Why does love change us so much?

[sunflwrdanzr]

Forgive me but I might just ramble my musings.

I've always believed in and wanted love as long as I can remember, which is perhaps why I've had some poor choices in the ones I love. They all have mattered, they've all transformed me, but there has only been one that has really mattered, been all that I wanted. (though yes, we had problems too, but less than any other.) He is a soul connection for me and even though we are no longer together, we still are connected and actually have and can talk to it better now than when we were together for all those years. Yet we settle. We're in different relationships, both of us, that are difficult and not fulfilling. We talk about longing for what we lost, what we do still have, but we do nothing because we care. We don't want to hurt anyone and are afraid of hurting one another again.

But I digress, why do we yearn for what was? We all do whether we want to admit it or not. Why do we get fat or skinny when we're happy with someone else, stop trying and things fall apart? Why does a feeling, a person change us so much to where sometimes we even loose or forget who we are? Why are we sometimes gifted with soul connections, just to have to let them go? Yes, I know, sometimes they are just to teach you something, I participate in the Soulmate, Twin flame forum. And I know I may not know for years what our purpose is. I just don't know why love and loving have to be so hard and confusing. I know, I know, human and the ego, etc. Doesn't help the feelings in here and now. Sigh.

[FairyCrystal]

Well, according to Abraham Hicks: because we are focused on having love aimed AT us rather than having it flow through us...
When we are not connected to our inner being/Higher Self, we do not flow love through us, and that is what we are looking for. Then when another aims their love for us at us, we feel thrilled, great, good, happy.
We want more of that, so instead of working on our connection with Self, we focus on getting the other to focus their love on us again. Which is impossible to do because they got other things to do in life as well. Like work, having a bad hair day, a hobby, friends.
In order to get them to shine that love-light on us again because it feels so good, we tend to get ourselves in a twist to please them. Which brings us further from our connection with Self.

Basically what we are looking for, is a connection with ourselves. If you got that, can hold on to it and then find love who does the same, then you can have a healthy relationship that is interdependent.

^^^ Ok.

I've never been too happy with Hicks - our local esoteric shop stocks some - IIRC Ester and Jerry Hicks. Most seem to be about LoA and regurgitated Blavatsky/theosophist outpourings. He/she may help with an issue like this if it is an issue because...is there a need to try to explain what is, after all, esoteric to us all? We really must find our own answers. I'm not sure that the Hicks collaboration is too helpful - possibly may be. Like I said I didn't read far into it.

I sometimes reflect on beautiful times, romances, unrequited romances, loves; and of the loves it's usually about the momentary security and excitement while things were still waxing. But unless a couple develop along parallels in most ways (spiritually, if you like) but their interest(s) in each other, their repartie eventually loses steam and it wanes.
Hence, maybe the attraction of nostalgia and sentiment (of which I fall victim easily).

It seems particularly the way with sexual encounters. One is overwhelmed by emotion and romance and cries out "Love!!" Once the carnal turns into a routine, a procedure, there has to be something deeper
to sustain the thing - soul connection is often mentioned here; a connection that has to manifest in the acts and events of daily living on common ground.

Yes, all our relationships change us...I'd go as far as to say that every encounter has some effect on us - but I wonder if the act of changing each other contains the seeds of the relationship's demise. I wouldn't care to speculate how as one usually has many relationships entering their daily life - not necessarily intimate - so who's doing what with one's personal/spiritual development is moot.

In the big picture it seems the way with every organic system - it's born, flourishes, goes through a period of stability turning later into decadence. It dies. Anything from the smallest amoeba to the universe. Its material is recycled in something new.

Having said that I have a couple of long term friendship with men, nothing more, and I'm happy with them. Curiously, I haven't considered how they may have changed me.
Perhaps it will take separation to find out. At the very least I'd miss these people.
...

[Clover]

I suppose it's just life. Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go and are not able to. Still, its the very essence of being human and understanding to care and love deeply for what we find along the way in our journey. These challenges may be mistaken for failure, but really they help us triumph and evolve to better versions of who we are. Perhaps, your experice will be able to help and guide others who are lost and hurting too, and there is nothing more loving or humanistic than that

[Glacier Serenade]

Well for 99.9% of us, love is the energy pull that makes us human and it's so powerful that if we're not careful it can make us do irrational decisions and turn us into someone we wouldn't have otherwise wanted to become, even after the feeling of love has ended. One must be careful with love and not concerntrating their whole energy into it as it can distract us from rational thought!

