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Experience True Love
by Mary Bell Nyman |
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ove, love love. The spring season and Valentine's Day start to turn our
attention to love. What is it and how do you get it? How do you keep it or
develop it inside yourself? People always ask about their love life or lack
of it in a reading. It seems like most people want a magical formula they
can use to attract love to them.
I notice that a lot of people quit before they even begin! They walk around with a picture or concept of what love should be, and the minute their partner is different from that picture, they dump them, believing he/she was the wrong person for them. What they don't see is most of the time, the picture they are stuck on isn't even their own. It may be a parent's picture, society's, a friend's or even their last life time.
When you are ready for a relationship, sit down in a quiet space and decide what kind of relationship you would like to have. What are you interested in learning from a partner? What do you bring to a relationship? Would you like to be free to be yourself in the presence of this person? Is it an intellectual or romantic level you are seeking? Both? Laughter or serious? Career or family oriented? Intense or comfortable? Look at all the choices we have.
Many people start out with a burning fire in their hearts only to find it dies out a year or so down the road. Sometimes the contract is over and each person has learned what they needed and both are ready to move on. Other times it is lack of fuel that lets the fire die out. What keeps love going is how you treat each other and how open you can keep your heart. Little things can say "I love you" even more than money, big presents or extravagant gestures. Little love notes that say, "I am thinking of you", a call from work, a single flower picked and sitting in a vase by your computer, or a sea shell from the beach that makes both of you remember a fun vacation you had.
Little things are like kindling that keeps the fire burning steadily. Over time the white-hot fire of passion dies down but what remains is the red, glowing embers and a constant steady heat! Laughter, permission to be yourself, teasing, soft touch, a generous heart, all help keep love alive. There is no big secret, it is seeing the love of the Divine in your partner's eyes, cherishing them and seeing them new each day, letting go of past transgressions and being willing to receive the love they give. It is letting yourself love who you are when you are beside them as well as when you are alone.
I find that after 19 years, that I still feel my heart sing when my husband walks into the room. I know I am the luckiest woman in the world. The funny thing is we don't need each other. We are both independent and totally capable of taking care of ourselves, but we both love being with each other. Sometimes you don't discover what love really is for you until you are already there. Then you know, and you also know you don't want to be without it. It's when a smile says volumes without saying anything at all. Love, love, love. I highly recommend it!
-Rev. Mary Bell Nyman
