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What About Love? 
"Where there is great love, there are always miracles."
- Willa Cather
I confess that my plan for this month's newsletter was to take it easy and just do "riffs" on love by including a scad of great quotations about love instead of writing an article. But then I read the following from Martha Beck: "There is no risk-free way to love. The possibility of being devastated is always there, but the possibility of joy only exists when you put your battered heart right on the table by trusting that you're loveable."
I realized that two of the themes that I work with and am passionate about - the risk of loving and self-love are interconnected. Thus, this article about love (and probably more writing) demanded birth.
It is an absolute truth that there is risk involved in loving. Martha is correct - there is no risk-free way to love. Whenever or whatever you love, there is the possibility of loss, of heartbreak. Your loved one may die or disappoint you or betray you or even leave you. It may be a huge loss or a small one; the losses may be multiple. Like it or not, this is reality.
We play lots of emotional and cognitive games to avoid this reality of loving, to avoid the fear that our heart may be broken. One game is to perform. Performance-based love says; "If I do it right, if I'm the perfect partner, mother, friend, if I'm smart enough and figure out all the angles...then I won't suffer any loss from this relationship." Another game is self-delusion. We may deny that the loss happened. We choose not to know what we don't want to know about our loved one (classic strategy with affairs and substance abuse). The third game is abdication. We may become love avoidant, pick emotionally unavailable people, or become emotionally cut off to evade the possibility of loss. We may choose to never really be vulnerable enough to be intimate. Another popular game in our culture is telling ourselves that our partner is our "soul mate" and therefore, we don't have a risk in loving because he/she is bound to me, is my other half, etc. and could never separate from me. I understand that these strategies are being used as an attempt at mental and emotional "insurance" because the risk of loving can be frightening.
As you know, my dogs are great teachers so here is their example in my life. I deeply love my big, mellow Lab and it breaks my heart to know that in all likelihood, I will suffer his death within the next five years. Should I not love Boomer so much because it will hurt like hell when I lose him? My grief over his loss will be measured by the depth of my love and joy in his life. I can't have one without the other. It is part of the choice that I make when I choose to love.
We are much more reluctant to accept this bargain in our human relationships. Yet there is no risk free way to love; the bargain has to be made. Love only comes with the possibility of loss. We do better if we accept this truth, if we don't create illusions or manipulations to avoid it. It just is and we can live with it. Trying to avoid it makes us suffer and struggle and even become compulsive or controlling.
As I mentioned above, I see a connection between self-love and the risk of loving. If we love and approve of ouselves, no matter what, then we can fully tolerate the risk of loving and we can wholeheartedly love. With self-love in place, we know that even if our heart breaks into a thousand pieces, it does not mean that we are not loveable. If I know myself to be infinitely loveable, then I know that I am not bad or worthless if someone I love betrays me or disappoints me. It may be a horrid experience or loss but it doesn't impact my love for myself.
Self love is based on the value that you are a person of worth because you exist. Alot of people rely on "other based" self esteem which holds that I matter or am loveable because other people love me or think well of me. "Other based" loveability is pretty tenuous stuff in general because your self love is in the hands of others. You are completely disempowered. If your self love is "other based," the risk of loving is HUGE because the loss hits not only the love you feel for your loved one but also the love you feel for yourself. It is too great a risk because the devastation would not only be the loss of love but also the loss of your self - your loveability, your esteem, your sense that you matter.
In many ways, it comes back to the old maxim that you really can't love anyone else fully until you first love yourself fully. The "possibility of joy exists when you put your battered heart right on the table by trusting that you're loveable."
Healthy self love/self esteem is a big subject in its own right and I promise to say more about it. It is not selfish and it does differ from narcissism. We are born with it but most of us didn't have it affirmed for us early in life. Whether or not we were affirmed, it is now our responsibility to love ourselves and know it in our bones. We can love ourselves and we need to love ourselves. I will give you some "how to's" in my next newsletter but for now I will leave you with the hope of Marianne Williamson's words: the love you've withheld from yourself is still inside you, held in trust, waiting for you until you're ready to receive it.
Take the risk...LOVE yourself and others! It is worth it. | 
