On Love
“The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.” -Ram Dass
This month can throw even the most stable and content of us into a space of dissatisfaction, merely because there is a day on our calendar that sanctions us to celebrate LOVE. It sets many of us up to have expectations for ourselves and our partners to come through for each other in a “special” way. It’s “extra” from how we give and receive love on the other 364 days out of the year. With this added bit of pressure, we scrutinize ourselves and our relationships until we have dissolved into a mindset of scarcity, sometimes even questioning the relationships we are in. Those who are not partnered can get extra spun, as we imagine those who are in relationships experiencing something that we don’t get to have. It can be a rough day for everyone.
I first realized this when I was six years old sitting in my living room, Elmer’s glue in hand, decorating my Valentines’ Day Nike shoe “mail box” replete with puffy heart stickers and red tissue paper, when it occurred to me that maybe no one would give me a Valentine. My mom, always diplomatic and inclusive, innocently had the class list out and was checking each name to make sure I didn’t exclude anyone lest their feelings be hurt. She had just finished her monologue about how sad a child might be if they didn’t get a Valentine in their box when imaginative little me, on the spot, created an entire scene fit for a CBS after school special where I was the star discovering my Nike Mail box was empty at the party while all the other children read their Conversation Hearts out loud to each other while laughing and point at my empty shoe box. A “Scarcity around love” seed was planted.
It grew deeper roots in high school. The announcement was made over the intercom a week before the big day to go to the office and purchase our flowers and fill out our little cards to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. One dollar per carnation, proceeds go to student council, and you can send a flower to as many people as you want; white for friendship, pink for crush and red for love. I would self consciously go to the office to pick up my flowers and, though savvier than my first grade self, would casually take an inventory of how many flowers I received in comparison to those around me in my homeroom class. The red flowers were most valuable. Everyone knew it. Celebrating “love” innocently became something like a commodity to earn or maybe even to give me worth.
Now in adulthood, we have Instagram, Facebook and other ways to compare how we are measuring up; pictures of bouquets of flowers, hearts and initials etched in the sand, or other displays of people publicly professing their love. When I am clear, I want these couples to celebrate. Humanity needs more joy. We must celebrate the good, anything good, as often as we can! When I remember love is not a limited resource, it is infinite and unending, then someone else’s experience of love is not a threat, it is a celebration and part of this connection we all have with one another. I can look at the couple in the corner of the restaurant holding hands and I can smile; good relationships exist, this is good news for all of us.
Conversely, when I witness someone else’s happiness and it hurts me it is a wake up call for me to see I am in a comparison state which is as low of a vibration as scarcity. If I’m perceiving love to be like a pizza*, only so many slices to go around, as opposed to the infinitely renewable resource that it is, I become demanding of those who love me. I become a dictator in the name of love*. It is time to become very quiet with myself and remember who I am. I breathe. I listen in to the voice that has always been with me, the voice of love and as I dissolve into love, my ego fades. I’m not thinking about loving, I’m just being love, radiating like the sun. (Adapted from Ram Dass)
So, however you choose to celebrate or not celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, may you experience Big L Love to the fullest. Knowing a sparkly red and white packaged excuse to go out to dinner can be so fun and romantic or it may be more your style to wear black in silent protest of the commercialized Hallmark holiday. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. Wherever you land, observe your thoughts around what can feel emotionally charged and become quiet as you suggest to yourself the idea that you already exist in Love. Remember that what happens to us is not often the thing that causes us the most suffering, it is our thoughts around what happens to us*. Observe your thoughts and then move into the next moment where Love is always waiting for you.