http://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-anxious-search-for-love.html
The Anxious Search For Love
Despite their self-defeating nature, fantasy and fear are what most of us fall back on when we search for love. Prompted by them, men and women approach romance with behaviors that can never bring about what they hope to achieve.
These tactics all grow out of listening to an inner voice that obsesses about love and directs our search even though the voice itself is quite loveless. Most of these futile behaviors will sound extremely familiar:
We constantly compare ourselves with an ideal that we can never live up to. The loveless inner voice drives us by saying, “You aren’t good enough – thin enough, pretty enough, happy enough, secure enough.”
We look for approval in others. This behavior basically projects our inner dissatisfaction with ourselves in the hope that some outside authority will lift it from our souls. Here the loveless inner voice is saying, “Don’t make a move until the right person comes along.” (The right person in this case is some fairy-tale character who will tap the ugly duckling and turn it into a swan.) Being an impossible fiction, that right person never arrives.
We assume that falling in love is totally magical, a stroke from the blue that will come at random, usually when least expected. Many people wait passively for this magic to appear. Although masked as hope, this passivity is really a form of hopelessness. The hope that someone will reach out to us and bestow love is a surrender of our ability to create our own lives.
Finally, we rely on love to remove the obstacles that keep it away. All sorts of unloving behaviors are allowed to persist with the attitude that we will become affectionate, open, trusting, and intimate only by a touch of love’s magic wand. The underlying belief is that we can pick and choose whom to love, leaving the rejected in a limbo of indifference.
Can we find another way to approach romance, without fantasy and fear, without listening to the fearful voice inside ourselves that finds a way to keep love at a distance?
Adapted from The Path to Love, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 1997).
More from Deepak Chopra (522 articles available)
related stories
-
(16 comments)
-
(33 comments)
-
(8 comments)
Robyn
Melissa
Deepak
Eric
Dave
Dr. Brent
Isha
Susan
Delia
Michelle
Wendy
Megan
Hilary
Ann
Judi
Ronnie
Kelly
Lily
Terri
Betsy
Cait
Andrew
Jana
Annie B.
Veronica
23 comments
add your comment »Im continuing on from my previous post.
I am not saying we are all lumped together in not being in touch with our finer selves..no and that also means men and women but there are many who dont know how to treat each other whether we are women with women or men with men or men or women or visa versa. Sadly we or most didnt learn how to find mates at school by lessons in human behaviour or whatever its called and yet some sail along and all goes well where others just find it a nightmare. Maybe too picky or not picky or have a standard with a boundary line there set in place where perhaps we can move the pointer line anyway.
I havent married by I have counselled many which is good for a giggle I guess. However, I dont have a problem with me and enjoy meeting people of any race or creed or age. Not for a relationship but to meet and enjoy people in their light.
For me, quite by accident but in Spirituality nothing is deemed by chance but by synchronized timing. I met a man when I wasnt looking. We shared a long table but he was 6 seats away and it was him who broke the silence by saying hI how you doing? then...wow its busy here isnt it? is it always as busy? I havent been here before. So nearly 6 hrs later we were still talking like we were the best of friends. Since then I have been out with him nearly every week and still enjoy his company. Our age difference is enormous..well to me that is. He comes from a totally diff. country to me. I feel flattered and cared 'bout
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I have a certain respect and trust up to a point of everyone. I guess i am also intuitive and I can 'see' or ' feel when things or that person isnt being honest with me. I then have red lights blinking madly and I am still aware of them but I give them respect too but move on. I guess that is what I mean. Its not easy for me I guess to express how it goes with me.
I am not like most women where they pick themselves to bits and leave themselves in shreds about loving themselves, 'warts n all' type of thing. I dont look like a model figure or what they say..the body beautiful but I have in my own mind (without looking thru rose coloured glasses that is) I have a wonderful body. Its mine. I have a wonderful personality and am well read and I am proud of that achievement too. I respect me and in turn I give that to those around me. I have done the wish thing, liked and have been attracted to certain men who were available but decided that they were very emotionally detached and didnt love themselves enough even to be in a friendship. I decided that if these men were emotionally crippled unlike me they would be hard work in trying to turn that huge ship around. I dont have the time or energy to 'fix ' them. I have worked on me so they should do it too for themselves. It is rather sad looking thru my eyes as many men just drift by and dont see. Women can also be like that too but we are more of a nurturing type and emotionally together. m
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I'm with Ken. I don't give anybody trust until they earn it. I don't care what degree he or she has. I hope they know enough not to screw things up royally, but don't treat "experts" as demi-gods.
I loved the bit about emergency services! Why does it seem they send the worst possible people to help you? No offense meant but I certainly don't trust some of them, to know how to read, let alone give emergency services.
I'm going to hope if Dixon sees the EMTs hitting bongs he gets the heck out of the ambulance. LOL! That's a stretch, but you all get me, right?
