Awaken to Love

Relationship challenges are perfectly designed to tell you something important about what is unhealed in your own life. Right here, right now, you can stop beating yourself up for struggling and start treating yourself with compassion instead. You can choose to redirect your energy towards solving the problems that have you stuck and turn your situation around.

Chances are that you were never taught how to love fiercely and fearlessly. You were never shown how to face your inner demons mindfully and transcend your emotions in the service of something that is bigger than yourself. Perhaps you were never advised how to access that place of inner wisdom where the answers to your most profound questions are patiently waiting to be heard. When you encounter the shadow side of love, you may be tragically unprepared. But there are steps you can take to heal your heart and transform your relationship into a haven of love.

One of my favorite love songs is ‘Love Hurts’ as sung by Nazareth. This song shaped my beliefs about love during my turbulent teenage years when my life experiences were injected with a good dose of hormones. It was an easy answer to all my questions about the nature of love when my affections weren’t reciprocated, and when my romantic notions about love didn’t come to fruition. Belting out the words in between hiccups and tears was my best attempt at stitching my wounds closed by reliving the pain and blaming it all on love.

It’s only recently that I have been able to dislodge that earlier adopted belief and articulate that it isn’t love that hurts; it is the loss of love that wounds us. Rejection hurts. Abandonment hurts. Non-acceptance and judgment and disconnection hurt. The stories we weave into the fabric of love because of our life experiences hurt. Love is what it is. It doesn’t change because your perception of it shifts. In its fullest, most divine form, love heals. Always.

To awaken to the true meaning of love is to be present to the divine. There is no other way to love but with radiance. Such is love’s glow, that in its light all of humanity awakes.
Love is ethereal and mysterious, yet blazes into being. Love is the rock and the river, solid and fluid, forceful and flowing. When love leaps into life, it brings purity, authenticity, integrity and hope. Love treasures who you are. Love finds what is beautiful and expresses that.

Love is abundant. Love is an open door to the riches of the universe: a gift, a blessing, and a celebration of life. Love flourishes with laughter, color, warmth and vibrancy. Love is ebb and flow, an audacious adventure and a shelter of safety. Love is presence, passion and fulfillment. Love is trustworthy and reliable. A marriage between intimacy and ecstasy, love moves, finds its balance, plays, sings, shouts, and overflows with joy.

Love is the holy fruits of heaven, revealing itself through kindness, empathy, compassion and loyalty. Love respects diversity, seeks to understand, supports, and listens with an open heart. Love goes beyond words and deeper than deeds. Grateful and generous, love gives, and then it gives more.

Love transcends fear. Love honors vulnerability and celebrates your strength. Love burrows into the walls of your most beautiful dreams and rejoices in all that you are capable of. Love wishes the best for others and delights in everyone’s success.

The essence of gentleness and peace, love is the balm to your deepest wounds. Love dances through the seasons of acceptance, surrender, forgiveness, and grace. Love feasts on courage, persistence and resilience, but willingly lets go of what doesn’t serve you. Love is the tumbling down of walls. Love dissolves resistance and leads the way to transformation. In love, the battle dies.

So sing with me, if you remember the tune, that love hurts – but don’t you believe it. Next time when grief pulls you under and you are drowning in pain, remember this truth: love is the bridge that carries you home.