"All stories are love stories."
Love is always at the center of our stories. There are more myths and ideas about the purpose of this human incarnation than I could ever tally, but my personal theory is that the purpose of a human life is to learn about love. Whether we admit it or not, it seems to be what we're all here doing, at times disastrously and at other times miraculously. So really, every story I will write here is ultimately a love story. But I thought I'd start with a classic love story - the messy business of romantic partnership.
It was 2014. Just days after I had ended my career as a chemist to commit myself fully to the path of a healer, the man I was seeing abruptly and with no real explanation ended our relationship. While my friends all breathed a sigh of relief, I was devastated. Not because I thought he was some amazing catch that I couldn't live without, but because he served as yet another example of how I could never get it right. I would never be chosen. No one would ever find me worthy enough to stay. No matter how hard I tried, it was a story I just couldn't shake because it kept on bearing itself out. I had been deeply on the path for about a decade at that point. I had worked on my worthiness from a hundred different angles. I was working really hard at the business of self-love. And yet, this just kept happening.
The pattern went something like this - I would meet someone and there would be a spark, a certain magnetic pull towards one another. Things would start off with a burst of attraction and fun, everything looking rosy and promising. And then slowly, after a few weeks, the red flags would start to come in. I would brush them aside because I believed so much in the feelings of love, and the story that love would overcome all obstacles. I had bought into all of our cultural illusions of love, and felt that if I could just be more accepting, less needy, more independent, less this, more that, less, more, less, more, then surely one day I would get it right and someone would stay. The red flags would catch fire. I would allow myself to be treated in increasingly degrading and toxic ways, until finally the whole thing would blow up. I would often demand to be treated better, only to have my demands twisted and shoved in my face in some kind of narcissistic victim-perpetrator inversion, convincing me that I was the wrong one here. It was my relationship with my mother played out in different costumes over and over again.
It was 2014. Just days after I had ended my career as a chemist to commit myself fully to the path of a healer, the man I was seeing abruptly and with no real explanation ended our relationship. While my friends all breathed a sigh of relief, I was devastated. Not because I thought he was some amazing catch that I couldn't live without, but because he served as yet another example of how I could never get it right. I would never be chosen. No one would ever find me worthy enough to stay. No matter how hard I tried, it was a story I just couldn't shake because it kept on bearing itself out. I had been deeply on the path for about a decade at that point. I had worked on my worthiness from a hundred different angles. I was working really hard at the business of self-love. And yet, this just kept happening.
The pattern went something like this - I would meet someone and there would be a spark, a certain magnetic pull towards one another. Things would start off with a burst of attraction and fun, everything looking rosy and promising. And then slowly, after a few weeks, the red flags would start to come in. I would brush them aside because I believed so much in the feelings of love, and the story that love would overcome all obstacles. I had bought into all of our cultural illusions of love, and felt that if I could just be more accepting, less needy, more independent, less this, more that, less, more, less, more, then surely one day I would get it right and someone would stay. The red flags would catch fire. I would allow myself to be treated in increasingly degrading and toxic ways, until finally the whole thing would blow up. I would often demand to be treated better, only to have my demands twisted and shoved in my face in some kind of narcissistic victim-perpetrator inversion, convincing me that I was the wrong one here. It was my relationship with my mother played out in different costumes over and over again.
It wasn't lost on me that this was a repeating pattern, based in my childhood wounding, but no matter how much healing work I did, I felt powerless to change it. It just kept happening, no matter how much inner child work I did, and how much I tried to dedicate myself to self love. I remember my mentor, the intuitive astrologer Kay Taylor, saying to me once that people like me couldn't date based on feelings. People like me needed a checklist. Does he do what he says he's going to do, show up on time, take me on actual dates, behave responsibly in all areas of life, etc etc etc. She might have been right, but it certainly didn't sound like very much fun... In any event, her advice went against the deeply held story I just couldn't let go of - that my soulmate was out there and that one should do anything, endure anything, be anything for love.