Back to topic: I love me and don't give a hoot if anyone else does. Animals give better love than choosy whiny humans anyhow. Except of course for most mothers. :)
People searching for love can find that perfect mate in the astral realms. Who needs humans with a bevvy of Gods, Goddesses and spirits to choose from?
Mike H. that love will come to you. It might not end up being human or the right gender but it is most likely with you right now. Just remember Beauty and the Beast and see your loving beasts in a new light. I meant human ones of course. :)
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE, DIDN'T WRITE THAT LOVELY PIECE, IT WAS SENT TO ME AND I'M ONLY SHARING IT.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Uma;
That was "Beautifully" said. Keeping it pure and simple. :) thank you.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Lynn sent me this and I found it of great comfort so I want to share it with all of you.
On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...
....that love is not what you want, it is what you are. It is very important to not get these two confused.
If you think that love is what you want, you will go searching for it all over the place. If you think love is what you are, you will go sharing it all over the place. The second approach will cause you to find what the searching will never reveal.
Yet you cannot give love in order to get it. Doing that is as much as saying you do not now have it. And that statement will, of course, be your reality. No, you must give love because you have it to give. In this will you experience your own possession of it.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I agree about earned trust and respect. I have not reached my age in this lovely, world that has EVERYTHING in it by awarding my trust blindly.Respect surely must be earned or the word has no meaning. Young girls think that everyone is equal and that everyone deserves trust and love and friendship. That isn't an adult perspective. I believe everyone deserves, from me, the chance to show their nature if it's not too dangerous for me to stick around and check it out. I like to give the benefit of the doubt to those that aren't obviously a-social but I respect the capacity of a predator to do damage without putting myself in harm's way. If someone wanted to know me better and I found that I was curious about them I would wait for them to show themselves in different situations before considering their company.Trust is very intimate; it means that with my back against any type of wall I can act believing that they will have my back, for any reason, because experience has shown me that this is so. Only the big predators can be so arrogant about the world and their place in it that they will give blind trust to someone because of their station in life, because they believe they are owed virtuous back-up. To survive to adulthood in this world in a state to even consider these things as a single woman on my own without riches and power to buy myself trust, to assume respect, or protection I developed trust in my own judgment, for me, listening to the still, quiet , voice within.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Dixon in a nonoffensive way I'm not into that analogy. The subject is "The Anxious Search for Love," not the "The Anxious Search for Emergency Services." I live in a big city next to a school where I have been physically assaulted already. That has had me calling the police only to find that I firmly believe in what I wrote. It took great effort and presistance to even file a report. Then when it did finally make it into the judicial system they felt they just put the kid on parole for destruction of property so destruction of my body didn't have any meaning to them. I had been calling the school for years only to be told they'd take care of things. Now for the trust and respect part of this.
They did not earn mine nor I theirs' but I have earned my own trust and respect. The next year when I went after a group of boys again the school did respond. And I kept up dealing with the problems on my own with a very strong trust and respect for myself with making decisions. Recently I took pictures of what I thought was a brutal fight. When I took the pictures over to the school I dealt with the head of security and the principle who now thank me for my effort. The reason I'm a believer in earning trust and respect is that this in my mind earned their trust and respect. Especially in male-female relationship this earning each other's trust and respect is totally neglected and look at the mess relationship of all sorts are in. Love is no more than a choice just like hate is.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Ken --- I suggest you rethink a statement you made about earning trust and respect. If you are injured in a car wreck and the medics show up, I bet that you do not ask to see their training certificates and etc. before they stop your bleeding. When you call the cops for help you don't ask to see photo iD and etc. You probably show judges, the mayor and maybe clergy respect without their having to earn it. Trust cannot really be earned, it is given or it is not. Think about it. Blessings upon you and peace!
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Like all human beings the subject of 'love' has been a confusing one which has made me a believer in Tina Turner's song, "What's Love Got To Do With It?" My thoughts came to absolutely nothing!
After watching two special on successful marriage I discovered these people mated with best friends and they gave up control. If I look for 'love' I would be trying to control so that doesn't seem like love would be possible especially if I tried to control a best friend. Hmm?
I remember working with singles who changed bed partners all the time looking for 'love.' There was a spiritual message that came my way telling that until one gives up all 'wants', 'needs' and 'desires' 'love' could never enter one's life. Wow, that sure takes care of the control part in looking for 'love.'
Enter the best friend category. Friendships are based on trust and respect which we human beings earn from one another. But trust and respect has to be earned for oneself first before it's possible to earn it from another. It's about sharing and one has to have something to share before the choice to love can happen. It's all about choosing how one views life and their role in it.
For me 'love' is becoming the best me that I can be an than share that best me in a responsible and accountable manner. Understanding this sure has been a blessing in my life.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Facebook account: