How to distinguish between love and emotional dependence By Nirbhasa Magee on February 29, 2008 in life Myanmar childThe word ‘love’ is perhaps one of the most casually used terms in the English language – so much so that it has become an umbrella term for a whole variety of very different emotions! There is one thing we all agree on – that love is what makes the world go round, and that without it, the world is but a dry empty shell of a place. On the other hand, it is a word we very easily twist around to our own purposes to justify our emotional dependence on a person. If we can learn to distinguish love from emotional dependence and put this distinction into practice, then we make life more beautiful not only for us, but for everyone we come into contact with. 1. Learn to love yourself first Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven. ~William Shakespeare Often when we are emotionally dependent on someone, we are looking to them as a ‘filler’ to cover over and distract us from unresolved emotional issues in ourselves. In order to truly love someone, we first have to discover and explore what love is, and that means starting with the person you spend the most time with – yourself! We can often name our shortcomings far quicker than our positive qualities, and we are very quick to beat ourselves up for anything we didn’t do to our satisfaction. This all has to change. Try every day to identify your positive qualities and bring them more to the fore and increase them, and when you do make a mistake, try and see it as a ‘work-in-progress’ rather than an absolute failure. When your own self-love and self-respect increases, you are then able to approach relationships with others with much more equanimity. 2. Use the heart There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame of that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other. - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Along with the word ‘love’, the word ‘heart’ is often dragged in to many conversations and used to describe all manner of behaviour good and bad. When we talk about the heart we mean the space in the middle of the chest we point to when we say ‘this is me’ – the place we feel the essence of our being more than anywhere else. It is also where most of our higher and nobler qualities emanate from – empathy, kindness and love. Emotional attachment, on the other hand is a tangled up array of feelings from the mind and also from the emotional part of our being located closer to the navel. Because the sources of love and emotional attachment are located so lose together, they can and are often confused by the undiscerning person. However, setting aside some time each day for a practice of self-discovery and self-enquiry (e.g. meditation) will very quickly enable you to distinguish one from the other. 3. Don’t expect “When your love is pure or spiritual, there is no demand, no expectation. There is only the sweetest feeling of spontaneous oneness with the human being or beings concerned.” - Sri Chinmoy Social anthropologists often describe many human relationships like a contract – we give our love to a person and at the same time we subconsciously place all kinds of expectations on that person which we want them to fulfill. And then when the other person fails to sufficiently satisfy our demands (which will definitely happen from time to time – we’re all imperfect) we feel let down and angry with the person, our insecurity and fear of not being loved come to the fore, and we often resort to some kind of emotional manipulation to try and get them to fulfill our demands. True love, on the other hand is like the sun. The sun shines its rays and gives its warmth to all and sundry, without anything in return. This may sound like naivety to the calculating mind, but when we live in the heart we feel exactly like the sun does – we just want spread our love and goodwill anywhere we can. With this kind of love we have detachment – we have no fixed ideas about what way this love should be taken by others, the mere act of giving love satisfies our heart immensely. 4. Learn to let go Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. - Hermann Hesse Often we place mental restrictions on people we love, whether it be parents ‘living their dreams’ through their children, or someone ‘trapped’ in a relationship. True love means loving people for who they are, not trying to channel them into who you want them to be. The greatest service you can do to one whom you love is allow them to grow in to their soul’s highest potential – sometimes this will mean actively helping them, but other times this will mean recognising when you are standing in the way of that happening and getting out of the way! 5. The inner strength: patience and forgiveness “Patience serves as a protection against wrong as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you.” - Leonardo Da Vinci To develop love, we also have develop forgiveness and patience. To forgive someone, it helps to see beyond their surface imperfections and appreciate the beauty that lies deep within. Love always goes hand in hand with this recognition of inner beauty inside a person, and when we can see this inner beauty in a person and appreciate it, we help bring that beauty to the fore and perhaps prevent whatever unfortunate thing that person might have done from occurring again. This world of ours can seem like a downright unfair place at times, but developing this quality of love for everyone you meet allows you to rise above ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that people might throw at you and still keep your faith in humanity intact. Loving Difficult People By tejvan on December 15, 2008 in life wide It is easy to love people we like. It is more challenging to love difficult and awkward people. But, it is the nature of real love, that it encompasses all. Love should not be self serving – and in loving difficult people we learn its real meaning. In the words of Shakespeare (Sonnet 116): “…Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or Bends with the remover to remove. O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” But how to love difficult people? Look Beyond Defects Feel that a person’s defects and weaknesses are only a partial reflection of his real nature. Feel that behind their exterior personality there is their real self trying to break through. Often difficult people are seeking attention / love in irritating ways. They are like a child struggling to know what the right thing to do is. We don’t have to love their weaknesses, we are trying to love the self hidden underneath. Our Peace of Mind. Other people may give us reason to dislike them; we may even start hating them, but what do we gain by hating others? When we hate or condemn others we lose something precious in ourselves. When we judge others, it is often because we have that quality within ourselves. “Hate is often an obverse form of love. You hate someone whom you really wish to love but whom you cannot love.” - Sri Chinmoy When we love others without judgement it brings our own best qualities to the fore. If we love others, if we seek to see the good – even in difficult people, we will benefit tremendously and gain peace of mind. It is one of the great paradoxes – by loving unselfishly and unconditionally we benefit ourselves. Love does not Mean Acquiescence We can love people without agreeing with their bad behaviour. Nor do we have to agree with their demands and unreasonable expectations. Because a mother loves her child, the mother will reprimand the child when he places himself in danger. We can love a person whilst at the same time discouraging them from behaving badly. We can love the person whilst at the same time disliking some things they do. Empathy In their own way people are trying to do the right thing. At times, it may not feel like it; however, we can gain a lot through sympathetic understanding. We can try to feel that the mistakes they are making are something that we ourselves have done at various time. When there is a feeling of superiority there is no real love and oneness. But, if we can feel the other person as part of ourself then we will naturally have good will towards them. It is this ability to identify with others which enables a real feeling of love to develop. Don’t Expect to Change Them If we feel responsible for changing those whom we love, we will always be doomed to disappointment. Even our own kith and kin are responsible for their own lives. The biggest obstacle to loving difficult people is to think – I will love them, but, they have to become better people first. If we wait for people to become better before loving, then we will be doomed to disappointment. It is because people are imperfect that they need our compassion and understanding. If we can accept people as they are, then even difficult people we can appreciate. Related Posts: How To Distinguish Between Love and emotional dependence – The word ‘love’ is perhaps one of the most casually used terms in the English language – so much so that it has become an umbrella term for a whole variety of very different emotions!…. Photo by: Ranjit Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 06:32:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015