Love

When someone asked one of the Indigo Girls to tell them about love, she laughed as though they had asked her a strange question and then responded, “I can’t tell you about love; if I could, then it wouldn’t be real, because love has nothing to do with words.” “So then,” the person insisted, “what is real love?” She laughed again and said, “You have done it again. See how difficult it is?” It doesn’t matter how much we try not to think, it is almost impossible. We are always trying to understand everything with our intellect and then we want this understanding to flow from our mouths. But the mind cannot understand love because it has nothing to do with “thinking.” Dan Millman, in his article Way of the Peaceful Warrior, says, “Love cannot be understood, it must be felt. Life is not imagining perfection and triumph, it is only love. We always try to change everything into a mental concept. Forget that, just feel!” One day I told my children, Jonathan and Lyonel, that I loved them no matter what. That my love didn’t depend on what they did or didn’t do, nor on their behavior, and that it didn’t depend on whether or not they got a college degree. They opened their eyes wide and looked at me as though I was telling them the strangest thing they had ever heard in their lives. We have many bad habits, and we transmit our habits to our children. This is how we learn to live. We don’t know a better way. Beginning in childhood, we are taught that we must do things or behave in a certain way to get love and acceptance from others. But unfortunately in that process we don’t learn to love and accept ourselves. And paradoxically, people treat us in the same way that we treat ourselves. In this way, the desire for love and acceptance is obstructed by our own incapacity to love ourselves. Without self love, we cannot love anyone else. By not accepting this truth we are deceiving ourselves and deceiving others. The essential thing is to learn to love and to accept ourselves exactly the way we are. It doesn’t work to do things for others. If something doesn’t work for us, it won’t work for them. Especially us mothers, we tend to believe that we have to relinquish what is important to us and sacrifice for our children. However, the best gift that we can give to our children is to love ourselves. In this way they can observe, and by our example, learn to love themselves without needing to look for love in the wrong places. When we are in the correct place, we allow for others to be at their correct place. The more we try to have love by doing things and behaving in certain ways for others, the more we distance ourselves from the possibility of experiencing that thing that we so much desire. We must learn to be happy and to enjoy every moment of our lives without placing importance on what others think of us. The most important thing is what we think of ourselves. Love towards our own being is the most powerful tool of transformation. Love begins with us. It is useless to look for it outside. It does not exist. We spend most of our time looking for love in the wrong place, always begging for it from others without knowing why. Another terrible mistake that we all tend to commit, is thinking that in order to be happy we must have a partner. We think that the other person will give us the happiness that we so yearn for. But even when we find someone to love us, we are not happy. We feel that we are not complete, and we look for what we think is lacking in ourselves in the other person. This is a waste of time. We must find Love inside ourselves. Once we have found it, once we feel good with ourselves, once we accept and love ourselves just the way we are, we discover that in reality one does not “need” anyone. Finally, we begin to look for someone because we “want to” and “choose to” be in a relationship, not because we “need to.” In this context one acts freely by choice and not by necessity. Because we lack trust in ourselves, we cannot love truthfully. We say we do, but we love possessively. For example, as mothers, we don’t allow our kids to be themselves and they are slaves of our thoughts, opinions and perceptions. Sometimes we create relationships where we feel a lot of jealousy. This is not Love, but we cannot help it. They are those old tapes playing again in our heads. We don’t actually see people as they are, we see them through our thoughts and memories. The Hawaiian art of Ho’oponopono uses two very important tools: the words “I love you” and “thank you.” When we use them aloud and say them to someone, they are tremendously powerful and valuable. Sometimes, even if you do not feel like it, you will find it extremely powerful to do the following: when someone does something you consider unfair, when someone says something that bothers you, instead of answering them, instead of giving them a piece of your mind and trying to convince them that you are right, you can repeat in your mind as many times as necessary: “I love you. I love you. I love you,” or “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” These tools often bring about surprising results. Sometimes the person asks for forgiveness when we least expected it. Other times, things remain the same, but we no longer notice or are affected by them. With certain people, the difficulties are less severe than with others. With some people we have more stories, more tapes. We must not forget that everything changes according to our perception of events, people, and situations. The same happens to everyone. Everything depends on their perception, their point of view, and their memories. Life is like a movie that we have already seen many times and that keeps repeating itself over because we keep on reacting every time it plays. Our reaction to problems is a repetition of memories. Problems are often obstacles that we have already encountered, but that we have never resolved. For this reason, the situation returns to give us the opportunity to react in a different way. People often come into our lives in order to show us the parts of ourselves that we need to work on. Relationships are simply mirrors in which we see ourselves reflected. We have the option to choose not to react. We can turn the other cheek. The cheek of Love. Knowing this, we can become conscious and choose to make ourselves responsible. For example, if someone has problems with their children, the best thing to do is talk to them when they are asleep. The only thing you need to tell them is that you love them and that you are grateful to them for being in your life. It is not proper to tell them your point of view unless they ask for it. It is not productive to try to convince them that you are right and they are wrong. It is very difficult to know what is right for ourselves. How can we possibly know what is right for others? Gratitude is also a very powerful tool. When we feel depressed or sorrowful, the best thing to do is to think about all the good things in our lives we can be grateful for. By doing that, we will change our energy very quickly. We elevate ourselves and we are higher than our problems. Sometimes we don’t realize everything that we have because we concentrate instead on what we “think” is missing. In truth we already have everything, including love. We only have to give our permission to receive it and therefore be able to experience it. The secret to happiness is not in looking outside, or in looking for more. It is in developing our capacity to love and enjoy ourselves more