The Keys To Love

It’s the most popular myth in the world…that your true love is “out there,” and one day you will discover that person. It’s just a matter of enduring the loneliness and looking in the right places to find him or her. S/he’s your other half, your soulmate, your twin flame…your life until you are united will be incomplete.

It’s the undercurrent of the whole singles scene, every “lonely hearts” bar, and half the world’s popular love songs. And it’s complete baloney.

No, we’re not saying that you’re doomed to a life of solitude, or that you will never find romance – quite the contrary! The myth is that life without romance is a “half-life,” an incomplete life that must be endured; that until you find your “other half,” you cannot live fully.

“Yeah, yeah,” we can hear you saying wearily. “Whitney Houston says that the greatest love is love of yourself (sigh). But that’s not going to put its arms around me in the middle of the night.”

True…however, we believe that a life that’s fulfilled and fulfilling throughout your waking hours leads to greater joy in the long run than a midnight hug to distract you from inner emptiness! And a life with that kind of fulfillment is always the result when you open your heart to love yourself.

“But isn’t that selfish?” you might be asking. Actually, no – sez not only Ms. Houston, but also the world’s greatest spiritual teachers. Jesus, for example, said that the first law was to love God, and the second to love your neighbor as yourself. Not to love only your neighbor (or only yourself for that matter), but to love both, equally.

It’s not about pulling inward to focus on how wonderful you are to the exclusion of all others; it’s about learning to appreciate yourself and your existence as a wonderful, magical part of a wonderful, magical cosmos. To celebrate the fact that you – and everyone and everything around you – are inseparable from an amazing, miraculous creation.

As Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Simply because you are alive, you are part of that miracle.

This is the difference between codependence and love. While you are looking for an “other half” to complete you, seeing yourself as incomplete, you are missing your unfailing connection to the miracle of All That Is. When you enter a relationship in that state of incompleteness, you become dependent upon the other person to fill your need for cosmic connection, subconsciously expecting them to be perfect and limitless in their love. If you’re entering a relationship while seeing yourself as bad or worthless, undeserving of love (your own or anybody else’s), that will show up in your treatment of the other person, and of yourself.

You can see how these issues would be deal-breakers in any relationship!

And when you love others from a place of secure self-love and cosmic connection, you can relate to them with authenticity and trust, accepting them in all that they are, no matter how much like you or different from you they may be. You can forgive their failings, because you aren’t basing your identity and your self-worth on their perfection.

So before you start looking for love from others, learn to affirm and believe that you are a miraculous part of the cosmos, you are lovable and beloved whether or not you have a partner by your side. Just as there is no division between your mind and body, there is no point at which the energy of the cosmos ends and you begin. You’re not separate, you’re not fallen, you’re not lost, you’re not alone. You are connected to everything that exists, and no matter where you are, you have your place within the universe. You only need to recognize it to tap into that energy.

So how do you find that sense of connection? Here are just a few ideas…

• Go out in the woods, or by the ocean, turn off your mental chatter, and simply focus on feeling all that’s around you…the breezes, the earth, the birds, the light, the fragrances…immerse yourself in your senses, feel yourself as a part of All That Is.
• Go to your sacred space, light a candle, and call on your Source energy, Higher Power, God/Goddess, Divinity by whatever name. Clear your mind and feel the love and light fill your heart.
• In your sacred space, after calling on the positive energies of the universe, journal, draw, sing, drum, dance, releasing your spiritual clutter and creating space in your soul for Love.

Isn’t that better than suffering the loneliness of believing that another human being is the Only One who can fulfill you, and you can’t live without him or her?