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Loving Inside Out 

By Patricia Love, Ed.D. 

An exert from: Handbook for the Heart: Original Writings on Love

   Filling my life with love starts with controlling my mind. Over the years, I have learned that I possess not only an active mind but a slippery one. If I'm not attentive, my mind can drift to wherever there is energy, sometimes toward the negative areas. For years I drove myself with negative energy, constantly criticizing myself for what I was doing wrong. It has been a continuous process of discovering that I have a choice about how I see myself and my life, how I feel about things. The more positive choices I make, the more love flows freely into my life. 


   Now I understand that self-love is about honoring ourselves, literally actualizing the love in our life in ways that are unique and real to us. I have learned that I must love myself first. This has become a conscious task and, at times, a very difficult one. One day at a time, I still have to focus my deliberate intention to offset my history, to remind myself that I am lovable and loved. 


   The outcome of nurturing this internal fullness is love; I get full, then the people who are close to me get full. I am present for them, raw and fresh. Living this way has freed me to be a conduit, a channel for love to flow through to others and then back to me. Anyone can do this with her and his life. Just trust the process, stay with it, and understand that it doesn't have to always work in an orderly fashion. 


   I believe that we invite people into our lives, especially our partners, to be our teachers. The irony is that, having invited them to be our teachers, we then go kicking and screaming into the classroom! But if we can trust our choice, and trust the progress of our education, we can learn so much as we follow the path that our partners lay out for us. Our partners are in a unique position to give us an invitation into ourselves, lead us into our blind spots. 


   One way that our parters offer us teachings is through sexual intimacy. This is a unique contribution our partners make and can continue to make through all our years together. Yet sometimes we forget that after the initial passion fades, there is something deeper to create, to allow to unfold. So often we lose out on the wonderful teaching place of trust and love and mutually discovered wisdom, because we get lost in how to communicate our needs and desires. Without a way to understand each other, we are bogged down in lost expectations and misunderstandings. We need to listen to our partners, truly listen, to allow the intimacy to grow. If we can find a way to do this, we will know a deep peacefulness that comes from the growth of love and trust and shared history. The commitment, the loyalty, the lover we share can create a unique well of love to draw upon for all the areas of life. 


   The lessons our partners teach also come from areas of apparent conflict. One of the things I find in my own practice is that the partners often have their own answers, for the relationship, for themselves, and for each other. The just need a midwife to birth the solutions, a safe environment in which to listen for the lessons. Ironically, if we can let ourselves listen, truly listen to what are mates are telling us, move beyond the style or the tone or the particular words, we may hear that they are speaking some piece of our own truth. Listening for this message is a difficult, humbling task, but if we can let down our walls enough to let it happen, we achieve new and ever-deepening intimacy. 

LOVE IS A VERB 

   Communication is essential in creating intimacy. We need to open ourselves to the real message our partners are sending us, not only about ourselves but about the partners' own needs and desires. When we can receive the true messages and respond unselfishly sometimes, focusing on our own mates' needs, we find deep and lasting partner-love. When this happens around sexual needs and practices, greater fulfillment results. But it needs to happen outside the bedroom as well. The partners need to connect regularly throughout each day, freely and fully sharing thoughts, feelings, dreams and desires. We may still need to discuss who should pay the bill when, but we shouldn't forget to give a little hug and kiss when we're passing by! In the same way that we listen more freely, less critically, we need to speak more carefully, choose our words more wisely. So often I have seen how couples get caught up in the feeling of the moment, forgetting to measure their words. The sparks fly, and the message gets lost. Learning to communicate carefully is work - hard work. It may be the hardest work we ever do. But all relationships involve work. There are no perfect partners, no perfect relationships. There are relationships though, in which the partners' needs are met, in which the bond is nourished and therefore endures and provides the teaching that keeps us ever-growing. 


   Another feature of a deep and meaningful relationship is a willingness of the partners to let the other take center stage sometimes. To be mindful not only of our own needs but our partners', to be willing to put the other first, is an essential part in creating a loving, enduring bond. Sincere and loving sacrifice is a beautiful, necessary gift: we may, for example, decide to make love even when we don't feel like it, just because our partners need us. By the same token, our mates may sometimes decide to respect our requirement for solitude, even when they want closeness just then. 


   Some people find themselves continually rejecting the lessons their partners and the people close to them offer. They feel that others are letting them down. Sometimes our loved ones do fail us, but just as often the gap may actually be caused by our own lack of self-trust. If we keep saying, "I trust these people and they keep disappointing me," then it may be that we are actually disappointing ourselves. If we have harmony with ourselves, not listening to our own inner whisperings about what is safe and true, the proper messages can't get through. And we feel let down. 


   When we deny ourselves the benefits of our own inner wisdom, we deny ourselves self-love and self-care, and we're less effective and fulfilled in our own lives - for what we are blind to in ourselves, we are blind to in others. But when we tune in to our own deepest messages, we can create a space of love around us and can live in a context of love that nurtures not only ourselves but the world.