Love

Seeing Beyond What is Visible

/ James Browning

Left on our own without stimulus or reminders, living can fall into a rut easily. Without reference points our days can appear bland and lacking the bright color engaged experience can provide.  One lesson taught to me frequently which took a long to absorb is my life is mostly what I make it out to be.  It is my choice whether I see being alive as a miracle or a burden.  It is a choice whether I choose to embellish life to its most positive aspect or diminish life to lowest possible meaning.  Where on that scale I choose to spend my days is in majority within my control.

On a lark this morning my love and I choose to watch a movie from a decade and a half ago that has been taking up space on my DVR.  Having seen a portion of it before when I decided to record it, I already knew I would probably enjoy it.  How could I not; Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando together! 

“Don Juan DeMarco” is a 1995 romantic comedy/drama set in modern times starring Depp as a man who believes himself to be Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world. In his cape, mask and typical 17th century garb DeMarco ends up being treated by Dr. Mickler, a psychiatrist (Brando’s character).  In the work to cure Depp’s character of his apparent delusion an unexpected effect on the psychiatric staff appears.  Many are inspired by DeMarco’s delusion.  The most profoundly affected is Dr. Mickler, who rekindles the romance in his complacent marriage and rediscovers life in general.  Now that the general story line has been revealed, I want to share a few wonderful pieces of dialogue from the movie spoken by Johnny Depp’s character, Don Juan DeMarco:

There are only four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love. 

Have you never met a woman who inspires you to love? Until your every sense is filled with her? You inhale her. You taste her. You… know that your heart has at last found a home. Your life begins with her, and without her it must surely end. 

Every true lover knows that the moment of greatest satisfaction comes when ecstasy is long over and he beholds before him the flower which has blossomed beneath his touch.

There are those that do not believe that a single soul born in heaven can split into twin spirits and shoot like falling stars to earth where over oceans and continents their magnetic forces will finally unite them back into one. But, how else to explain love at first sight?

By seeing beyond what is visible to the eye. Now there are those, of course, who do not share my perceptions, it is true. When I say that all…  women are dazzling beauties, they object. The nose of this one is too large; the hips of another, they are too wide; perhaps the breasts of a third, they are too small. But I see these women for how they truly are… glorious, radiant, spectacular, and perfect… because I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react to me in the way they do… because they sense that I search out the beauty that lies within until it overwhelms everything else.

If none of those lines touches or moves you I encourage you to immediately head to the nearest emergency room as most likely your heart has stopped beating.  Or else, you and your soul have fallen so out of love with each other and have become complete strangers for which I can only suggest therapy.  It’s quite alright if you don’t want to admit it to anyone that the movie dialogue touched you.  As long as you know is what matters! 

The movie, “Don Juan DeMarco”, is not “reality” based and that’s just fine with me.  Frankly sometimes I have way too much reality in my life.  Constantly there is a barrage of news about bad economic conditions, crime, pollution, political corruption, global warming and things of the sort that sow enough negativity to choke a masochist.  While I attempt to avoid what I can, and focus only on what I can help change, the whole mess drags me down sometimes.  To balance the all too real segments of life since childhood I have held on tight to what inspiration I can find from others. 

Mark Twain, Jack London, Hemingway, Kipling and Tolkien long before he was well known are writers who took me to grand new places and inspired me as a child.  In my adult life Thoreau, Huxley, Orwell, Vonnegut, Clarke, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Forster are among those who pushed me to see a world broader and deeper than I could have otherwise known.

Movies have had a parallel affect on me and many have served to help me see beyond my range of life experience and become enthused, contemplative and even inspired about living.  From “The Wind and the Lion” to “Gone with the Wind”, from “Groundhog Day” to “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, from “Love Me Tender” to “Love Story”, they all left a  mark within me.  And now on my list is “Don Juan DeMarco”, a movie about inspired love that comes at a time when wondrous and unexpected love has come into my life.  I am grateful to know beyond a shadow of a doubt I would rather live delusionally inspired than realistically dull and bland.  For that small grain of wisdom my gratitude is too tremendous to even try to state.  

Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Albert Einstein
 

Warts and All

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

When the phrase “I love me” was spoken aloud the statement used to feel awkward, uncomfortable and untrue.  No, more than that; it felt stupid.  Now I know why it seemed so foreign; I did not love myself!  At best I loved myself a little with lots of reservations built in.   At worst, I held myself in great contempt and could come up with nothing specific to love myself for.  I have learned that love of self is inexplicably tied to my ability to love others.  Whenever love is conditional upon external conditions it is not really love at all and likely some sort of compulsion or obsession instead.  Coming to know love “warts and all” has been a real eye opener for me.  Or better yet, a real “soul opener”. 

The phrase “warts and all” has often been credited to Oliver Cromwell’s instructions to the painter Sir Peter Lely.  Lely’s painting style was, as was usual in the 1600’s, intended to flatter the sitter.  Cromwell had a preference for being portrayed as a military man and disdained any form of personal vanity. Cromwell was so adamant that Lely modified his usual overly complementary style and did what the leader wanted.

It is recorded that Cromwell’s words were “Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness’s, pimples, warts and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.”  We have Oliver Cromwell’s death mask as a reference. The mask shows a face with warts and imperfections making it evident that Lely’s portrait is an accurate record of Cromwell’s actual appearance.

How I began to love myself was to find some acceptance for my “roughness’s, pimples, warts”.  I made peace with my non-perfect features and habits.  It took time to come to see that each of those imperfect things worked together to create a unique person that has not been before nor will ever be again.  Given time and practice I did come to know the meaning of “perfectly imperfect”.  I became glad to be me.

My acceptance of self had to happen on many levels before I could love myself.  There had to be peace made with my age (in my 50’s) and wishes of being younger had to be taken down to few and far between.  I needed a clear realization of what my talents were which could only come with acceptance of my lack of talent in other things.  It was the contrast between the two that created a more clear way of my seeing me.  There needed to be pride and satisfaction from my past good behaviors and forgiveness for the ones I regretted.  Finding fulfillment in my fiscal health as it was had to happen so I could put away “wishing my life away” for money and things I did not have.  It even took accepting that no woman would ever love me again romantically in order for romantic love to find me.  

The pinnacle of the lesson could not be achieved until I found contentment with who I was and what I had done.  Only then could I love myself.  If I allowed misgivings about my past or disliked my present lot in life, my ability to love was unconditionally was stunted.  

Once upon a time I thought “self-care” was about spoiling one’s self.  Luxury, comfort and pleasure were always the first things that came to mind when I thought of it.  As enjoyable as such experiences may be they are not necessarily good self-care and can easily be the reverse in the form of a compulsion or addiction.

Today I love my self.   Saying “no” to something I don’t want to do is good self-care just as well as eating healthfully is.  Making sure I get ample sleep and rest is good self-care and so is setting good boundaries with others.  Even putting people not good for me outside my life is good self-care just as well as getting past bad habits. 

Until personal truth was made of the statement “you can not truly love others until you love yourself” I honestly did not know what love really was.  Opening my heart, mind and soul to acceptance of the “real me”is what brought me to its true meaning.  Once I began to find “me” I discovered love had been around me the whole time.  However, my state of being previously caused me to be unable to feel it.   Today I am grateful for the ability to feel honest human emotion and to love myself “warts and all”.  Joy leaps in my heart as I write those words.

Self love is food for your mind-body-soul, the nourishment that you need even before you can make any meaningful attempt to do anything great or anything at all. You access the beauty, strength, grace and eternal nature that is you.  Evelyn Lim

A Marvelous Day

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

The commitment I made to myself seven months ago was to write here each day, no matter what!  Today is number two hundred fifteen.  My time is slim this evening and the content I offer is hastily written.  To keep my pledge to write daily, this post is arriving just before midnight.  Why so late?  Today was one to be filled with living, not writing.

The marvel of this day just spent, humbles me.

All is well…
Very well. 
I have had a wonderful day…
A marvelous day…
A memorable day…
A good day…

It began with sleeping in for an extra two hours.  I woke rested, ready and thankful for the new day. 

An hour later I was having breakfast at a favorite place with the woman who has my heart.  Afterwards we spent the majority of this rainy Saturday in each other arms.  I love her and she loves me.  How incredibly wonderful!

Tonight I took my best friend out to celebrate his birthday over dinner.  We ended the evening by watching “The Wizard of Oz”. 

I can’t imagine a day ever being any better than this one.  I am content.  I feel loved.  I feel safe.  I am happy.  I am  thankful…. so very thankful!  