In the summer of 2014, I was still juggling a particularly toxic relationship that I'd had going in the background for years. He was a spiritual narcissist, the trickiest kind, and knew exactly how to use spiritual principles to justify his abuse and make it seem like the way he was treating you was an important part of your path. Let me give you some free advice - if you ever date a man that tells you he's reached enlightenment on your first few dates, run. Simultaneously, a new romantic interest was taking shape, with all the pull and promise of my usual fairy tales. Another sun I wanted to shine on me, to choose me. And in the middle of all of this, I met my husband.
Sometimes, if you're really not getting the memo, the universe will do a triple backflip to try and get you to see. This was one of those times. He was different from all the others. He did what he said he would do. He showed up on time, took me on actual dates, behaved responsibly in all areas of life, etc etc etc. I felt relaxed in his presence, free from the compulsions and tensions of more intense relationships. But I had my doubts. That magnetic pull just wasn't there. In all of my other relationships, I'd always felt almost powerless against the wave of feelings that would arise around a potential partner. It was like I was in a trance, dancing as if a marionette, bewildered as to who was holding the strings. It was as if I had no choice but to see the dance through to its predictably miserable end. But this time was different. There was no trance, and for once, it was all about choice.
Somewhere around our 3rd or 4th date, the universe presented me with that choice. I was invited out by that new sun. But the event conflicted with a date I'd just said yes to with my future husband. I would have to choose. I called up a dear friend and talked through my dilemma, and I still remember her response, clear as day: "Well, on the one hand I see someone who feels like a repeating pattern of every relationship you've ever had, and on the other hand I see someone who is finally treating you the way you deserve to be treated. You're going to do what you're going to do. But you should ask yourself why you're turning away from something that is so obviously good?" Some friends are serious gems.
I got off the phone, still heavily conflicted, honestly leaning towards my old patterning. It's embarrassing to admit that now, but I share it only to convey just how strong the pull of the old story truly was, how deeply the trance took hold. I laid down on the living room floor and closed my eyes to think. I remember the quality of the late afternoon light streaming in through my big bay windows. How comforting it felt. And as I laid there in the sun with my choice, some voice rose up from deep inside of me. What she said was this; "Listen. Your attraction compass is broken. It's completely untrustworthy. It is pointing you in the wrong direction. If you keep following it, you will only end up hurt. You are going to turn down that invitation and you are going to make the healthy choice, and you are going to keep making the healthy choice. Do not f- this up for us." It wasn't the first time I'd heard that voice. I hadn't fully identified it at the time, but it was the voice of my higher self, who only got this vocal (and bossy!) when she was sick to death of getting the run-around. It would take years, but I would eventually learn to just ask her to take the wheel on the daily. Things really run a lot better when your higher self is (mostly) at the wheel...
In the summer of 2014, I was still juggling a particularly toxic relationship that I'd had going in the background for years. He was a spiritual narcissist, the trickiest kind, and knew exactly how to use spiritual principles to justify his abuse and make it seem like the way he was treating you was an important part of your path. Let me give you some free advice - if you ever date a man that tells you he's reached enlightenment on your first few dates, run. Simultaneously, a new romantic interest was taking shape, with all the pull and promise of my usual fairy tales. Another sun I wanted to shine on me, to choose me. And in the middle of all of this, I met my husband.
Sometimes, if you're really not getting the memo, the universe will do a triple backflip to try and get you to see. This was one of those times. He was different from all the others. He did what he said he would do. He showed up on time, took me on actual dates, behaved responsibly in all areas of life, etc etc etc. I felt relaxed in his presence, free from the compulsions and tensions of more intense relationships. But I had my doubts. That magnetic pull just wasn't there. In all of my other relationships, I'd always felt almost powerless against the wave of feelings that would arise around a potential partner. It was like I was in a trance, dancing as if a marionette, bewildered as to who was holding the strings. It was as if I had no choice but to see the dance through to its predictably miserable end. But this time was different. There was no trance, and for once, it was all about choice.
Somewhere around our 3rd or 4th date, the universe presented me with that choice. I was invited out by that new sun. But the event conflicted with a date I'd just said yes to with my future husband. I would have to choose. I called up a dear friend and talked through my dilemma, and I still remember her response, clear as day: "Well, on the one hand I see someone who feels like a repeating pattern of every relationship you've ever had, and on the other hand I see someone who is finally treating you the way you deserve to be treated. You're going to do what you're going to do. But you should ask yourself why you're turning away from something that is so obviously good?" Some friends are serious gems.
