What we believe to be love is co-dependency and addiction playing out. That’s the template we’ve been given and it causes an incredible amount of suffering. If I do x for you, then you’ll love me. We are programmed to barter for attention, and when we receive it we feel high. It’s a dopamine hit that keeps us coming back for more. A bit like the isolated rat in the famous cocaine experiment, where in social isolation the rat becomes addicted to amphetamine laced water.
Humans are the same. We’re stuck in a highly addictive cycle which is literally tearing us apart. Co-dependency is not love. It represents highly traumatic and dysfunctional relationship patterns that we are led to believe are love.
If it wasn’t love, then why does it hurt?
It hurts because it’s tapping directly into our biggest wound – that we’re not loveable as we are. That we are in some way defective and require fixing or saving. That we’re inherently not enough, worthless, unless we do/say/act in a certain way. Love doesn’t attach. It allows life to flow freely. It’s the holding on, in an attempt to control which causes the friction and pain. Let go or be dragged is a phrase I use often. We are unaware that we are the cause of our own suffering.
We make meaning out of everything, and we usually get it wrong. Love is fluid, it just is. There’s never an absence, you’re just not tuned into the correct frequency. It’s always there, like the blue sky behind the clouds. Waiting for you to remember. We are all looking for connection, belonging and comfort. Yet we are also petrified of real intimacy. The gateway into love is created beginning with the intimacy with yourself. If you can’t be real and honest, without masks or protections with yourself, how do you expect to do so with another human?
Feel into your love
Relationship dynamics are complex. We lose our centre and life us continually inviting us to come back to the truth. That our perceptions create our reality. That love, if you tune into it, is here all along. In every moment including this one, within your heart as you read this.
Feel it.
Anchor it into your body and remember this sensation whenever you feel you’ve lost the signal. You’ll catch the subtle beat when you slow down and take a breath.
Remember,
Breathe the change you wish to see in the world.
Philippa X