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.  Meister Eckhart

 

Lucky to Have Suffered

/ James Browning

The old adage goes you can only love someone else as much as you love your self.  While there is some obvious truth in that statement, I learned a lot from others about love between a man and a woman.  My greatest teachers have been a few special women who have loved me deeply.  In spite of having beneficial self-forgiveness today, I will always lament that I was unable to love them with the same depth they loved me. Emotionally a child within, the ability to return the love received was just not possible then.  My gratitude is deep for those women who schooled me in how to love in a deep and profound way that I benefit from today.  No amount of positive self-talk could have replicated this experience and the wisdom gained.  It was a gift of intimacy, not of will-power.  I will always be grateful.

I remember other women who met my vulnerability with disinterest when I was in my late teens and 20’s.  In memory strongest from then are those who said they loved me deeply when the statment was grossly untrue.  Something tender shriveled within me and I thought I might never be able to share the real me again.  My response thereafter was to create an exterior that matched what I thought others wanted me to be.  This came from just being myself and feeling it did not work.   So I created a false self that let me feel safe and accepted—but at significant cost. Psychoanalytic theorist Donald Winnicot said, “Only the true self can be creative and only the true self can feel real.” Consequently, the person women fell for was, at least in part, my projected false self; the one that could not honestly love fully in return.  And there is my flaw and dysfuntion that then prevented me loving adequately in return.

In an article on www.psychologytoday.com Ken Page, a New York author and psychotherapist wrote:Imagine taking a pet you love and putting it in a yard with an invisible electric fence. When it tries to move outside its allowed space, it gets stunned by an unexpected shock. It will only take a few jolts before your pet gets the message: if it goes too far, punishment will be instantaneous. In a short period of time, your pet won’t act as if the borders even exist; it will simply avoid them. If pushed closer to the danger zone, it will exhibit increasing signs of anxiety. The world outside the fence just isn’t worth the pain.

Now imagine turning off the charge from the invisible fence, and then placing a bowl of food outside its perimeter. Your pet might be starving, but it will still be terrified to enter into the newly free space. And when it finally crosses the line, it does so with trembling; anticipating the pain of new shocks. It is the same with us; even though we yearn for the freedom of our true self, some deep reflexive instinct still tries to protect us from being hurt again.

Yep, for most of my adult life I was that much like that poor, frightened pet in the example.  The lack of love in childhood, seeing almost nothing but dysfunctional relationships then and picking troubled women who hurt me in my early adult life all worked together to condition me to be like the pet example.  I became part real and a partially “put-on” person to avoid being hurt.  I ended up not only being unable to love intimately,I got hurt anyway.

Being anything but what one truly is never works in the long run.  With the education of being loved in the past, especially by the two women I was married to, and years of recovery from codependent and love avoidant issues I am so very different now.  I can really love! Today my heart is open fully and I am in love with all I am for the first time probably in my entire life.  The questioning of whether I should or not is gone.  My doubts about myself are greatly diminished.  The shame I feel about my past is healing.  And most of all, I feel truly worthy of being loved.

My ability to love fully was learned in large part through relationships that instructed me in the worth of my most vulnerable self.  My gratefulness for the love shown me by those exceptional women is great.  I only wish I would have had the ability to have reciprocated what I was being given.   A., B., R., K. and A. … from the bottom of my heart, thank you for loving me.

Dean Ornish, MD in “Love and Survival. The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy” wrote: love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well… I am not aware of any factor in medicine — not diet, not smoking, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery—that has greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes.

In less than four lines just above is a simple explanation why I am the happiest today I have ever been.  With the tempest of self-loathing inside gone except for a little short-lived and controllable storm once in a while I am psychologically and physically the best I have even been.  I could mourn all the years behind me when I was not so, but instead I choose to live my life with gratitude “in the now” with belief in the good that is ahead.

I believe that I was lucky to have suffered. Some people don’t realize that in suffering there is great potential, because if you are deprived for any reason… and if you set your mind in the right direction, you will find that the only way to survive is for you to excel, by being better… Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

The Five Love Languages

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

At times I had told others “I am my own lab rat”.  Such a strange statement has a fairly simple meaning; I experiment and try things on myself in a quest to improve and grow.  From self-hypnosis (which I got decent results from), to lucid dreaming (never could get in the habit of doing it) to meditation (which I get great results from) to lots of other experimentation I remain open to finding what can make a positive difference in my life. 
 
