If you have ever loved someone deeply and madly, you must read this!
"A man who loves himself takes the first step towards the real love."- OSHO
Like a lot of us humans on the planet, I also once called myself ‘madly in love’.
A kind of love where I could not imagine even one moment of breath if I am not with the person that I loved the most.
Sometimes, life shakes you to the core so you can deeply get inside yourself and rediscover yourself.
This is a piece of writing about what love is in my own words. It is based on my understanding and experiences that life gave me. Honestly, I must say that this can be a hard fact for most of us to face and if you are a light-hearted one, then you may consider not reading this.
What is love to you?
Does it mean that you are so much in love with someone that you cannot imagine your world without them? Or does it mean that no matter what, you can give your everything to that someone special you are in love with even if it means giving away your own life?
If like the old me, you are also answering yes to these questions, it is time for a reality check. A reality check that can be a real eye-opener and something that can change your entire perspective about life and love.
What is Love?
As I started writing, I got very curious to read what Wikipedia has to say about the definition of love, and so, I quickly googled (our quickest answer to anything and everything).
I decided I am going to explain love from three different perspectives;
a definition by Wikipedia, an understanding from the psychological aspect and an explanation from a spiritual perspective.
Wikipedia about Love
Wikipedia says “Love is a mix of feelings and actions that shows a deep liking for someone or something.”
So, when we say we are attached to someone or our emotions and feelings are beyond control in our falling in love with someone, that is what we name as love.
Somehow in this kind of love, we are giving away the power to the other person to make us feel happy and special.
That may be how most of you will define love in your language, but there is a lot more to it that these feelings.
Psychology says; Love is a chemical Imbalance
A chemical imbalance? Does it make sense? It will after you read this.
I once read a psychology article somewhere. And I will try to put it in some simple words to reason why I am calling love as a chemical imbalance.
When biological foundations of love were looked into, it somehow disclosed a surprising outcome, that the early stages of falling in love (or infatuation) results in triggering a release of the feel-good neurotransmitter 'dopamine'. When this hormone is increased, it creates within is the feeling of excitement, intensified concentration and also increases our energy level. Well, that gives us the best reasoning for why people who are in love become so much more active even after spending nights waking up talking to each other. It is as if they are walking amongst the huge white beautiful clouds.
When the same love relationship turns into a long-term committed one, the research then shows that there can be a growth in the bonding hormone that’s called Oxytocin which creates feelings like security and contentment. This is the time when dopamine returns back to its normal levels, but oxytocin levels increase.
Quite an imbalance in hormones. Isn’t it?
It clearly explains why the couple doesn't feel the exciting rush of first love anymore as the relationship becomes older and why it seems like the love has disappeared.
Did you now understand how it all is only about the hormones?
Let me explain in a little more detail from a spiritual point of view now.
Love is to love yourself
The way this creation is made, by default we are supposed to look after and love ourselves the first. A simple explanation to this is; if we don't love ourselves, then we cannot even love others. In reality, we will give what we have whether or not you agree to this.
I will explain this taking an example of love in any type of relationship (except the parents and children love). It is important to note here that we only think that we love the other person so much that it is almost impossible to live without them and we cannot even imagine our lives without them.
But is it true? Is it real or is it only in our minds? Is it really so that we love someone so much more than ourselves that we can imagine the end of our life even when with just a thought of them not being there?
Let me ask you something? Would you call it Love if you were in a bad relationship?
For one moment, I want you to drop your current understanding of love and understand the relationship from the perspective I am going to write. You don't have anything to lose. If you don't like this viewpoint, you can go back to your own opinion and leave this right here.
According to me, it is not the person we love that matters in our minds. It is the feel-good factor that we get being with that person that is the most important to us.
How about you imagine for a quick second, that the same person you are in love with starts to do hurtful things back to you again and again.
Hurt is Violence in any form. Whether its physical or emotional or mental; any kind of harm to the other is violence.
How many days or months or perhaps years would you be able to love this person with the same strength and intensity?
I bet you at one stage in life; there will come a moment when you will drop that tag of ‘I love them’ and wear the tag of ‘I hate them’.
Do you see the journey from love to hate?
Yes, I agree that you may be able to continue with that relationship for years or even a lifetime, but if you are honest to yourself, most of the time the reasoning behind is your own fears.
Maybe your fears of not being able to live/cope without that person or some other fear, but what we are trying to interpret here is that; is it your love that is holding you or something else that is holding you?
At any given moment of time, we can either love someone or hate someone. Love and Hate are the two sides of the same coin, but they cannot happen at the same time.
It is important to note that when the other person’s behaviour towards you changes and that stays persistently like that for a considerable amount of time, the same love does turn into hatred.
So now the question is; did we even love that person to begin with? Or, it was our own self-love and the way we felt in their company that we always thought was love?
Well. It’s a new way of looking at life. I am not judging your way and saying it is right or wrong the way you may currently think, but after I came out of my tough break up, I have come up with this realisation that there can be only two kinds of true love in this world.
One is the parents love towards their children, and the other is the love that you do to yourself.
I know a lot of you maybe will not believe this at this stage. But trust me, that realisation does come sooner or later in life.
I remember once I fell very sick, and I had no one to look after me, so I stayed at my friend’s place who looked after me during that time.
I wasn’t in a position to even pick a glass of water by myself for about five days. Being a very independent girl, I was feeling so bad about the feeling of dependency I had on my friend for the most basic things.
That was a real mirror of life in front of me when all I was praying to god was either save me or kill me because I could not live that way. I desperately wanted to get back to normal and wanted to feel like me again.
I realised at that time how much we don't value ourselves during our day to day lives and sufferings that we create in our lives. And honestly, most of those sufferings don't even have any space in reality. They only exist in our minds.
But, one day if something in life like this happens to us, it becomes a real revelation when all we are praying if for ourselves more than any other relationship in this world.
Promise yourself to love yourself more
I cannot express enough the importance of self-love. If you don't love yourself, you cannot love anyone in this world. You may only think that you do, but understand that you can just give what you are. If you are in love with yourself, you are in love with the whole creation. That is when you are Love.
Understand that life is not about the cloudy illusionary bubble we live in.
Seriously, I know we all have made very pretty looking illusions and live in some colourful cloudy bubbles in our lives.
Sometimes, all it takes is one moment of shiver by life, and the building of clouds that you were standing on just collapse in front of your eyes and you are not able to do anything
I say that why wait for that jerk? Why can’t we start to be more real and live with a more practical and profound understanding of what life is?
Never give the control to anyone in life for your happiness
I swear by this one a thousand times. there is nothing more important than this.
When you make someone your only reason to be happy, life has many ways to surprise you.
I am not saying we stop loving people. I am saying we don’t make them the only reason to be happy. We don’t just make them our whole world. This was exactly what I did too, and I learned my lessons a very hard way. When you give control, you unknowingly are not respecting the creator who made you. Don’t fall on anyone to make you feel special and happy. Rather, start making yourselves feel special.
Practice gratitude
This one is so important but one of the most neglected by many of us.
Practice gratitude in your everyday life. Even if it is small, but do have moments of thankfulness to the universe for all that it has given to you.
When I started practising gratitude, I was so surprised with the number of reasons I kept coming up with to say thank you for.
We take so much in our lives for granted that we don’t even know has been given to us. Millions in this world do not have what you have. Start being thankful for everything and so much more comes back your way.
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Life is beautiful if you make it so. Self-love is one of the most important lessons for each of us to learn who do not put time and effort in making themselves feel special.
Yes, giving away is very kind and beautiful. But do acknowledge, that you will only be able to give away when you have it. If you are empty, you cannot give anything even if you would like to. If you are happy and full of love, you will keep giving more and more without getting exhausted.
Start small but do start. That is the only way to reach the destination.
WRITTEN BY:
Kajal Soni
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