| Alan
Cohen
From
the Heart
Out
There Love
Say
goodbye to that love roller coaster, hello to a 24-hour
non-stop love-in
At
a seminar I presented in Greece, a woman named Georgia
reported that she had been married to a man who was
emotionally absent. After long and frustrating attempts
to infuse life into her ailing marriage, Georgia felt
she needed to leave. "I told my husband I wanted a divorce,
but he refused to give it to me," she recounted. "So
I decided that even if he didn't love me, I would love
me. I decided that I would give myself the love and
kindness I had been seeking from him. So every day I
wrote myself a long love letter telling myself how beautiful,
wonderful, and desirable I am.
"Then
one day my husband found one of these letters. Since
it was unsigned, he assumed it was from another man.
He came to me waving the letter in his hand and told
me, ŒI can't compete with this‹you can have your divorce!'"
Everyone
and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection
of something that is happening inside of us. All events
and experiences in our field of awareness represent
the "out-picturing" of a feeling, belief, or attitude
we are holding. Thus we can use every event as a barometer
of where we are on our path. "We think in secret and
it comes to pass; environment is but a looking glass."
This universal Law of Attraction means that we "hire"
everyone in our play to act out the script we have written.
This is why we experience repetitious patterns in relationship,
work, or health; different actors are showing up to
play the same role. Eventually we recognize that it
cannot be an accident that the same type of people keep
doing the same things; it is we who have drawn them
according to the signals we are radioing to central
casting.
The
good news about the Law of Attraction is that the moment
we change our mind, heart, or attitude, the outer world
must reflect it, often immediately. In Georgia's case,
she was holding an unconscious attitude that she was
unlovable and did not deserve a husband who was present
and attentive. As soon she grew beyond that limiting
belief, released her husband from the onus of her emptiness,
and gave herself the love she sought, he had no choice
but to match it or leave. I have every reason to expect
that Georgia's next relationship was a vast improvement.
We
can save ourselves all kinds of pain and escape the
struggle of endless manipulation by determining what
we would like to receive from other people, and then
giving to ourselves. This all-important shift can be
difficult in a world where we are daily bombarded with
the notion that we are empty and needy, and everything
we want and need is out there. Out there is a romantic
partner; a hit record; a new car; a more prestigious
job; a better house. The funny thing about getting things
from out there is that if you did not know you were
whole before you got the thing, you will not become
whole when you get it; in fact you will feel even more
empty and confused. As Buddha asked, "If you do not
get it from yourself, where will you go for it?"
Cool
Runnings is a delightful story of a group of young Jamaican
men who decide they will enter the bobsled competition
in the winter Olympics, based on real events. The team
faces and overcomes tremendous odds to make it to the
competition. The night before the big race, one of the
team members confides to the coach that he will feel
like a failure if he returns home without a medal. The
coach has some good advice for this fellow: "If you
do not know that you are good enough without the medal,
you will not be good enough with the medal."
February
is the month of lovers. All of us truly want to be in
love, for love is our natural state-literally who we
are. The question is not, "Should we love?" but "Where
will we find the love we desire?" If we decide that
another person is the source of our love, we set ourselves
up for a roller-coaster ride of heady ecstacy followed
by painful frustration. Sometimes our partner will do
things that make us feel loved, and sometimes he or
she will do things that make us feel unloved. But as
long as anything she or he does can make us feel one
way or another, we have set ourselves up for a fall;
we have given our power away in a most unkind (to ourselves)
way, and we become little more than a yo-yo on the string
of life.
There
is another way to love, far more magnificent, real,
and rewarding. This way finds the source of our love,
power, and life within us. This way teaches that our
purpose is not to import love, but to express it. Instead
of being a love seeker, we become a love finder. We
do not wait for love‹we generate in it. Then we get
to bask in the warmth of our own beauty any time we
choose, potentially all the time.
D.H.
Lawrence elucidated this principle most eloquently:
Those
who go searching for love only find their own lovelessness.
But the loveless never find love; only the loving find
love, and they never have to search for it.
Happy
Valentine's month, fellow lovers.
Alan
Cohen lives in Maui, Hawaii, and is the author of 14
popular inspirational books including the award-winning
A Deep Breath of Life. Visit Alan's website at www.alancohen.com,
or call 800/568-3079.
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