Looking for love in all the wrong places

Where there is love, there is life. Mahatma Gandhi

To the particularly observant reader, it may not have escaped your attention that I got as far as my seventh intention, love, made a brief foray into self-love, and with a deft magician’s sleight of hand went back to the first chakra.

Like many, I have had a tumultuous relationship with romantic love. I have far too active an imagination to ever really see another person as they are. As such I fall for the most beautiful Narcissus I can find, and try to heal his wounds with my love. (As a side note to those who haven’t tried this yet, it doesn’t work.)

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person. Chuck Palahniuk

In the past I have been severely burned by this weakness in myself. My last love broke my heart, not by any misdemeanour of his, but simply because he could not live up to the Mr Darcy fantasy I held in my mind. I kept waiting for the revelation to hit him that he had it all wrong, and could I ever forgive him enough to allow him to worship me forever. (I blame Jane Austen and the Brontes entirely for this blind spot of deluded thinking…)

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. Jane Austen

Aw! Jelly legs… Right, where was I? Love.

The events of this week have illuminated a gnawing concern in me. A concern that, as a society completely consumed with sex and romance, we have forgotten how to love.

This concern resurfaced as a result of the violent rampage in America, committed by a young man – who shall remain nameless – apparently as a result of his feeling ‘rejected by women.’ There are so many issues here, there are gender issues, gun issues, possibly mental health issues. I do not intend to add to what has already been written about these. Beyond all these issues, what is common to this crime along with so many violent crimes, is the hatred, powerlessness, and alienation felt by an increasing number of young males in our society.

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. Anaïs Nin

You only need read the comments about this rampage in online forums to see the plethora of support for this perpetrator, by men who seem to connect with his pain at being ‘denied’ sex, which these (note NOT all) young men seem to equate with their divine right as men, and as something being ‘withheld’ from them by women.

The perpetrator was a young man who had grown up with every privilege money could buy, and yet obviously felt deeply alone and unhappy, with a complete inability to form meaningful relationships with women.

I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing. Neil Gaiman

It is becoming apparent that the spoils of Western culture are not inherently satisfying. At the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold leaves the bearer with a gaping hunger for meaning. It is achingly apparent that those with great wealth, but without love and compassion for their fellow humans, are desperately unhappy. You need only look at the richest woman in Australia, Gina Rinehart. For all her money, she has alienated her family, and has the demeanour of a rather miserable woman.

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel

A disclaimer here, these are my mental meanderings, my thoughts. I don’t pretend to have any definitive answers, only musings and more questions. If you don’t like what I am saying, don’t read it, write your own blog, or punch a pillow. On the other hand, if you have any constructive feedback or input, I’d love to hear it.

I picked up Naomi Wolf’s book, Vagina: A biography, yesterday. It’s a fabulous book, I’m loving it. I have found myself laughing out loud in identification with Wolf’s experience. The point of the book is that the vagina is not just a sex organ, it is intricately linked to a women’s nervous system and brain, and to her spiritual and creative self. Her ‘Goddess’ energy as Wolf coins it.

Having just investigated my solar plexus chakra, the seat of personal power, and uncovered a disturbing trend in my life to have this power subverted in a myriad of ways, I am becoming convinced that many of the ills of this world stem from our subversion of the natural dance of our sexuality and creative fire. Oh God, I sound like Freud!

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. William Shakespeare

One of the beautiful things Wolf writes is how many men talk with endearing fondness of the privilege of feeling ‘welcomed’ and ‘accepted’ during sex. It made me think of that boy who went on the killing spree, was that what he so desperately sought? And had our society somehow instilled in him that the problem was, not that he needed to develop himself into the kind of man who could be ‘received’ and ‘accepted’ by a woman, but that he was being ‘blocked’ by the women he objectified?

Now, please don’t misunderstand, I am in no way justifying his actions, I am merely trying to understand, not just the actions of one man, but the stream of male supporters who came out in his wake. There seems to be a serious problem with the perception of sex and power going on with young men, and possibly young women, that I am desperately trying to understand.

