Category: relationships

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket –safe, dark, motionless, airless– it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. – C.S. LEWIS

LOVE IS DIFFICULT

They say that love is difficult. They say that it will consume you, all of you, and that you will never be the same again.

You will be exposed to heartaches. You will experience pain, pain unlike the ones you’ve experienced before.

They say that once you love, there can be no turning back. Once your eyes are opened, you can never close them again. You’d have departed your childish innocence, that fairy tale world where nothing ever goes wrong and nothing ever comes unexpected.

Love is difficult. Why desire it?

None can judge which is far better than the heart that needs to answer such things for herself.

They say that love is difficult. But it is not easiness that I seek. Life is a struggle in itself. Look where there is no struggle, and all you can see is a world bereft of life and of consciousness.

You can never truly lose anything unless you have possessed something first. You can never grieve of loss less you have possessed something great, something that gave value to your life.

Difficult as it is, love is wonderful, and it is worth all the troubles other people may try to warn you about. Living a full life, risking to lose something wonderful. To love is indeed the one purpose a person desires to live his life for. Life always chooses to be born, to be experienced, and to be aware of the beautiful path we walk upon each day.

“But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.”
-Kahlil Gibran

LOVE IS ALWAYS WITHIN OUR REACH

Love is always within our reach. There isn’t a point in time when we can’t find love. There isn’t a place where we can’t be found by love. When God made our souls, He made sure we could always commune with love.

We may be parted with another person, but neither death nor distance could part us away from the love we have for our beloved.

We may be years away from making our dreams come true, but our love for that dream is already present in our hearts.

We may be in grief, yet even grief could never send away comforting hugs and warm hands that care.

We may be in poverty, yet no poverty could block away God’s abundant love being showered upon us night and day.

Love is always with us, within us and around us, guiding us, waiting for us, always ready to abide with us and to fill in us the deepest cries of our hearts.

WHY DO WE NEED SOMEONE TO LOVE?

Why do we need someone to love?

Because it gives us a purpose, a purpose other than our own selves.

Because it gives meaning to everything we do. We need that person for whom we could offer our work, our time, our beauty, our best ideals, our noblest thoughts, our purest intentions.

Because we need someone else to see that we still exist. Without someone else, what could all the Universe mean but empty space?

Because it keeps us from being stuck within ourselves and helps the life we have to flow outwards unto another. Without that other person, we are not prompted to grow, we are not allowed to get out of our own prisons but remain just as we have always been, almost motionless, almost without need to be freed.

Because we want to feel that we matter, and that it makes sense to know that we are still alive, and that it has made a difference that we have ever lived. When we return to dust from which we have come, what proof shall there be that we really have a soul if we have not loved at all?

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.
I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved,
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies. – Dark Night

Related Article: WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME EVEN IF I’M NOT PERFECT?

“If you will love me I cannot promise you that I will not hurt you. I cannot promise you that I will not make you cry and that I’ll never break your heart. But if you will love me, I will bare my whole self naked before you, and I will reveal to you my soul. If you will love me, you can be certain that it is I that you will love, not a mask that fools you and gives you only what your eyes desire to see. If you will love me, you can be certain that you will love the depths of me, all of me that is in me, and I in turn will love you with all of me, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my spirit, with all my flaws and beauty, and with all my very heart.” READ MORE…

I believe that there is a hunger in each and every person to be loved.

Our question now is why we can’t often feel that we are loved as much as we wanted to be loved. Why can’t we fill that hunger to the full? Why can’t we feel that we are truly loved?

1. Because we are not showing others who we really are

Unless we are able to show our true selves, we can’t achieve true intimacy. Even if we get others to love the masks we wear, we would still feel lonely because we know that the person they love isn’t the person we really are.

This is the reason why many books about making someone fall in love with you or getting your ex back doesn’t work. These books tell only half the story. They cater to what the other person wants to see, not to how we are truly seen.

If you want to be loved as you are, you have to have the courage to reveal who you really are and to be loved for that, warts and all, strengths and weaknesses, beauty and flaws.