Several months back someone told me about the book “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate” by Gary Chapmen.  I got a copy of the book and on my current business trip brought it along.  It has been difficult to put down.  The concepts are presented in a down to earth manner that makes complete sense to me.  I have gained a lot of insight into relationship difficulties in the past and opportunity for the future.  While the book’s frame of reference leans toward married couples, it is applicable to anyone in a serious relationship.  I have had several strong “ah ha moments” so far and will complete the book before I get home.
 
The primary concept of the book is that each person has a specific love language (sometimes two) that is essential for him/her to feel loved.  If a partner “speaks” the language the other needs, the relationship is far more rewarding, comfortable, intimate and resilient.  Even when difficulty comes it is more readily and constructively dealt with when both partners are speaking/hearing each other’s language.  Otherwise one person in the relationship figuratively ends up speaking “Dutch” while the other is using “Italian”.  Then neither understands the other at all.

Here are the 5 languages of love outlined in the book:

Quality time: For one who needs things spoken to them in this language, things like spending time together, eye contact, deep and meaningful conversations and shared activities are needed to feel loved. Bonding time with their partner is what is most important to them.

Receiving gifts: When you are with a partner who relishes little gifts and surprises, this is precisely what you will get. You will constantly be showered with new clothes, flowers or other presents. This is how they want to be loved and is exactly what they do for their partners.  This doing for another person is expressing what they actually need themself.  Giving the gift of one’s own time is also an important symbol of love to these people.

Words of affection: This works by giving your partner near constant reinforcement, compliments, sweet love notes and lots of encouragement. This is important because those who speak this language are sensitive people and need reassurance on a highly consistent basis.  They thrive on being told they are loved and are important.  Such a person can become fearful and uncertain without it.     

Physical touch: If this is the language of your partner they will be very affectionate or, as some like to call it, touchy-feely. Sex to them means much more than just an orgasm – it is a way to connect. However, they desire contact far beyond sexual activity.  Holding hands, hugs, and caresses are very important to these men and women.  Without physical contact a person who needs the language of Physical Touch can feel unloved.

Acts of service: Some people find pleasure in doing things for others. By doing these people are actually illustrating what they want and need themself.  Such a man or woman may show love by helping out, doing chores, running errands or gladly doing things for a partner, whether desired or not.   However, the only acts that matter are those done out of love, not obligation.

While I still have about a third of the book to go, the “Languages” of love I personally need spoken to me are already apparent.  I was able to confirm my initial impressions with a quiz you can take at this link to find the language of love you need: http://www.beliefnet.com/Love-Family/Relationships/Quiz/The-5-Love-Languages-Quiz.aspx
 
Here are my Love Language Scores:
10 Words of Affirmation
10 Physical Touch
7 Quality Time
2 Acts of Service
1 Receiving Gifts

The highest score possible is 12.  I scored a high need to be spoken to in two distinct “Languages”:  Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch.   Accordingly to the book two is not unusual but more than two is.   Simply, its Affirmation and Touch that make me feel loved.  Quality Time matters some, but Acts of Service and Gifts really are not my needs. That all rings true for me.
 
Now it’s easy to see I played to my own need in every past love relationship. If those things were the needs of the other person, that was a good thing.  If I was involved with someone who needed one of the three other Languages spoken to her, I never fulfilled her needs.  I was too busy giving what I wanted, thinking I was showing love by doing that. That all seems so simple now to the point of “duh, why did I not see that before?” I am very grateful to have this insight!

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.  Zora Neale Hurston

More about Gary Chapmen’s “The Five Love Languages”:  http://www.5lovelanguages.com/learn-the-languages/the-five-love-languages/

Shouting From the Rooftops

/ James Browning

Yesterday was for the most part was uneventful.  It was a busy one when I was up early for a business trip and spent a good part of Monday dealing with travel and waiting for a delayed flight. Traffic on the drive to the airport was light.  One flight was a bit bumpy but unremarkable otherwise.  People I encountered were nice for the most part or at least neutral in my interactions with them.  There were no hassles getting a cab to the hotel once I arrived at my destination.  My hotel reservations were good and I checked in with no issues.  It was a completely unremarkable day, except for one thing:  I am in love with a remarkable woman and she is in love with me.