I got off the phone, still heavily conflicted, honestly leaning towards my old patterning. It's embarrassing to admit that now, but I share it only to convey just how strong the pull of the old story truly was, how deeply the trance took hold. I laid down on the living room floor and closed my eyes to think. I remember the quality of the late afternoon light streaming in through my big bay windows. How comforting it felt. And as I laid there in the sun with my choice, some voice rose up from deep inside of me. What she said was this; "Listen. Your attraction compass is broken. It's completely untrustworthy. It is pointing you in the wrong direction. If you keep following it, you will only end up hurt. You are going to turn down that invitation and you are going to make the healthy choice, and you are going to keep making the healthy choice. Do not f- this up for us." It wasn't the first time I'd heard that voice. I hadn't fully identified it at the time, but it was the voice of my higher self, who only got this vocal (and bossy!) when she was sick to death of getting the run-around. It would take years, but I would eventually learn to just ask her to take the wheel on the daily. Things really run a lot better when your higher self is (mostly) at the wheel...
So I got up off the floor, declined the invitation, and made the healthy choice. Then continued to make the healthy choice. I began to learn about love. Real love. A love like nothing I've ever known. A year later we were pregnant, and I had no idea what love was about to ask of me. I'm glad I was able to get some time on the training wheels first. At some point, maybe a few months into our relationship, I woke up in the morning in bed next to him and felt the acceptance and care he just always extended to me, the security and stability of our relationship. And the thought washed over me that this was how it should be, how it was supposed to be, how it always should have been. In that moment, all of my younger selves felt the relief and joy at finally knowing love. But it didn't just happen to me. I had to choose it.
Exactly two years after our first meeting, we were married in our living room with our 3-month old in attendance. The lovely Kay Taylor officiated and we each had a witness - mine was the dear friend who'd given me the good wake up call on the phone years earlier. We wrote our own vows, a vulnerability we might have struggled with in a larger audience. While it wasn't our intention, our barebones but meaningful ceremony reflected precisely our commitments to each other. To do love differently than how we'd been shown. To do love our own way. We had none of the pageantry of traditional wedding ceremonies. But we did have an altar of our own design and an unforgettable wedding cake. Love, meaning, and sweetness. Not a bad way to start.
Over the past year or two, I've been reading bell hooks' books on love. They're not particularly new books, in fact they're over 20 years old, but somehow it seems that her ideas have yet to really take hold. Over the past decade (lifetime?) I've been a student of love, the fiercest of teachers. When I came to hooks' works, I so wished I'd found them when they were first written. Most everything that I've learned to be true about love aligns with her words. She defines love not as a feeling at all, but rather as a set of actions or behaviors. That magnetic pull of attraction and all the feelings that I'd previously defined as love weren't love at all. I think those feelings are best defined as karma, or my intense attraction to resolving my childhood wounds. I was magnetically pulled towards what would recreate my childhood experience of love, and thus, would always leave me wanting. In some cases and for some people, this could work out as a path to healing. If the person you're attracted to in this way also chooses love and chooses to heal, you could do it together and it could be a beautiful healing journey in relationship. But sometimes we are attracted to people who won't change, and we, too, need to honestly look in the mirror and address our own willingness to change, for without change the love we wish for will always be just beyond the predictable and painful walls of defensive maneuvering.
To me, love is a commitment of behavior. You can not proclaim to love someone and then treat them poorly. Love and abuse simply can not coexist. I grew up in a household where the only love available to you was various forms of abusive love, and I've been untangling the wires within my own system for decades, slowly grooming out every narcissistic flea that I may have picked up along the way. This takes an unflinching commitment to treating the people in my life with trust, respect, care, affection, and nurturance, no exceptions. If I love you, then I have a responsibility to you and to myself to manage my reactivity and address my lower impulses so that my behavior towards you is ever-more-consistently respectful. None of us will be perfect in this, but when we err, we must accept responsibility for our poor behavior, apologize, and sincerely resolve to do better. Without that last bit - sincerely resolving to do better - the whole thing is otherwise a repetitive waste. There is no real apology without personal change.