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. John Lennon

You see, I view our human interactions as a dance, so there is no way one partner can be out of step without it affecting the flow of the whole dance. And of course, this delusion of entitlement for and denial of sex, that some young men seem to feel, affects other young men and women too, of course it does, they get emotionally, verbally, and physically abused as a result of this. As we have so tragically seen this week, they get killed.

You may be asking, what this has to do with seven intentions? Well, everything really. As I become more and more convinced of the interconnectness of absolutely everything, I realise I can’t turn away from this stuff, as much as I wish to. It affects my sense of the world. How can I manifest my glorious intentions in a world where we can’t even stop people from hurting one another? Peace and compassion are things I desire far more than a home or more money.

I guess it brings me back to a place of questioning everything. If there is a universal energy of love, light, and connectness, why do such awful things happen? And in order for me to continue on my quest, I have to try to make some sense of it.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Martin Luther King Jr

What I keep coming back to is, a strong, intuitive belief, that by raising my level of thinking I do have an effect in the world. That by addressing my negative, fearful, judgemental, angry thought-forms, and by transmuting them into prayers of love and light, the flow-on effect of that energy is THE most powerful thing I can do. And if by writing this, I help someone else shift from fear and anger into compassion and love, then the power increases.

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. Zelda Fitzgerald

Well, now they have. The Institute of HeartMath has demonstrated that the electromagnetic field around a human heart radiates out in a radius of several feet. Given that this electromagnetic energy connects us all with everything else, it makes sense to me that if my heart is radiating love, I can have a profound effect on the world around me. And if a decent sized chunk of the population is radiating love at the same time, then bada bing bada boom.

Just look at the Intention Experiment conducted recently on a veteran suffering from PTSD. I was part of the first experiment where you could watch live as this man’s brain levels shifted from anxiety to calm, as tens of thousands of people around the world meditated for his healing. It was truly awesome.

The heart produces by far the body’s most powerful rhythmic electromagnetic field, which can be detected several feet away by sensitive instruments. Research shows our heart’s field changes distinctly as we experience different emotions. It is registered in people’s brains around us and apparently is capable of affecting cells, water and DNA studied in vitro. Growing evidence also suggests energetic interactions involving the heart may underlie intuition and important aspects of human consciousness. Institute of HeartMath

In my humble opinion, the Western culture is based on a lie about love. The lie goes something like this: I am incomplete as a human being until I find my one true love who will fulfil me in every way, especially sexually, and make my life complete. Sorry to burst the bubble folks, but that’s not love, it’s love addiction and codependency. It is only by becoming a whole person that we can love ourselves and ever hope to have meaningful, loving relationships with others.

Romantic love is an addiction: a perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly. Helen Fisher

Check out this fascinating TED talk on The Brain In Love:

 

On balance, there is always more love than evil happening in the world. I know this is not what the mass media tells us, but it’s true. Even in a war zone there are people helping their neighbours, loving their children, creating beautiful art and music, and making love. I wonder what would happen if we could all hold this thought together. That the world and its people are more loving than hating, more loving than fearful, more loving than hurtful.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always. Mahatma Gandhi

So you may say I’m naive and impossibly romantic, but I am making an intention to love and love and love and love, more and more each day, no matter what. And as I believe we are all connected, at some level you will all feel this too, even if it’s just the lightest flap of butterfly wings along your cheek, that for one small moment makes you ever-so-imperceptibly smile.

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart). E.E. Cummings

Affirmations by Dr Carmen Harra and Louise Hay:

A river of compassion washes away my anger and replaces it with love.

Deep at the centre of my being there is an infinite wellspring of love. I now allow this love to flow to the surface.

Love fills my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very being, and radiates out from me in all directions and returns to me multiplied.

The more love I use and give, the more I have to give, the supply is endless.

The use of love makes me feel good; it is an expression of my inner joy.

Bless!

Title image:

whyloveactually.com