 As the saying goes “this is not my first rodeo” and I have known love before, but not at the mature yet lovingly sweet level she and I share;  calm, yet intense; reserved, yet completely unbridled; appropriate yet highly passionate.  I think the good we are experiencing together has a lot to do with being old enough to truly appreciate each other and the opportunity to love again in our late 50’s.  Having loved and lost makes another chance here in the fall of life all the more treasured. 
 
She and I are a good match.  We have attended the same 12 step program (Codependents Anonymous) for a long while and have come to know each other in those meetings from the inside out.  Long before there was anything romantic between us we were caring members who dealt with their individual issues by sharing them with the group.  Within the group there was support and a bond of in common life experiences.  It was in that environment we became attracted to each other. 
 
Individually she and I have been through great heartache, difficulty, bad choices and misfortune.  We have remorse but are at peace with what is behind us.  Each has had to fight to reclaim life and grow beyond who and what we were before.  We are in ways new as a teenager might be in the way love is experienced.  Our new ability to feel combined with wisdom gained the hard way allows us an unusually strong bond based on truth, honesty and open emotion.  Today I write here for her in a way that “shouts from the rooftops”…I love you… I really … really … really do.
 
From wisegeek.com:  Generally, when a person falls in love they have heightened romantic interest in someone else, and this doesn’t necessarily have to occur at first sight. Many people are friends first and find over time their feelings change to those more romantic in nature.

The word fall suggests that there’s a certain helplessness about these feelings of attraction, and they’re not necessarily within the control of the person stricken suddenly with great affection. It would be hard to dispute that initial feelings of attraction and the “falling in love” state are powerful. For centuries, writers and poets have sung both the agonies and joys of discovering passionate feelings for someone else. Chaucer called this early “love” state the “dreadful joy” representing both the pitfalls and ecstasy. Infatuation and romantic interest especially at the onset of a relationship can be both painful and exciting.

People have verifiable physiological reactions when in this early love state. A sight of the object of their affection may cause the pulse to race and the body to sweat. Certain neurotransmitters in the brain tend to be produced in greater volume, which can promote happiness and some anxiety. Yet most social scientists would agree that the reaction is not entirely a chemical one and involves the thinking brain and the emotions on numerous levels.

When I look toward the horizon, I can not today envision the journey there and beyond without “her”.  Yet I have no way of knowing what the future will bring.  Instead, with great hope I am open to what comes and that is enough.  To be in love and to have dreams of sharing life with her is a gift bigger than I imagined would come again. 

 I dare not borrow too much from fate by allowing myself to put excessive energy into what might be.  Instead I will be content with what I am certain of today:  I love you K.E.  Truly and faithfully I do.  I am grateful for you more than I know how to express.

Grow old with me!  The best is yet to be.  Robert Browning

A New Lease on Life

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Yesterday I emailed a friend I felt like I had a “new lease on life”.  That is one of those catch phrases I have used without ever knowing its specific root meaning.  That idea caught my attention and I did a little on-line research.  “A new lease on life” means“a fresh start, renewed vigor and good health.  This term with its allusion to a rental agreement dates from the early 1800s and originally referred only to recovery from illness. By the mid-1800s it was applied to any kind of fresh beginning”.

Often when poking around on-line I will find a side track from the original search and the same happened with “new lease on life”.  It took me to wikihow.com and “the meaning of life” defined as “Seek without purpose.The universe will unfold and become clear when you seek knowledge without prejudice. Knowledge is not a destination, but a journey. Human knowledge is also imperfect. But don’t despair; we know enough to come to firm conclusions. A ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’  

Being in one of my ‘thirsting to know’ mindsets I stayed on a pursuit pertaining to “a new lease on life” + “the meaning of life”.  Intellectually well footed in the momentary subject I continued forward until I found myself reading about the Greek stoic Epicurus and his teachings about the “greatest good”.  This wise dude of about 2300 years ago believed the “greatest good” came from seeking modest pleasures, to attain tranquility and freedom from fear via knowledge, friendship, and virtuous, temperate living.  That all sounded good, but when I got to the part about Epicurus believing in complete abstention from sex, I left old “Mr. E” behind.

In recent times sex has been only a memory and the cause was intentional.  My promise to self was never again would I just have “sex” and should the opportunity for physical closeness come once more (which I hoped it would) its form would be “making love” and no other.  For a time I needed a cleansing period and a chance for the “dirt” I mixed into my past life to fall away from me.