[sunflwrdanzr]

All such lovely thoughts on this. Yes, I often just wax and wane on things. My heart was heavy and needing to think things out. A bit better today, but please continue! I love hearing what others think.

Lorelyen, I love your whole post and picture especially! So great!

^^^ You're a dancer and one who teaches dance. You understand interior beauty (if I may say so) but I don't want to sound presumptuous so I'll take care what I say.

I somehow feel this particular pain of yourse myself though I was (and still am, I suppose) a dyed in the wool romantic. Changes people may have wroughtt, but they have never dimmed that light. Likewise aware of the sensuousness we all contain particularly when we just "let go" (as in "transported" / "sent") and express through our senses via our bodies, I am very much in touch with my sensuous "within".

The kind of things you mention rest on memories that have become treasured. I can't pretend I always like them - but would I have anything different? Not really.
I move on wondering if I will ever meet the one person with whose life I inter-relate like no other. I still hold out some small hope but I won't wait around. I won't expect. It's the only way (for me, anyway) to avert cynicism.

As Clover says, it's life as it is. It's the way we individually are.

[Baile]

Originally Posted by sunflwrdanzr

Yet we settle. Sigh.

Ah! There's the reason for that sigh. We don't settle. Rather, some settle. Some don't. Most do, to learn not to. Like me. I settled once, grew resentful. I settled a second time, became disgusted. And as unhappy as all that was, it did the trick. I learned to never settle again.

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Baile

Ah! There's the reason for that sigh. We don't settle. Rather, some settle. Some don't. Most do, to learn not to. Like me. I settled once, grew resentful. I settled a second time, became disgusted. And as unhappy as all that was, it did the trick. I learned to never settle again.

Hahahaha....well said.

Really, you should just add "Once upon a time..."

I settled once, grew resentful. I settled a second time, became disgusted. And as unhappy as all that was, it did the trick. I learned to never settle again

and then "...The end".

Because whether once or twice or perhaps even a few more times for the really hard-headed cases, this is really a universal path.

Oh and good on you for figuring it out whilst you still have a good portion of your life ahead of you. I go on quite a few coffee dates with gents looking to make lots more mistakes again as quickly as possible, so long as it involves hot sex as soon as possible I have come to realise there is no magic time when folks grow up. For many, it never happens and they just slide into decrepitude, hahaha! And yes, these are men over 40 or even 50, professionals with nothing particularly special abt them. The only thing "special" is that they are still looking to settle yesterday, LOL...

C'est la vie...hahaha!

Peace & blessings
7L

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Clover

I suppose it's just life. Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go and are not able to. Still, its the very essence of being human and understanding to care and love deeply for what we find along the way in our journey. These challenges may be mistaken for failure, but really they help us triumph and evolve to better versions of who we are. Perhaps, your experice will be able to help and guide others who are lost and hurting too, and there is nothing more loving or humanistic than that

This is a lovely response, and well-said.
I think I need to stress this, because I see it so often across our society.
We in Western society have become a society of cynics, where not only boundless love but also agape and a mature authentic love are so often so poorly understood as to be seen as immature and infantile. Whilst emotional detachment is seen as either necessary, realistic, or perhaps even more mature.

But of course we need both a universal, authentic love (for self, others, and All) as well as equanimity (which is not the same thing at all as a self-absorbed or immature refusal to engage emotionally with others). To have one without the other always leaves us lacking access to the fullness of our humanity. And in modern society...both of these are lacking all round.

Choosing what is right and good in each moment often requires great courage and enormous fortitude, as well as wisdom, temperance, and grace. Here's where the equanimity comes into play...so it's less about the ego and more about living in alignment with who you are at core.

Romantic attraction and relationship is pretty facile without real presence, deep engagement, and a pure and simple love of souls, that's for certain.

But an authentic love of self, of family, of friends, of a partner, and of neighbours or strangers...each in their own respective way...that's an amazing thing. That's something else entirely...

I'd definitely say on't knock it till you've tried it over and over, for many, many ages Not only the love of a single person or even a very close soulmate...but a way of being that applies to all you know and all you touch, at the level and in the way that is appropriate to that person or that group of folks.

Peace & blessings
7L