Love is easily misunderstood. We chase our tails wishing and hoping to be loved, while at the same time seemingly blind to our longing for it. Love is simply knowing our own essence, and opening to it. Being intimate with someone is an opportunity to dive into Love more fully. Unfortunately we often look to the other  person as our source and supply of love instead of as the excuse to celebrate and express the Love that we are. This  can lead to pain and heart-ache- which are in some ways the inevitable hot-house for discovering where we have lost sight of the truth about Love.

I enjoyed the following piece, by Gina Lake:

“To love, we have to fall in love with reality—with what’s true right now, not with what might be true in the future or with what we want to be true in the future. Love happens in the now (like everything, really). That’s why the ego doesn’t know about love—because love is the experience of being in the now, or the present moment, and as soon as the ego experiences the now, it runs from it. Commitment takes a willingness to fall in love with reality—with the real partner who is in front of you—rather than seek something else, either actually or through fantasy. What you commit to is what’s here right now. Who knows what will be here next? All you ever really have is what’s here right now, so it makes sense to commit to that, in other words, to give your full attention—your love—to that.

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Life brings people into our lives for various reasons, and sometimes we have to be willing to stretch ourselves to gain what can be gained from a relationship or tap the love that is possible. Relationships, like life, aren’t meant to be easy, although they can be deeply rewarding. Commitment makes it possible to tap the potential of a relationship. If you give up on a relationship after the first blush is gone, you may never realize this potential. Sexual union often becomes the glue that keeps people together long enough to begin to experience true love or learn what they need to learn from each other. Nature has a way of bringing about spiritual lessons and spiritual growth. Sexual attraction is one of the ways Essence brings people together and keeps them together long enough to benefit from each other and grow.

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The ego doesn’t appreciate growth, and it’s not in relationship for that, or for love really. Its unwillingness to commit and to grow often prevents a relationship that could be a very good one from becoming that. It is forever chasing after the perfect “10,” which doesn’t exist. But it’s difficult to convince the ego of that. It believes in its fantasies. To the ego, it’s only a matter of time before “the one” shows up. Hope springs eternal.

Essence experiences “the one” in whomever is showing up, and that’s the difference between Essence and the ego. It’s possible to love whoever shows up in your life. In fact, it’s very wise to do that if you want to be happy. If you don’t want to be happy, you will reject whoever shows up in your life. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be discriminating. Loving and saying yes to those who show up in your life doesn’t mean getting sexually involved with them unless you want to. Essence says yes to them—is open to them—because it is curious. And then it is very wise about getting more involved with them. Essence commits itself to someone only when love is flowing in both directions and the relationship is rewarding on many levels. The ego, on the other hand, may commit out of sexual attraction or because some other need is met through that relationship, which is not a good basis for commitment.”

From Choosing Love: How to Find True Love and Keep It Alive by Gina Lake