2. Because we are not allowing ourselves to receive love

There are many of us who would rather give love than receive love. It is good if we are not really starving for love deep within and if we are overflowing with love from a greater Source, from God. But if we are merely trying to hide that hunger and if we are afraid to ask for what we need, how could we ever receive love? Sometimes, we also have to give others the chance to care for us. Let us not let our pride get in the way of receiving love.

3. Because we are not acknowledging other people’s ways of loving us

We may not feel loved because we are not acknowledging other people’s ways of loving us. Other people may not always say that they love us, but they may show it by their works, by their loyalty and devotion. We may not always receive the most expensive gifts, but our beloved may already be giving us his very best. There are different ways of showing love, but only we could decide if we are going to receive the love we are shown.

4. Because we devote more time and attention to people who don’t really care for us

Why do we spend so much time with people who don’t really care for us? We build our world around these people and then feel shattered when we can’t receive from them all that we have expected from the start. When they tell us they don’t care, we say to ourselves, “nobody really cares”, when we know that isn’t true. Only a few people didn’t care, and their coldness blinded our eyes from receiving what other people around us can still offer us. Let us learn to let go of those people who don’t really love us and let us give more time to those who truly care.

Love isn’t always that far away. We may just be looking at different things or we may not be looking closely enough to see it.

How much of our stress can be attributed to being ‘forced’ to do something we don’t really like to do? As we try to figure out what it is we’d really like to be doing, other voices around us keep nagging us to do things his way and her way. We hear how we must do this and that, and how we must do it in such a way – their way, not ours.

Nobody has the right to force us to do anything we don’t like to do. Even God gives us the power to choose between life and death, between good and evil. This is our freedom, and our freedom is our sole responsibility.

Much of our stress comes from the conflict between our freedom and between our desire for peace. We don’t want further arguments, and so we just say yes. We don’t want to displease anyone and so we displease ourselves until time comes when we’ve harbored enough resentment against the very people we tried to please. In the end, nobody really wins.

On the other hand, much of our stress comes also from the thought that we are being forced to do many things when we are truly not being told to do so. What we may have is a subconscious programming at the back of our minds that prompts us to take one obligation after another based on some prior experience we can’t even remember. Are we really being forced to dosomething? Or is it just our overcritical conscience that does that? Where is your guilt really coming from? Is it from the current situation? Or is it from the past where you failed to do something you felt you ought to do?

Release yourself from such kinds of stress. The current moment is already challenging enough, don’t take with you so much burden from the past or from imagined obligations. Do something not because you were forced to, but because you chose to. Or better yet, do something because you want to, because of love.

Some people are givers, they have much to give to others and many people benefit from their generosity.  There are times however when these people give so much that they feel drained from within, and there is nobody who is able to replenish them back. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt as though you’re giving more than you’re receiving and that sooner or later, you’d have nothing to give anymore?

Why do you feel as though you’re giving too much?  What are some of the possible reasons you continue to give without being able to receive enough?

• To please others and win their love
• To please others and avoid confrontation
• Not to hurt people and fail their expectations
• Because it is your obligation, you are required
• Because you are threatened with punishment and fear i.e. God’s punishment and rejection

If you’ve had the above mentioned reasons in mind, you may want to re-consider the following reasons:

• For the good of others, not just their being pleased (See also “We Need More Than Kindness”)
• For the love of what you do
• For your own growth

You may also want to think about the reasons why you feel you’re not receiving enough.

Why Aren’t You Receiving Enough?

• Not asking for help due to fear of rejection
• Not asking for help due to experience with people who ignored your needs and failed to help you in the past
• Strong beliefs on martyrdom and the need for sacrifice
• Help is actually being provided by God but not recognized or not in the form you want
• Image of a demanding God requiring/ needing something from you

If you feel that you’re giving more than you’re receiving, you may need to think about the reasons why you seem to be giving so much as well as the reasons why you’re not receiving as much help as you need.

You should also note your own limitations in giving –  you may not have respected your limits often and you felt you always had to give even when you already can’t.

On the other hand, you may need to seek out more people who can also support you back, people who also have a lot of things to give and who would be more than happy to give of themselves to you.

God knows you and your limitations.  You need not carry the burden of the whole world upon your shoulders; He’s already done that for you!  In times when you can no longer carry on, let Him carry you! (See also “Why Is My Cross Heavier?”)