The new year brings a change for this Natural Success column. Past articles have been about issues of the mind, one of the five Natural Success areas of life. With Valentine’s Day coming, it’s perfect timing to shift the focus to love, another important area of life.
An old method for single girls to discover the identity of their future husbands on Valentine’s Day was to write the names of prospective gentlemen on scraps of paper and roll each name in a ball of clay. They dropped the clay balls into water and the first piece of paper that floated to the top was the lucky man. If love were only that easy….
“To love or not to love?” That is the question. Is it worth it at all to have a relationship? What most people find after the flowers have wilted or the honeymoon is over is that relationships take a lot of hard work, like it or not.
What’s great about relationship, and about life in general, is that is spite of the work, you always learn more from it; you certainly never learn less. True love is centered on helping your partner grow whether you realize it or not. If you really know how to love, your partner will blossom. If you are less skilled at love, your relationship will point out the issues that you both need to work on; in this way you both grow.
One of my clients had difficulty getting along with her husband. It was not just making love that was difficult, but they had trouble with the basics of hugs and kisses. After I gave them some simple exercises to do, she felt closer to her husband, but she then began to discover deeper depression within herself that had to do with a lack of acceptance from her parents which she transferred to her husband. This shows that relationships provide a stage for growth beyond unresolved emotions.
Love is the catalyst for growth and the growing process is not always fun, but it’s valuable. Many people don’t want to get involved in a relationship because it has hurt too much in past experiences. What they don’t realize is the hurt was already within them and the relationship gave them an opportunity to work it out. Don’t blame it on the relationship; the relationship just brings out the areas for needed growth.
When your relationship isn’t going well or you have no relationship, you might feel subject to the idea, “Love is lost.” But how can you lose love? Love is not like a commodity that you give away and then have no more. Love is a universal energy that always exists and is never used up. You do, however, need to open yourself up to it to enjoy its splendor. If you feel no love or feel used up, that means you are hurt and/or angry and need to forgive yourself or another.
Buddhists don’t give much support to anger or hurt. When you’re feeling angry, let it out, but meanwhile the on-going work is to let go of being angry by seeing the greater “space” beyond the anger. When we see ourselves on a grander scale, we realize that we don’t want to be angry. There are enough bad feelings in the world. Deep in our hearts, all we want is to be nice and wonderful human beings. When we live in the greater space, peace and compassion readily come into our sphere to eliminate the need for anger or hurt.
Any love experience will only help to enrich. It’s like a bank account where whatever love you receive just adds up and whatever love you give, goes to another, but does not deplete your own account. You never lose at love because it is not something that you go out to win or lose at; it’s all a part of your growth. Love could be played like a game if you are a good sport, but it certainly is not worth being serious about if you have trouble losing.
If you ever worry about love being lost, don’t be alarmed because the love you give will make a difference to someone even if you don’t think so. Go for the love! Some mystics have said that being a householder, with a lover, teaches you more than being a solitary monk because you have to be worldly as well as spiritual. Make the most of Valentine’s Day! What have you got to lose?