It has been
a while. I’ve had a lot of time to think, observe, and discuss my favourite
topic – Love. Ironically, while my life has changed completely in my search for
love as I am just months away from being married – so many things are still the
same. Love is not easy. Love is work, it is a commitment to risk – the greatest
risk a human could experience – heart break. In life, you can recover from just
about anything – losing your job, your house, your money. There is always the
possibility of something waiting around the next corner. In fact, you can, in
many ways control this.
Love,
however, is out of your control. You cannot “make” someone love you. You cannot
“keep” someone for yourself. When it is lost, it leaves a tremendous scar in its
place. This isn’t a bad thing, but it sure does hurt like hell. It’s simply an
experience. Anyone reading this who can relate is nodding their head in
agreement – it hurts like hell. Unlike a job or a home, you can’t just fix this
scar. Instead, you learn to live with it. You understand that you can go on,
that better is possible. Once you get there, you know that a life with love is
worth the risk and better than the alternative – life without love.
Where the
work comes in is in living with that scar. In the internal struggle to put the
pain behind you and work against your own instinct to guard your heart. This
instinct tells you that your heart is not safe, and should be protected. This
controls the fear that creeps up when things aren’t perfect, it makes you NEED
reassurance when you don’t. It makes you feel anxious and craving safety. For
most of us, it forces you to pull back with everything in you. To shut down or
shut off the risk of threat. Overcoming this takes work. Staying open, patient,
confident and vulnerable requires more strength than being hardened, guarded
and safe. Strength takes work.
There aren’t
many people in this world that walk into life and rock it without putting in
some work. You can’t master a sport by picking up a ball. Yet, we have those
same expectations of ourselves when it comes to love. That we should just be
good at it. That we aren’t allowed to screw up, to have a bad day, to worry. We
get frustrated with ourselves, with our love interests. We worry when someone’s
behaviour changes from what it used to be. When the texts do not arrive like
they did yesterday. When we gave up too many of our secrets and have a sense we’ve
scared someone off. When we sit, and think…
The work
begins at quieting the mind. Accepting and being present in a moment instead of
forecasting the next one. Things change, yet the themes remain the same.
Observing friends still on the dating scene, friends married many years, and
friends in the same place as me, about to be married – the struggles aren’t
that different. We all face moments where we want to guard and protect the one
thing we can’t fix or control – our heart. Wounds heal. Scars are simply
reminders. They should be seen as reminders of our strength, not our weakness.
A reminder that the heart is strong enough to carry on. We need to continue to
work at keeping the guard down. If your heart is out of sight, how can another
heart love it?