Immediately around growing up it seemed every adult was trying to bed another adult and marriage more often than not did not contain faithfulness.  It did not matter that the good in me believed otherwise.  Such thinking was fragile, and as with most “kids”, I learned more from what I saw than what I read or was told.  I became an adult akin to the ones I grew up around, most pointedly, my Mother and Father.

Finally coming to comprehend my path of destruction to others and even more so to myself, I got into recovery four years ago and yesterday was the fourth anniversary of when I finished my five-week stink at The Meadows treatment center.  There I began my recovery in earnest from a diagnosis of P.T.S.D., survivor of childhood trauma, codependency, moderate depression, love avoidance and sexual compulsiveness.  Those without deep issues or not in recovery might be a little shocked I would lay my dysfunctions out so publicly.  The ability to openly express myself this way without fear is a sizeable piece of getting better.  Simply I am no longer afraid of it all and further, none of it is much of a factor in my life any more (and I maintain awareness so it won’t!).  I can not tell you how pleased I am about that!  My life is good and getting better rapidly.

At this point dear reader you must be curious about where a piece is headed that starts with thoughts about a new lease on life and the greatest good then continues to a written monologue about my sex life, dysfunction and recovery.  So go ahead and say it:  “Where the heck is he going with all this?”

Here’s where:  Last night I sat and lay on the couch with the one I love listening to music in a way that was wholesome, sweet and pure.  In an innocent way, she and I “made love”.  We mostly just held each other and enjoyed being close.  We had all our clothes on and desire beyond was never a driving force or one yielded to.  In my present life such a thing is not only possible, it is easy!  In my previous life such an occurrence would have been near impossible as being close to a woman was almost always dominated by sexual meaning.

There is a time and place for everything and last night was appropriate for the moment.  No one’s boundary was surpassed and this morning I am filled with joy and wonder to be able to practice with a woman I love what I worked so hard to learn. I love you K. and am so very, very grateful for your presence in “my new lease on life” and the appearance of the “greatest good” I have ever known.

Life is a journey, not a destination.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I Love You”

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

While rare, there have been times in my life when I can not find the words to say what it is I want to say.  Today I type and the words come on the screen, but not in a way I am looking for.  I highlight the text, hit delete and try again… and again… and a third time.  But I still can’t find the words that go where I want to go.  So this morning, please pardon the use of borrowed words to fill this space.  Others wrote words akin to what I want to express and with thanks, I place them here. 

From timemagazine.com  “What is this thing called love? What? Is this thing called love? What is this thing called? Love”.  However punctuated, Cole Porter’s simple question begs an answer. Love’s symptoms are familiar enough: the mad conceit that the entire universe has rolled itself up into the person of the beloved, a conviction that no one on earth has ever felt so torrentially about a fellow-creature before. Poets and songwriters would be in a fine mess without it. Plus, it makes the world go round. 

Taken from http://www.love-sessions.com/whatislove.htm  What is love? It is one of the most difficult questions for the mankind. Centuries have passed by, relationships have bloomed and so has love. But no one can give the proper definition of love. To some Love is friendship set on fire.  Maybe love is like luck. You have to go all the way to find it. No matter how you define it or feel it, love is the eternal truth in the history of mankind.   

Love is patient, love is kind. It has no envy, nor it boasts itself and it is never proud. It rejoices over the evil and is the truth seeker. Love protects; preserves and hopes for the positive aspect of life. Always stand steadfast in love, not fall into it. It is like the dream of your matter of affection coming true.    Love between two individuals…. It bonds them and connects them in a unified link of trust, intimacy and interdependence. It enhances the relationship and comforts the soul. Love should be experienced and not just felt. The depth of love can not be measured. 

Be together, share your joy and sorrow, understand each other, provide space to each other, but always be there for each others need. And surely love will blossom to strengthen your relationship with your matter of affection. 

