Although we want to love and be loved, we also fear both. Our past experiences have programmed us to associate loving and being loved with unpleasant experiences and especially with feelings of vulnerability.
1. We would like them first to ask for forgiveness or at least realize their mistakes.
- We are the ones who are suffering from our negative feelings associated with not being able to forgive and love.
2. We want to place the blame for our dissatisfaction with ourselves or our lives on someone else who is "responsible".
- Blaming others for what we are not satisfied with will never improve our reality.
3. We have identified with the role of the victim and need to feel hurt and abused.
- Many seek to find their self-worth in the role of the victim or abused. The reasoning is like this. "I am the victim which means that the other is bad and I am good and thus worthy. As long as I am the victim, I am worthy." Thus we find reasons to feel hurt and angry and then we feel worthy and right. The role of the angry victim get a "double dose".
4. We are in the role of the interrogator and need to find others' faults.
5. We are afraid of expressing love, because we fear that there will not be an adequate response from others and we will feel rejected.
6. We are afraid of being used, suppressed, limited, trapped or of not being able to be ourselves
- Love can never be used or limited. It is always free. We usually allow ourselves to be used or suppressed when we want or need something from the other. Our attachment and fear cause us to bargain our freedom in order to receive approval, security or pleasure from others. When we are interacting with love without attachment, we do whatever the other asks, when we can do so with love and joy and we lovingly explain why we cannot or choose not to comply when that is the case. We are free to lovingly give and also to lovingly choose not to give.
When we love purely without attachment, we can be totally and honestly "ourselves".
When we love purely without attachment, we can be totally and honestly "ourselves".
7. We fear allowing the others to become too familiar because they will lose interest.
- Perhaps we ourselves lose interest in others when they do not pose a challenge anymore, when they can be taken for granted
8. We fear that we will become weak.
- Unfortunately some of us have been programmed to believe that love is a form of weakness and not for the strong and independent. Perhaps that accurately describes the images of love with which we have grown up. Unconditional love is the opposite. It is based on inner strength and personal freedom. We choose to love others because we love them, not because we need them. This requires the highest inner sense of self-worth and security.
9. We fear the responsibilities of a relationship.
- This is a choice we can make. We have every right to live alone and not enter into personal love relationships that are naturally accompanied by certain commitments and responsibilities. Some souls have chosen to evolve alone in this way. It is a valid life style. The question is whether we are choosing it because we are being guided by our soul to do so, or because we fear the responsibilities of a relationship. If it is the second reason, then we will be stagnant in our growth process as we fear to enter into exactly the situations required for our learning process.
Spiritual growth is a process in which we become secure enough within ourselves and our faith in the wisdom and justice of the universe, to be able to love even those who have harmed us.
Even if the relationship does not last for ever, does that mean failure? Have we not learned something and gained something?
No comments:
Post a Comment