I am always called to my Yoga mat when I am grappling with something I
cannot identify or understand. There, I find the space and quiet to focus and
listen, to feel. A safe place to allow the truth, whatever it looks like, to
surface. Tonight, the message I needed to hear was loud and clear. The practice
was dedicated to courage - leaning into your fears with courage.
I’ve always held this vision of what love was. It was as simple and
clear cut as the fairytales, the gushy feeling you get watching a romantic
comedy, thinking someday someone with love me like that! It’s the lovely red
roses and pretty pink hearts that line the retail stores the same time each
year. It comes complete with its own set of rules, expectations, what ifs, and
shoulds.
Then I fell in love. The love that came to me did not look like the
fairy tales, but it turned into one. It fumbled and it ebbed, and it flowed
into my life in a way that left me helpless to resist it. I settled into that
feeling. Stepping and mis-stepping my way according to what the world told me
of a topic I never knew.
Love is, arguably, the most basic and most complicated of all
emotions. We are born to love. We start out exposed to the deepest kind –
unconditional love. We are not afraid,
we immediately put all of our faith and trust into our parents. They feed us,
and clothe us and raise us. We are free to be ourselves as we are so confident
and comfortable in the love that surrounds us. Until that one time, we cross a
line somewhere, and that display of love changes. It somehow takes a shift
towards something more conditional. We notice the same around us as our lives
mingle with lives of others. We start to appreciate what love feels like to lose.
We learn that love can be withheld for any number of reasons – our behaviour is
not favourable, a decision or choice is not in line with another, we even learn
that some may not like our appearance, our success or lack thereof. Suddenly,
we are left to question – does unconditional love actually exist?
It turns out there is something worth more than any currency in the
world, love. It is the only thing that can bring us things that money cannot
buy. Love can lift, fill, heal and hurt. It is something so powerful that we
are often faced to question whether the potential loss of love is worth allowing
it into our lives.
Over the course of my dating experience, I have loved, withheld love,
lost love, and tried to earn love. I have reasoned with it, studied and
analyzed it, made it logical, and illogical. The only thing that hasn’t changed
has been my desire to love and be loved, wholly - unconditionally.
Tonight, I laid in silence in the softness of candlelight on my yoga
mat, and realize that what I struggle with is the summing up the courage it
takes to lean into my fear of losing love and to offer it unconditionally. To
stand still, open my heart and love a person without fear or condition. It is
far from logical. It cannot nor should it have to be earned.
Love does not live with the butterflies in your stomach. It is felt and understood in the darkest
moments, when you can let the guard down, give and receive love, especially
when it hurts. It is in trusting someone enough to be who you are, imperfectly
beautiful. A flawed human who allows themselves
to makes mistakes, say the wrong thing at the wrong time, and the right thing
at the wrong time. Real Love is unconditional. It is not given to get. It is
not available at a price. It does not disappear in a moment or a bad mood. Real
love does not end. It is blind to logic and more importantly fearless,
faithful, and accepting,
Are you ready for the unconditional love that you seek? Are you
capable of giving it?