 From:  http://www.selfcreation.com/love/what_is_love.htm 

Basic Components of Love
What do you feel when you love someone? If distilled down to it’s core components, what would those be? Yes, love is an emotion, a feeling, a wanting, and a “being”. We know it feels good, but what specific feelings, wantings, and beings are present when we feel love? Here are the common denominators of love…
 
Love is Accepting.
Acceptance is labeling someone as “okay” and having no particular desire to change them. Who they are is perfectly fine with you. You pose no condition on whether you will love them or not. This is called unconditional love. When your love IS conditional, the moment they step outside your set of conditions, love wanes. Consequently, love is rarely a constant state but fluctuates based on our degree of acceptance.
 
Love is Appreciating.
Appreciation is one step beyond acceptance. It’s when your focus is on what you like about another. We look at them and feel this sweeping appreciation for who they are, their joy, their insights, their humor, their companionship, etc. When someone says they are “in love” with another, they mean their appreciation is so enormous for this person that it consumes their every thought.
 
Love is Wanting Another to Feel Good.
We want those we love to be happy, safe, healthy, and fulfilled. We want them to feel good in all ways, physically, mentally and emotionally.
 
Attention
Love expressed is when you give your attention, your time, your focus to someone. Webster defines attention as “the giving of one’s mind to something.”

There are many ways in which we give our attention to another. We use our five senses. Our ears to listen. Being completely present with the one who is speaking. Our eyes, watching another, undivided attention. Tasting/smelling? (I’ll let you figure that one out). Touching, giving a hug, holding a hand, a caress, or sexual expression.

The words above were brought here and placed in this space to dance around the three words in my heart today.  A simple trio of three words were spoken to me last night around 10pm on Friday, November 4, 2011 and without reservation or doubt I spoke “I love you” back to her.  No words are sufficient to express my elation and gratitude this morning for something I had all but given up hope for.  To know the depth of my joy you would have to go inside my heart where “the one” lives there now.  And so it shall be.  

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.
  Pablo Neruda

No Longer Swimming

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

While standing in water it’s hard to have a sense of being wet. Yet when dry and sticking a toe in, it’s easy to feel the wetness of the water. That describes the new retrospective view I have for my feelings about a relationship that ended a few years ago. I can see now I was standing in a blended pool of emotions like love, grief, guilt and loss yet hardly knew I was “wet”. No longer swimming in that soup, I can see that I was doing what I was unable to see at the time.

I remember my years in hell well. I couldn’t act like a normal human being and thought people should not expect me to. There was sadness underneath every thing I did. Going about each day heartbroken, tainted everything I touched. At times when I was not actually feeling the pain in my head and heart I felt so tired I was completely drained. My mind became numb to any meaningful thoughts except about what I had lost. The heartbreak was always in the back of my mind somewhere just waiting for me to brush up against something random that caused me to immediately be back thinking about the breakup. Thoughts of anything else seemed only to be a temporary space between the next thought of her that would come along. At times “talking it out” with someone felt good but an hour or two later such talks seemed to only add fuel to the pain and frustrations. When the thoughts of the heartbreak where not on me, I was actively doing something to get my thoughts away from thinking about it. And on and on and on. Everyone has felt these feelings at one time or another, most just don’t wallow in them as long as I did.

It’s said the three toughest things in life to bear are: death, divorce and getting fired. To that I will add, experiences vary dependant on the particular occurrence and the person effected. I have faced death of people dear to me (family and friends) and mourned their loss for a good while and recovered. There is a saying in my profession that goes something like “you’re not a pro until you have been fired at least once or twice”. Experiencing it three times gives me something of a master’s degree in termination and I know how to bear it. One divorce over a decade ago did little to prepare me for a second end of a marriage where my love was deeper.

The end of a relationship that was built on love is hard. More than that, it ripped me open and exposed the naked fibers of my being. The future image I held for myself became shattered as many of my hopes for the future were left to wither and die.

It’s damn difficult to look into the mirror and realize many of the marriage problems were “me” when all I wanted to do is blame “her”. Reassigning responsibility outside my self was well-practiced and began in childhood as a way of survival. As an adult I lacked the realization I was not just surviving anymore and such ways of being while once necessary, should be long out grown. Others who were healthy could see, and stayed away. However, those as unhealthy were attracted to the similarities they saw thinking it showed compatibility, when it fact they should have flashed “danger”.

Today down the road past my heartbreak and grief the image in my rear view mirror is easier to understand. This is ONLY true because I took the time to bear the emotions necessary AND because I worked and continue to work on my dysfunctions that were huge contributing factors in this and other painful relationships. Things had to change within me. Otherwise, all of those feelings, beliefs, patterns, decisions and behaviors that made me “me” – energetically and emotionally – would stay the same. Without growth and change I would continue to attract similar experiences over and over and over.