M. Scott Peck defines love as: "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." I've also heard it paraphrased as, "the expansion of the self to include the other." He goes on to say, "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will - namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love."
I'll admit that while my husband was a lovely set of training wheels, the rubber really hit the road when I had kids. Nothing will bring forward your unresolved "stuff" quite like having children will.... Through my children, I have learned about the importance of self-forgiveness. Despite all of my commitments, I screw love up every day, not just with my kids but with everyone in my sphere. We are all a little mindless sometimes. We get tired or hungry. We lose our patience. Our reactivity gets the better of us (especially when we're tired or hungry). There's no ideal to be reached, and besides, it's unreachable. That's why being human is such a deep training in love and compassion. We just do our best, and breathe through the rest. What matters the most is that we're trying. Every effort you make is a point in favor of love. So keep going, and the garden of your love will blossom.
Exactly two years after our first meeting, we were married in our living room with our 3-month old in attendance. The lovely Kay Taylor officiated and we each had a witness - mine was the dear friend who'd given me the good wake up call on the phone years earlier. We wrote our own vows, a vulnerability we might have struggled with in a larger audience. While it wasn't our intention, our barebones but meaningful ceremony reflected precisely our commitments to each other. To do love differently than how we'd been shown. To do love our own way. We had none of the pageantry of traditional wedding ceremonies. But we did have an altar of our own design and an unforgettable wedding cake. Love, meaning, and sweetness. Not a bad way to start.
Over the past year or two, I've been reading bell hooks' books on love. They're not particularly new books, in fact they're over 20 years old, but somehow it seems that her ideas have yet to really take hold. Over the past decade (lifetime?) I've been a student of love, the fiercest of teachers. When I came to hooks' works, I so wished I'd found them when they were first written. Most everything that I've learned to be true about love aligns with her words. She defines love not as a feeling at all, but rather as a set of actions or behaviors. That magnetic pull of attraction and all the feelings that I'd previously defined as love weren't love at all. I think those feelings are best defined as karma, or my intense attraction to resolving my childhood wounds. I was magnetically pulled towards what would recreate my childhood experience of love, and thus, would always leave me wanting. In some cases and for some people, this could work out as a path to healing. If the person you're attracted to in this way also chooses love and chooses to heal, you could do it together and it could be a beautiful healing journey in relationship. But sometimes we are attracted to people who won't change, and we, too, need to honestly look in the mirror and address our own willingness to change, for without change the love we wish for will always be just beyond the predictable and painful walls of defensive maneuvering.
To me, love is a commitment of behavior. You can not proclaim to love someone and then treat them poorly. Love and abuse simply can not coexist. I grew up in a household where the only love available to you was various forms of abusive love, and I've been untangling the wires within my own system for decades, slowly grooming out every narcissistic flea that I may have picked up along the way. This takes an unflinching commitment to treating the people in my life with trust, respect, care, affection, and nurturance, no exceptions. If I love you, then I have a responsibility to you and to myself to manage my reactivity and address my lower impulses so that my behavior towards you is ever-more-consistently respectful. None of us will be perfect in this, but when we err, we must accept responsibility for our poor behavior, apologize, and sincerely resolve to do better. Without that last bit - sincerely resolving to do better - the whole thing is otherwise a repetitive waste. There is no real apology without personal change.
M. Scott Peck defines love as: "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." I've also heard it paraphrased as, "the expansion of the self to include the other." He goes on to say, "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will - namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love."
I'll admit that while my husband was a lovely set of training wheels, the rubber really hit the road when I had kids. Nothing will bring forward your unresolved "stuff" quite like having children will.... Through my children, I have learned about the importance of self-forgiveness. Despite all of my commitments, I screw love up every day, not just with my kids but with everyone in my sphere. We are all a little mindless sometimes. We get tired or hungry. We lose our patience. Our reactivity gets the better of us (especially when we're tired or hungry). There's no ideal to be reached, and besides, it's unreachable. That's why being human is such a deep training in love and compassion. We just do our best, and breathe through the rest. What matters the most is that we're trying. Every effort you make is a point in favor of love. So keep going, and the garden of your love will blossom.
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