Finding true love is a theme that dominates our lives, and is a big driver of our behaviour and psychology. Perhaps you have not had the successful relationships you dream of and are wondering how you are going wrong. Perhaps your relationship is going well, but you are wondering if it is true love, or how you can open up to experience true love. Or perhaps you are working on your personal growth and self-development and wish to open your heart to others and yourself. Whatever the case, true love is possible for us all—including you—and there are 3 keys to finding and experiencing
Definition of True Love
True love will be hard for you to define when you are living outside of your authentic self. You may think that true love is finding a perfect match where the things you want from another person are being given to you, and where love is able to continually flow between you and them. However, these ideas merely describe your expectations of true love, and are not a definition of true love. They are also idealistic and ego-driven
The ego, when not aligned with the authentic self, has a difficulty with love precisely because it exists as a separate self. The possibility of union with something beyond itself contains the risk of it losing itself, or at least bringing its defences down, which it fears. For this reason, we struggle with finding and experiencing true love, or even knowing what it means—until we embody our authentic sel
Once we embody our authentic self—the part of us that exists as pure being beyond the contents of our mind and the patterns of our behaviour—we are able to understand the definition of true love. As an authentic self, love is our natural state of being. True love is the state of being in which we experience our connectedness with life and another person with appreciation, respect, gratitude, and jo
Finding True Love
Finding true love goes hand-in-hand with finding your authentic self or true self. By embodying your authentic self, you will naturally have successful relationships and healthy relationships, because they will be based on true love and the appreciation, respect, gratitude, and joy that goes with this. This is not to say that your partnerships will necessary continue forever, for you and the people in your life are always changing with growth and new experience, and with this change there may be changing needs. Sometimes a partnership can come to an end naturally, but where there is true love it will come to an end with appreciation, respect, gratitude, and joy
In order to find true love, I would like you to work on connecting with and embodying your authentic self, and to allow that experience to shape your personality so that you can start to live in a state of love. This will also be your catalyst to finding self-love, which is essential not only for your wellbeing, but also for you to have healthy relationships. True love is not limited to a particular person—even if you choose to be in a committed relationship—and it will extend to all of life, since you and all things exist within an interconnected whole. This means that ecological and social awareness will cease to be an obligation, and will instead be a natural extension of your lov
As you start to embody your authentic self, you can use the technique of mindfulness—paying attention to your experience in the present moment, without judgement, and without being carried away by thoughts and emotions—to open up to the state of true love, with the help of the following 3 key
Compassion. By practising compassion, you open your heart and develop the capacity to care for the wellbeing of others and their freedom from suffering. It integrates empathy and loving kindness in a proactive way. The practice of compassion begins with yourself, and is then extended to friends and loved ones, then strangers, and then finally somebody you are having difficulty with. It can also be extended to other creatures. It is a practice of being emotionally present to others, and breaks through the ego’s resistance to loving. (This is especially needed for us to remain open with our heart to those who cause suffering because they themselves are suffering.) In the practice, you recognise that, just like you, they are a living being, sharing your needs for love, wellbeing, and self-realisation. Realise that if you were in their shoes, with their experiences, you would behave just like them. You can then reflect on how you would like them to be free of suffering and to fulfil their authentic needs. Finally, you can extend your compassion by doing something to help alleviate their suffering and further their self-developmen
Gratitude. By practising gratitude in the present moment, you develop appreciative joy for others. Gratitude not only opens your heart but also your consciousness, as it teaches you to become aware of the blessings of life and other people that you would otherwise overlook or misconstrue. Rather than go into negative thinking about another person, or take them for granted, the practice of mindful gratitude teaches you to be grateful of the positive things about that person, and of how your experience with them—whether positive or negative—is always an opportunity for you to learn, grow, and develop compassion—which is a blessing. Gratitude keeps you present to the other person and to life as a whole, allowing the heart to stay open to love. When you say thank you to others and are genuinely appreciative of them, they will feel valued and keep their heart open to you. To extend your practice of gratitude, you can keep a gratitude journal, and each day write in it the things you are grateful for, and how your gratitude allows you to love
Healing. Healing in this sense refers to your integration into the greater social, ecological, and spiritual whole, and your identification with it, through your authentic self. While we are all unique in our individuality, we also share a common essence, shared values and needs, and an interconnectedness with each other. These are all factors that can enable you to heal your sense of disconnection and separation from others, and as you do so, you will find that love will flow through your connections and shared identity. Practise being mindful of these connections and of your common identity, and of how you and others are the same one life finding different expressions of form
These 3 keys are all interconnected, so will work together to help you find true love. In the process of using them, you may notice resistances arising. In this case, practise remaining in the centre of your authentic self with mindfulness, as you experience the compassion, gratitude, and healing, and the resistances will pass without hijacking your awareness and intent
The 3 keys will each be expanded upon in future posts, but this introduction to them will hopefully help you to start finding true love
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