When you are young you believe that you fall into love. You could conceivably fall into lust, or trip mindlessly into passion-but love, real love is something you become – not something into which you fall.

We also often confuse unconditional love and romantic love. Unconditional love is the glue that holds the universe together. It is called morphic-resonance, alignment, attunement, peace or grace. It is the act of energies coming together in way that creates harmonious fluidity in the system. It is the dance that makes each of its parts more, united in the mutual blessing of mutual recognition and honor. Each integral part moves into union. Each part having the implicit awareness that it individually is, and is necessary to the whole. Love is an act of recognition from one soul to another. Your spirit is familiar to me – I know it as my own. Jeez that sounds a lot like romantic love as well. Hence the confusion. They are one in the same, with romantic love having a few, okay a lot, more challenges.

Love can be spontaneous, it can pop up in unexpected places; between friends over lunch, between words in secret sharings, between breaths beside the ocean. Love is found in sad songs, love songs, in nearly all songs. Love is in the eyes of a child, in the warmth of a shaggy dog’s coat lying across your foot as you write your column, or in the recognition of humanity in a stranger’s glance. Love is found in uncommon acts of kindness and in moments of being vulnerable. It is in the space behind our fear. Love can peek through the eyes in the mirror when there is acceptance or compassion for ourselves. Love gets created between two people who are healing themselves and each other. Love is in each of us when we are open to being it.

In relationships, love is often confused with need. Love is not need. Love does not seek anything. When there is true love it is never partial, it is already complete. When we seek out each other to fill our needs, our lovers become the object of filling those needs rather than our beloved. Love is being present, profoundly here, solid and alive. Love is the connection, the commitment, the ecstasy and relief of right union. Love creates a direct path to Spirit parts, head parts, heart parts, girl parts and boy parts. When love is real all of our parts are in it and nothing is held back. When we are both being love, we are able to cradle the child in each of us, respect the adult in each of us and encourage the Spirit in each of us.

When you are being love, there is no separation between who you are and what you feel, therefore, there is no way to give less than your best. When you still feel you are looking for the best, or still trying to give the best, you have not yet found love. When you have found it there are no questions left. Love is a surprise! It is never what you thought is was and never comes because you wish it would. Love knocks you off your feet and onto your butt when you least expect it or have decided you don’t need it.

Love walks barefoot in summer and wears sweats in winter. Love stays up through the night to help you solve problems. Love reaches out through fear or pain to touch your face or take your hand. Love reaches back to touch his or her face or take his or her hand. Love reaches through all the distances we each create when we feel a need to protect ourselves, or have begun to doubt ourselves – and it pulls us toward each other. Love believes there will always be resolve and does not leave until we find it.

Love cracks me up laughing while dishing the guests at a party we’ve just left, or while describing how somebody – the invisible person who lives in my house – ate the last fat free cookie. Love calls me Einstein when I launch into an explanation of morphic- resonance but I can’t even remember the date or time of an event after being told twenty-seven times. Love is an amazing thing.

When we are being love, we are also being integrity, honesty and truth because love walks hand in hand with them. It is not possible to stand in love and also stand in lying, cheating, leaving in any way, or pretending. Love knocks at your hearts door and reminds you to do these things would be a betrayal to yourself.

No, love is not an instantly falling into thing. Love is a feeling fully, failing and forgiving, filling up and over-flowing, finding you and finding me thing. In truth there are only two emotions in the world, love and fear… and love is the only real one. Perhaps this will help….
You Know You’re In Love When…

Love becomes something you do, rather than something you want.
Taking care of yourself means you get another moment
to brush the hair from off her forehead.
Cuddling is not about the weather
An expected glance at her takes your breath away.
Sex becomes sacred
How she looks is less important than who she is
You are willing to discover something new about her
from moment to moment
Uncertainty, questions and greener grass no longer exist.
Leaving is not an option
You would gladly give your inner child to her
What you feel begins to heal you both.
You are willing to open your heart in ways
you never thought you could
Giving less than your best feels like lying
You can feel her imprint on your soul
You can feel her presence even when she’s not near
It’s more fulfilling to listen than talk
Truth becomes a gift of spirit
And, loving her becomes all you need

© Dr. Dina Bachelor Evan 2013

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