The title of this blog, ‘Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places’ is a song my Dad used to sing all the time as I was growing up (retro 70’s country music!) . He sang it so much that it became a mantra in my mind. I laugh now as it was a great message about the spiritual path which was to become such an important part of my adult life. It’s a great theme for this blog – a reminder to not look outside of yourself for what you most desire. What we all innately desire most is Love. Love is the essence of all life, the melting yet explosive force of sublime bliss, welling up from the heart centre and creating waves of beauty and ecstasy throughout our whole being. The only sustainable love is the one between yourself and yourself (Higher Self or God/Goddess Self). Love with others can only be shared to the degree to which you have become anchored in self-love.
Without spiritual practice, we enter the world of illusion and look for love externally – through relationships, through adoration from others, through status and being seen to be good enough. This creates a constant hum of anxiety within as we rely on others for approval. Our instinctive self knows we will literally die without a supply of love and the survival mechanism to receive love from others rules. It can feel like a trap as our hearts break again and again when we don’t receive the love we not only crave but require for our very existence. To ensure we get the love from others, we are willing to do just about anything – moulding and shaping who we are to fit others requirements of us. Compromising our very soul truth is common practice just to seek the love and approval from our relationships with others. There’s no end to the need for love from external forces and we are swept up on the merry-go-round of neediness, control, desperation and lack of self-worth.
There is a way through! Love thyself! Love comes from within and is Universal. It comes from your own source of that WHICH YOU ARE. You are the Universal Source or God-Source. You are a wave in the spiritual ocean. Your very essence is that ocean of God-Energy. You are not separate, even as the ‘wave’ you appear to be. As humans, we are all waves in the ocean, appearing to be separate, yet with clear perception, we understand we are all from the oneness of that deep, vast ocean of Love. To claim the truth of WHO WE ARE – this powerful Love – is to no longer seek love externally as our lifeline. We revel in the knowing we are Love, we cannot be anything else. We see the purity of our being, pure creation, pure God-Source, pure joy, pure peace. As we own this power and unblock ourselves from limited perception, the Love flows through us unimpeded. We are infused with Love – the beauty and magic of this energy is breathtaking beyond belief as we had once only felt Love temporarily and in limited supply since no other being can offer us the power of Love that comes from our own connection to God. We literally overflow with Love and can radiantly share this energy with all on our path. If someone leaves us, we are not depleted of Love as we were not reliant on them for the love-supply.
Romantic relationships are perhaps the greatest obstacle we all have on our spiritual path. This is where we can easily trip up. We feel a charge of love in the early stages of romance and mistakenly believe this is the love our soul requires – it feels so overwhelmingly beautiful and ‘right’ so how could anything be better than this? It is said this ecstasy of romantic love can last up to 2 years – sometimes it burns quicker or longer – yet 2 years is when you first begin to realise that you are actually in a relationship with a human, not a superhuman! Then as the love glasses come off, it is easy to resent your partner as you no longer get the love-feed from them you once did. You want that feed – maybe you will look elsewhere, have an affair – or maybe you will battle your partner to keep giving you a fix. With awareness, you may realise that you were looking for love in all the wrong places. You may be able to take ownership of your infatuation and need for external love as the main source of your love-supply. You have a choice to work deeply on loving yourself, claiming your ‘I AM’ presence (“I am Love/Universe/Goddess”) and realise your love-source comes from within. It is shared with others not given away or taken to fill someone else’s cup or your own. These are high spiritual lessons. Only when all beings come from unconditional love of themselves, in the knowing they are the Higher Energy, can we share with others what we have surrendered to ourselves. There is no other way – all attempts to be continually fed from others in the manner in which we most deeply need will prove futile. Only you can love yourself the way you most desire.
I have certainly learnt this lesson through direct experience. I am in a romantic relationship with a man who I have been with since age 24 (I’m now 39) – in an on again, off again romance. We’ve done it all – experienced young love, travelled together, lived together, been engaged, bought a house, broken up twice, lived apart, broken the engagement, stayed best friends to share custody of our dog! We have been ‘back together’ for nearly 2 years now, live in separate homes and are in a very connected, beautiful romantic relationship with no need to possess each other. So why did we go through the ups and downs, rounds and rounds? The answer is because we are both passionately focussed on our spiritual path over and above the romance with each other. The Love of God is paramount in both our lives. We are not religious nor are we ‘god-botherers’ – we have just wised up over the many years of our connection that unless we love ourselves first (relationship with God first), we are only going to play out the lack we are experiencing within, with each other. I see so many young women do what I did – let a man move into their whole life – home, work, body – and sell the story to everyone and themselves that this time “it’s different”. I know this is how we learn but I also know these women (or men) could possibly lose everything if they don’t start to take back their personal power. They wonder why before the relationship took over they were so empowered and could be so productive. Slowly the depletion sets in but they refuse to consider that it could be their ‘love’ – how could their partner who once made them feel the deep fire of aliveness also be the source of their loss of power. Even if others close to you suggest this is the issue, we seldom listen – we just want everyone to go away so we can be alone with our addiction (getting our love-feed). We will shut down opportunities that could be good for us just so we can have more time with our ‘loved one’. First sign of being in a romance that is not honouring your soul – you let go of amazing opportunities, in order to put the relationship first. Ah we all know this level of neediness – whether we are men or women. I can only speak from experience, from viewing my parents’ relationship and from the experience of 16 years of counselling clients who do the same. In a nutshell, we all do it or have done it! When will we learn? The answer to that is when you are so soul fatigued, so fed up with being broken and looking to others for fulfilment, that you will find another path. You will turn inwards. You will stop the incessant chatter of the false-mind (ego) that says you must belong to another to experience love or to be good enough. You will LOVE YOURSELF as there is no other option. With practice and self-love rituals, you will become luminescent in Love and you will choose consciously if you would like to be in a romance, knowing that it is not superior to being alone.
This blog is dedicated to our brother Jesus as we enter the Easter period. It is Jesus who taught us the way of Loving ourself as God. Remember always, YOU ARE LOVE. YOU ARE LOVED.
Carrie
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