Tatiana Khodakova
“Love cannot be found, but it can be felt”
Love is the basis of our life and its reason. True, the image of Love often has so many layers, due to which a person stops feeling love.
Love is always unconditional, but relationships are not quite so. And if a person begins to get confused in the perception of these concepts, then he/she might fall into the trap of thinking this way.
For example, such questions can arise: “I love this person, so why do I feel bad around him? I like this activity, why do I earn so little? I love my parents, why do I feel so hard around them?”
Hard, bad, little – these criteria have nothing to do with love (it cannot be measured), but these criteria can relate to the relationships (personal, work, parental).
Love is unconditional, otherwise it is not love,
but precisely the layering that we pull from (any) relationships and put on Love.
Love often goes together with care, guardianship, responsibility, guilt, pain, need, usefulness, etc. We experience all of the above in our relationships. But the presence of (any) relationship does not equal love. For example, a nanny can take care of a child, you can be responsible for fulfilling job instructions, an accountant can transfer your salary, a cook in a restaurant can prepare food for you, a taxi driver can take you to work – there is a relationship between you, but you do not necessarily love these people. Yes, all these people can do the above with love, but they do not necessarily have to love you personally.
I will use the metaphor of the “Sun”. I love the sun. I love it unconditionally. I love it when it shines and when it is not visible (at night or on a cloudy day). I do not stop loving it, even when I know that it does not reciprocate my feelings. I realize that if I stay under its rays for a long time on a hot day, my skin may suffer, so I either protect my skin with clothes or go into the shade, but at the same time I do not stop loving the sun, blaming it for the fact that it warms too much. I do not stop loving the sun in winter, when it is an infrequent guest in my life. I love the sun unconditionally, and no one can take this love away. Yes, I know that the sun shines not only for me, I know that the “life tasks” of the sun have nothing to do with me at all. But I am happy when the sun is there. I choose to spend time with it when its warmth is gentle and not scorching, I wait for the sun to appear in winter, and sometimes I wait for it to go behind a cloud in summer, sometimes I forget about its existence at all. My love for the sun cannot be taken away from me. And I build a relationship with the sun: I distance myself when I am hot, I open up to it when I want warmth, I learn to live without it in the winter months. I do not demand from the sun to change the temperature to a comfortable one for me, I do not complain that it has “hidden” behind the rain and fog. My life goes on, even when I do not see the sun and do not remember it, but inside I know – the sun is there!!! And also, at some point, I can choose to love the Moon, without ceasing to love the Sun.
Relationships with people are not unconditional
I can love a person, but the conditions around him/her may not be suitable for me, no matter how much I “dress up”, trying to adapt to his/her “wi-fi”. But when I realize that this person is like this, he/she lives his own life, not being designed by me, I can love him/her (who will forbid me?), but choose to live in those conditions that correspond to my desires and needs. Because my desires and needs are hatt makes me myself.
A person is not the sun. If I adapt, then my life will be a satellite, eternally moving in the orbit of someone’s life. I can love unconditionally and at the same time choose in what conditions I personally live. If next to him/her I have to constantly walk in a “helmet and bulletproof vest on the shards of a stele”, then what stops me from loving him/her on a distance? The only thing that stops me is that Love and Relationships are “stuck” together. If you “unstick” them, you may discover an interesting fact – you never loved this person. Love does not end or pass. But loving and living together are not the same thing, although they may coincide.
If we separate the concepts of “Love” and “Relationships” in the psyche, understanding that Love is unconditional, and relationships are still conditional, then it turns out that I can love and at the same time live in favorable conditions. It is best to start establishing contact with unconditional love for yourself, greeting yourself with the warmth of the inner sun. If it seems that I do not love myself unconditionally, but I love others, then it only seems that I love others. I love others unconditionally – this is when I do not want to change them and at the same time I realize that I can choose the distance between us. Relationships (any) can be filled with love, but it is not in our power to make someone filled with love. But when we are filled with Love ourselves, we simply cannot choose a relationship without love. Any!
Photo by Wesley Tingey
Translated by Maria Zayats
Read also:
Love is not a need or a cold shower for the mind
What does woman give to relationship
Татьяна Ходакова
Практический психолог
Интегративный подход
