“So for you, where’s the difference between loving and being in love?”
There’s a quick answer and a longer answer. There’s how a scientist might explain it, versus how I might explain it. What kind of in love do we mean? The sense of abject adoration we can hold for people and things? Or is this a discussion of being in love specifically in a romantic way? But you asked me, not a scientist, so here I go.
lol.
Short answer:
Do you see your lover’s flaws? If you answered “no” or “yes, but they don’t really matter,” then you might be in love.
I’m joking. Kind of.
In reality, the experience of being in love is a combination of attraction and lust that, intentionally or not, allows us to engage as though we have developed deep bonds, that aren’t hampered by the complications of our realities. If you asked for a scientific explanation of the “in love” feeling, it would probably be akin to being heavily rewarded in the pleasure center without having to do anything to earn it.
If I relate this to my experience of meditative consciousness, it’s like the romantic equivalent of yogic bliss. Seeing reality as it truly is, full of wonder.
...in some ways, yoga has taught me that being in love is just seeing my truth.
And maybe that’s why I can’t fall out of love with anyone.
We get to experience someone with a pure, blissful experience, as if nothing could diminish their worth and without any need to fix or save them. Invited to truly connect with the divinity within them, the wonder beyond their humanity. Except for it’s happening because we are so rewarded by simply witnessing the other and their wonder, that we don’t have space for seeing the full reality: they can also be a source or focal point of immense sorrow and suffering. When we experience yogic bliss, we feel the fullness of joy humming through the universe along with sorrow that it weeps. The relationship of both, is the truth of this bliss. All it is always there in each moment awaiting recognition. To sustain this bliss one must welcome and embrace ALL of the reality of the joy and the suffering, and then honor what it calls them as an individual to do or not to do. Not what some perfect being would do, but what we ourselves are called to do. Accepting all the beauty and imperfection of what we are.
When I love now, I don’t seek to fall in love, in the way where I lose myself to the experience of an ideal. I allow myself to fall in love with everything so that I can always practice a version of love I worked out when I thought I was going to become a priest:
It is a love that feels like a choice. I opt into choosing and supporting growth, alignment, health, and healing, in myself and others. On a physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual level. And wherever I find you or myself in the present, there is acceptance of what is being presented to me. When I failed in the past it didn’t feel good, but presently, it just feels like a new opportunity to be better. Now I see it differently, I didn’t fail, I was just provided an opportunity to learn how to approach this better the next time. And this experience is capable of feeding my soul at all times. My love for one thing, informs and invites love for all other things.
Some might call this “doin’ to much.”
And it was a lot.
This was not easy to accomplish. I had to reckon with my shame. I had to reckon with my secrets. I needed to go places within myself I did not feel safe accepting existed. If humanity was capable of depravity and cruelty, then as a human so was I. Most importantly, I had to face various models of judgment society used to distance “good” people from “bad” people. The judgments we endorse that sanction writing people off-… and I had to decide that I could and would choose love over quitting on those people every time. And I needed other people to be able to go there with me to find themselves to be someone worthy of redemption and forgiveness. This was what I believed it meant to be a vessel of divine love, helping others find their way to a life of love-.. and if they needed it, redemption.
I was prepared to hear the murderers and abusers confess their crimes to me. I was also prepared to hear those who were judging themselves as the worst of humanity, and remind them that I was not here to judge them, I was here to help them remember that both God and at least one person would forgive them, no matter what anyone else determined their punishment should be. And to help them see that choosing to move towards love was the infinite reward once they became aware they could. That they were not alone in doing so.
But I even after I decided not to be a priest, this still felt right to me. Just because I wasn’t a religious figure didn’t mean that I couldn’t try to make sure my love was the most beautiful gift to myself and others that I could make it. In fact, as a regular fucking person, it felt like this might be the most important thing I could do.
That’s a lot. That’s intense… But that ideal is the standard I now hold myself to: to be able to love everyone, no matter how bad they’ve been. I mean, as far as I know, I could’ve been any one of them. I’ve never killed a person, but I’ve never been pushed so hard that I needed to. I’ve never permanently given up on redemption, but I’ve also been blessed to never suffer something that made me believe it’s impossible.
Having reached this place… I really don’t know how not to be in love with anyone once I have been gifted an awareness of them. There’s so much beauty possible through love in all of us. Especially when we have the correct support. But that’s because I see myself in everyone. I could’ve been anyone. And anyone could’ve been me. It’s the stories we pursue and claim that determine this, so I pursue love.
But also, I’m me.
No one else.
And so for the sake of everyone who crosses my path, I choose to be as much love as I can be in any moment.
Maybe it’s silly, but when I think about the possibility that the universe started as a singularity… And that everything that’s ever been in it and ever will be in it was originally one thing.. Then it just seems like this is the correct way for me to love. Because by that account all of it is me anyway. I’m not saying it needs to be your way… But for me at least, the part of the universe that I am responsible for will always be doing its best to love you.
Do I see your flaws? Yes, but the imperfection is part of your beauty.
…I might be in love with you.
I’m joking. Kind of.
Lemme know what you think in the comments, tap the heart if you liked this. Helps me know you’re there.