By Isabella: Love is like sand; it shifts and moves in formation to its surroundings. As the ocean ebbs and flows, small grains of sand flow back into the ocean while others become the beach you stroll upon.
I make this analogy to help you understand the flow, the tide and the impermanence of love. In Buddhism, they view it as one of their essential doctrines that, “Everything changes and nothing lasts forever.” From emotions to our thoughts and feelings, from the cells in our bodies to the plants around us, everything is changing and decaying continuously.
Love takes on many forms and morphs based on the giver and the receiver. To simplify, we attract what we are so if you are bitter because life burned you, you will draw a bitter fool. If you are jealous and controlling you will attract someone just like you. The metamorphosis of love exists that you may grow, evolve and learn from each affair, from every relationship. While most would prefer to find one lasting, loyal mate, it is rare. I get calls every day asking about “soulmates” and “twin souls” when the majority of humans will NOT find theirs in one lifetime. It often takes many lifetimes of healing and evolving before we are truly ready to meet our perfect match. The perfect match is the one that will stay with you until the end of your life. That isn’t meant to discourage you, for I too, believe that soulmates can and will find each other, but it usually comes when you least expect it, not when you try to force it. Hunting it down like a wild animal only serves to push it farther away.
The 20th century was full of soulmates finding one another: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, LBJ and Ladybird Johnson, Nancy and Paul Pelosi, and many of your parents and grandparents. What scattered us? Why did divorce become so predominant in the late 20th century and continue into the 21st? Choices, social media, fame whores (meaning those who crave being famous) and a change in morals and values. In the days of the Queen of England, divorce was viewed as a failure. Today we have easily become a disposable society. If something breaks now, we just replace it with a new one. Marriage seems to be a part of the same philosophy.
Love must be fluid to grow, and when two people come together it helps to have two things: a base understanding of psychology and the most important component is self-awareness. Psychology helps you understand what “projecting” is and how to de-escalate an argument, while self-awareness helps you recognize when you are projecting, harboring, are jealous, are being overly dramatic or are just trying to get attention. Many don’t see themselves as they are. You’ll find that in most relationships there is little worth fighting over. Money, taking things personally, flirtations, not listening to your partner, a lack of communication and attitude are the reasons most couples fight.
Learning to listen and hear are two different things. We typically hear through our own dysfunction and a filter that enables us to understand only what we want to. When you listen to your lover or anyone else for that matter, hear with an open heart.
For love to thrive, it must be able to move freely without restraints. The receiver must keep perspective in mind. We don’t see how we look when we are angry or yelling or fighting or sad or crying or any other emotion, but our partners do. When I was a young girl, my feelings for a man changed radically when he started flailing in the middle of a heated conversation. His entire face took on the form of a jackal, and I never looked at him the same way again. Having self-respect and personal dignity helps contain arguments. Having boundaries as to how you allow someone to speak to you or treat you is also key. If you let a partner scream at you, you have diminished your future with him/her. If you let a partner see you at your worst or god forbid on the commode, it changes things. Being comfortable with someone is great, but remember to maintain your self-respect. After counseling thousands of couples in my 30 year career, I can tell you that rarely does a relationship last when you’ve shown all your warts and acted in ways that are disgusting or revolting?
Remember that love feeds on beauty, it grows with understanding, it thrives with communication and it lasts through tenacity and compromise.
Love and Light,
Isabella
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