fear of into the fear of not being good enough, the fear of losing something of ours. Both of which are illusions: you did your best by projecting love towards your partner for such a long time; even though you say "my partner" - they were never a possession of yours. Don't let doubt diminish your efforts, and don't forget that you were with someone because you wanted to be with them and make them happy - if they are not happy with you, don't force the relationship on them. And if you truly love them, you'd remain friends with your ex and your best friend and let their happiness proxy your own. In the second example choosing love over fear is realized in personal growth (speaking the truth), acceptance and forgiveness. This inevitably leads to a balance, where the mind becomes full, observant and aware (Will).
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