That was then and this is now! Today I have a glad heart, joyful soul and open mind. I’m free! I can move on and am glad that “she” has gone on with her life because I do want her to be happy. But from now on it’s living my life and my happiness I am going to focus on. Jumping for joy I can truly say, I am a very grateful man this morning!

The heart is the only broken instrument that works. T.E. Kalem

May Have Already Begun

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Yesterday I realized a part of me had decided what was left of life to experience was that of slowly becoming “decrepit with old age and die”.  It was sobering to realize such a view had developed to be a fairly robust assessment of my life possibilities.  Clear in thought as I write now is the belief that is NOT what I want.  Instead, the concept “decrepit with old age and die” was a notion I was trying to sell myself because…. here it comes:  “The belief was growing in me that no beautiful woman I was attracted to would ever find me attractive again”.

Where the hell did that come from?  Actually that is not a mystery.  It was spoken to me by a man I know from London whose life experience is similar to mine who, like me, was being divorced by a younger woman at the time.  Both of us had, for a while, had wives 15 years our junior.  While I would hesitate to go through the pain of it all again, I would still have the relationship in my past life if I had the choice.  Why?  I would not be where I am without it.  The strife of it all smoothed me and helped hone my thinking and feelings in ways nothing else but pain could.

After a mental wrestling match with “decrepit and die”, I concluded with confidence what I hoped for was someone I could love and who could love me.  However, there was still hesitance of truly accepting that because of the fear it would not happen.  With a little help later in the evening I was able to move past my flawed thinking.

What crazy little mental games we play with our selves in our thinking that spins like a hamster running on a wheel 24/7.  When usually I can intentionally see my self-induced BS to be what it is, BS, that faulty philosophy gets put away or at least greatly diminished.  This time I needed help to accomplish that.

With some renewed bravery about the possibility of love, I went skating on the internet yesterday to see what the “experts” had to say about the subject.  Boy is there a bunch of stuff on-line which tells me I am one of millions who daily do a search on a subject like “falling in love”.

A portion of my search on-line comforted me concerning my “old guy” image I had of myself. Here’s a tidbit that helped from Professor Arthur Aron of State University of New York at Stonybrook.  He was asked how does our appearance factor into the equation of falling in love. His response was we have found that if you are very unattractive, it can hurt you a lot in forming romantic relationships. However, being attractive doesn’t help that much.  OK, I felt a little better after reading that as I think I look “decent to pretty good” for my age.

Professor Aron was then asked “how do you explain that” and then he said We have found that two important characteristics, kindness and intelligence, are extremely important in the process of falling in love. And attractiveness is not connected to these things. These two attributes are things that people learn about someone from knowing them over time. Intelligence is important in all aspects of life, especially in love. But kindness is the strongest indicator for a successful long-term relationship. 

One of the best effects to come out of my life experience is today I value kindness, both getting and giving, as one of the best possible behaviors of a human being.  That combined with being decently intelligent aided even more my move beyond my old concept of things as I read the thoughts of Professor Aron.

While the “decrepit and die” conviction was not completely erased by yesterday’s search and related thoughts, I do feel much better today.  Remember I said “I had help”?  There is another major reason I feel differently today than just 24 hours ago and it is a “she”. Someone beautiful who is interested in me told me I was wrong to think that way.  And even better news is she is one I believe given time I could probably fall in love with. Amazing how a little bit of reality from someone else can shift the thinking going on in our heads beyond just information and show how erroneous our take on things can be.

Noted sociology Professor Francesco Alberoni states the theory that falling in love is a process of the same nature as a religious or political conversion.  Alberoni believes that people fall in love when they are ready to change, or to start a new life.  He goes on to say it is a launching of oneself towards the future and change, and fundamental to the formation of a romantic partnership. Falling in love transforms their whole world; it is a sublime experience, an act of folly…the discovery of one’s own being and one’s own destiny.

Now I can see that falling in love can happen at any age and am grateful to have had my view amended.  Frankly, I am ready for my “conversion” and it may have already begun…

Love is… born with the pleasure of looking at each other; it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other; it is concluded with the impossibility of separation!  Jose Julian Marti Perez