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You are What You Love
“You are what you love, not what loves you. That’s what I decided a long time ago.” I have remembered this concluding line of a conversation between Nicolas Cage and himself (when he played the twin writer brothers in the 2002 movie “Adaptation”) for over five years. I have many times thought back on it over all the stories of unrequited love that I have heard since then. Donald knew something most of us miss, sometimes for a whole life- that the love we feel for who or what ever we feel it, is our own. Loving is not something we are given permission to feel or a feeling that anyone can take away.
This might be one of the biggest misconceptions ever perpetrated about love. There is this pervasive embodiment of the experience as a coupled experience, it’s legitimacy resting in it’s reciprocation. When love is withheld, rejected or takes some other form, the one who loved first is belittled, even if only in his/her own mind. Maybe that’s why I have always remembered Donald, who couldn’t care less whether, Sarah, the object of his love felt that way too. He knew that the gift of the experience was his.
The stories of unrequited love and the range of tragedy and heartbreak from love unmet has filled the airways since we began to sing or tell our stories. The universality of the loss experienced by love gone wrong, or never really given a chance, or interrupted too soon by tragedy is something we all share. The pain is as deep and real as any cut with a knife. The sadness and loneliness of loving and losing the object of our love is searing like a burn and shadows us for weeks, sometimes months. This is the story that many of us never get over, sometimes keeping us away from the prospect of loving again for years.
Why we can’t celebrate the love we feel without it being reciprocated has a lot to do with our latent feelings of unworthiness (Don’t worry it’s not you- it’s the whole culture). As soon as you are not good enough, the original experience of love, which is the highest feeling we can experience degenerates in less than a minute to a feeling of shame. Or if we are angry, then it is easy to find blame, making the object of our love not worth the feeling to begin with. Either way, we lose access to the purest and most instructive feeling we can muster.
Realizing that we are what we love and not what loves you is a revolutionary approach to opening your heart and discovering a capacity to embrace the world that you might not have known you are capable of. Loving builds emotional literacy and gives you the courage to feel the loss of love with grace and forgiveness. A loving and compassionate heart begets more love. The more you practice love with out the shame or the blame, the more love comes to you. Guaranteed.
Watch for Wendy’s new Sex and Relationship Column coming this Tuesday!
Wendy Strgar, the owner and founder of Good Clean Love, manufacturer of all natural love and intimacy products. She is a sex educator focusing on “Making Love Sustainable,” a green philosophy of relationships which teaches the importance of valuing the renewable resources of love and family. She has learned that physical intimacy is an important component of sustaining healthy loving relationships through her own marriage of over 25 years.
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20 comments
add your comment »Once I said to a friend that it is no skin off your nose to love someone; they do not have to love you back. Then I got a small skin cancer on my nose. I learned that even though there is pain for the loss, one does not lose by loving another and that apparent not loving back allowed me to proceed with life despite the loss of that person's presence in my daily life. Doors as such are not really locked, merely closed signaling that one should proceed through the grief of loss to new life.
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i agree. that the gift of loving is love itself. lusia amidya
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Glad so many of you enjoyed these thoughts on where love lives in us... just a quick response to the idea that somehow the concept of marriage and loneliness should not co-exist. I don't think my marriage is unique in that I often struggle with being alone with my stuff. Marriage doesn't and shouldn't be expected to cure where we ache. Loneliness is a profound teacher which generally has nothing to do with anyone else- it shines a deep light on where you need to fill yourself.
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thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner
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True love in it's purest form IS unconditional. We, being the faulty, fragile beings we are tend to attach other things to that love and end up destroying the relationship. (I'll only love you if: you love me back, or, you're faithful, or, you have x, or give y...) It's safest to love from afar because we can't handle what we see as rejection or maybe we see so many different things as rejection. Our egos keep getting in the way of loving fully, which truly is its own reward. It's the one who can't or doesn't love that really misses out. You can love someone and never kiss or date or marry them but our ridiculous society says it's only true love if they love us back. I say, it's not true. Great article and great comments. You all really warm my heart. Love lives!
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When you are married and feel alone and unloved; that is a special kind of loneliness that should be reserved for hell! not life on earth; as there is no life to live in that situation.
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When you are married, feeling alone and unloved is a special kind of loneliness that should be reserved for hell!
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That was a beautiful and thought provoking article. But, as stated above it is so hard and unrealistic to continually love a person and interact with someone who does not recipricate your love. You might love them from afar and not feel bothered or rejected. Love is an extension of your self and our innermost feelings; it is good.
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I liked this article very much Wendy,
I believe that love should always be unconditional. In addition, most people bear in mind that you do not own anybody else. Conditional love hardly ever works out. It is the Ego that demands reciprocation. You are not your Ego.
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Great to see you here on Care2 Wendy!
A few months back I read your article about forgiveness on Reality Sandwich and commented that it was the most uplifting and consciousness-raising piece that I had read on that site in quite some time - and I'm a big fan of Reality Sandwich!
Charlie Kaufmann is my favorite screenwriter and even though I only saw that movie once that very same quote was what I remembered most from "Adaptation." Thanks for expanding on the idea. This serves as a great perceptual adjustment for us all.
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