30 Jan Mad Shrink’s take on “Passionate Love”
“Passionate Love” has so many confusing definitions. Some are about physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy, some are about selfishness and id-driven urges while others are about ethereal experiences. My take will be a little different. So here’s what goes on in my head about Passionate Love:
Just image: you get to be with someone who, despite how you may feel about yourself, fully accepts you the way you are. That person feels so great about you that they cannot help but think about you regarding everything they do. They celebrate your victories without being intimidated or threatened; they sit with you throughout your low moments offering you whatever you need to get through in the absence of gloating or lecturing; they find you attractive beyond the “flaws” that you see; they crave to make your life special in every way. You enjoy sharing everything with them. They want to hear what’s going on in your life and they are emotionally and spiritually able to. This kind of love could be romantic or platonic. Just imagine…
Now imagine being able to love someone like that in the same way. It is a unity, a bond, a connection that rivals none. You both look out for each other, you try to give each other the best of you and decide, collectively, which footprints you will leave behind on this planet with every step you take.
To the cynics out there and those to whom this sounds too unrealistic, let me tell you that it is indeed possible. These are not the idle words of a hopeless romantic, but those of a realist.
Why would you not want that to be part of YOUR reality?
Think back to loosing yourself in a glorious moment…that’s an experience of such passionate love. That experience need not just be a fleeting moment. It can be your life. It is a commitment we not only make to another but one that we, first and foremost, have to make to ourselves, because love is not only a choice, it also hinges on what we commit ourselves to.
Let’s look at the commitment. To say the words:”I love you.” should come with the following fine-print in order to truly honor those words:
1. My commitment to be mindful of myself
This commitment refers to me making sure that I always work on my “stuff” so that you are exposed to as little of it as possible. Why should you pay the debt of another? No, none of us are perfect and we may all have some past issues to reconcile. In order to give someone our truest love, we thus are responsible to protect them as much as possible from our “demons”. I understand that this is a process. Sometimes, we don’t notice that there is something that requires sorting until we have acted in a way that did not honor the love we professed. It is about trying, not needing to be perfect. As long as we commit to trying to be our best as often and consistently as we can, we are doing all we can to actually be our best. What more could anyone ask of us?
It is important to share the existence and the story of our “demons” with those we love. Since we are human and tend to personalize everything, it is good for us to know that someone we love who acts carelessly in a given moment, is not doing so because of us, but perhaps because of something unrelated to us. Such transparency gives us a chance to be allies in a fight to overcome our obstacles and live freer lives. I like the idea of not having to stand alone against that inner or historical critic as well as any other challenges out there.
2. My commitment to care for, honor, cherish and celebrate your heart
To love another…a friend, a child, a parent, a sibling etc, is to love their heart. Loving someone means that we want to do whatever we can that brings more light to their heart while doing our part to help them make sound decisions about how to regulate the access they give the world to their heart…kind of like a conscientiousness bouncer at a nightclub.
You and I surely know some people who are drawn to others who are not the best influence on them. If we love those people, we ought to be honest with them about what we think is going on. Honesty always needs to come with care. This doesn’t mean that we tell them what to do, but rather give them our perspective on things. End of the day, who are we to truly know what is in another’s best interest. We can only speculate and brainstorm together. What a generous gift to be able to genuinely happy for another person regardless of one’s own position. What a generous gift to show someone you love that you care for the well-being of their heart; that you care to want to ensure that only nurturing influences get to have full access to that heart. What a generous gift of love.
3. My commitment to helping you be mindful of yourself
This last commitment is the reverse of the first one. As you commit to giving the best of yourself as often and purely as you can; as you commit to being mindful of your own “stuff” that sometimes gets in the way of your best version of yourself, you also commit to helping the person you love to do the same. Martyrs are not required!!! What you are doing is showing kindness and care and, above all, ACCEPTANCE. You are saying:
“I love you so much that the parts of you that may fall short of being whole
are parts that I will support you with regarding your healing and growth.”
In effect, you are telling your loved one that they need not be perfect to be good enough. What a gift that we can all surely appreciate.
These three commitments may feel like a heavy burden, but it is NOT about that. It is, however, about the freedom to love like that. To have that kind of support and to give that kind of support is one of the most freeing experiences in life. For someone to truly see you and for you to truly see them is a gift. Just think about the many times you feel misunderstood, overlooked, cast aside, ignored and so on. If someone truly saw you, they would be caring toward you.
I did say that it was not a burden. I will say, however, that it ought to be something we strive for. I imagine a world where everyone is like that. I imagine us loving each other with tremendous care and I see the shortcomings of our current reality fade away. I can imagine that, because I have tangible and experiential evidence of the existence of such love. Despite the countless cruelties out there, I have been blessed to encounter acts of true care and love. Look around you and I am sure that you will, too.
See the world through your heart – Geoff J. Ayi-Bonte
Let me just say that all of the aforementioned hinges on one variable: TRUST. We have to trust that we are lovable in order to allow anyone to truly love us. We have to trust that the one we love truly loves us in order for us not to see them as the enemy during disagreements. We have to trust that love is infinite in order not to let fear of losing it stop us from appreciating each moment. We have to show trust in another in order to fight the fear-based need to control the other. We have to trust the love is possible in order to experience it. We have to trust that being trusting is NOT a sign of weakness, but a gift to our heart upon
which its true life depends.
Life without trust is delayed death.
Dare to live instead!
Dare to trust.
You may want to argue that this is not how the world is, nor how it could ever be. Isn’t that a guarantee if we refuse to try? …and why would I want to refuse to try? I owe that, if nothing else, to all those who came before me and made my existence possible. I owe that, if nothing else, to all those whose future existence I make possible. As a sentient being, I owe all energy the attempt to give the best of me at all times in every way. You deserve that from me and I deserve that from you.
Let’s give the world our best any and every time we can.
Let’s love genuinely, deeply, happily and always with the utmost care.
I dare you…
If you want to learn how to have that kind of love or how to love like that, sign up for my newsletter so that you won’t miss out on my seminars on this topic. They were fun and well-received events last year and promise to be even better the next time.
Stay tuned. Until next time.
Sincerely,
Your Mad Shrink,
Geoff