Your eyes meet across the room. Everything else fades away. All you can see is the other person, and you know you want to meet, have to meet. It is as though it is preordained, as though the gods are working their magic through the two of you.
You meet. You talk. . . . and talk and talk. Words between you come easily. Laughter comes even easier. And then you kiss and the world explodes. Nothing will ever be the same again. You feel like a teenager again. Life shimmers. You can’t get enough of each other. You are falling in love.
That euphoria, that love you feel for the other, makes everything in your life seem better. Everything is brighter, sweeter, even those few pounds you wanted to lose seem to melt away. This is as good as it gets, and you want it to last forever. The other one feels this same way, or so you thought.
And then what seems like all of a sudden something happens, and before you know what’s what, you crash and burn. Your mundane lives, your human selves, with all your fears and insecurities and issues, push in and pull you out of the euphoria of new love. Your heart closes faster than it opened only a short while ago. You feel lost and alone and scared and hurt, and you don’t know which way to turn.
This is where love—real love—begins. Not every couple is going to make it through, or past, this barrier, because this is where we get to deal with our own issues, stripping away our insecurities, soothing our fears, and becoming more of who we truly are. This is where we stop trying to make the other into who we want them to be, but instead learn who we are in this relationship. In doing so, we also must learn about kindness, compassion, understanding, and communicating.
This is where we embody love for ourselves as well as loving the other. This is where we learn if that deep soul connection translates into our workable relationship in our everyday life. It doesn’t always.
When it does, we must learn to nurture the third soul of love we are creating between us, as well as continuing to embody love for ourselves and for the other. We must continue to look at ourselves, getting to know our needs so we can with kindness and love communicate these needs to the other and hear the needs of the other. We must never blame the other for any disappointment of our own expectations, while also keeping within the healthy boundaries we have established for ourselves individually and as a couple. We must always continue to communicate, asking, answering, and most importantly laughing.
And if we succeed, we will come together in a lasting love that heals not only our lives individually and as a couple, but the lives of everyone who feels our love. That’s worth working for.
But what if it doesn’t work between the two of you. What if you came together for the purpose of opening one another’s hearts to love, not just love from another, but love from yourself to yourself and all others?
Love will heal every wound, so . . . what if we woke every morning and said, I love you? And what if we kept saying I love you to ourselves and to those around us and to the world all day long? What if these were the last words we said before we fell asleep at night? And what if we really, really meant these words? What if we meant I love you, not I own you, or I want you to do what I want, or I want to control you, or I want to put demands on you, but I love you and because I love you I value and respect you and I want to act in a way that shows I value and respect you? What if we were able to hear each other say I love you and not be afraid, but instead embrace and be grateful for that love, especially if that love comes to yourself from yourself?