Learning to Love Means Being Prepared to Let Go
Possession and fear are contrary to what it means to love. To experience this feeling with fullness it is necessary to set free, to let go, free ourselves from that which is not ours. That which does not belong to us. Everything we love has the quality of being free and is therefore ephemeral and variable.
When we love we find it hard to learn to let go of what we have clung to. It is something we are not prepared for until we go through the experience. Suddenly we have a situation where we are dependent and have been feeding into it without realizing.
Have you ever been afraid of a relationship being over? You probably have, and this situation itself creates discomfort and suffering. We begin relationships with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement and at that moment everything seems perfect and eternal. The reality, however, is different because everything that starts is likely to terminate, change, and transform.
Preparing ourselves for changes makes us more aware that every moment is unique. We learn over time that making the effort to hold on only causes us suffering.
Part of loving is learning to let go
We believe there are permanent things. Thus, we deceive ourselves with the belief that there are feelings that will always be there, that people never change, and situations will remain the way we want. This is all part of the story we like to tell ourselves to not to face reality.
Haven’t you noticed how the things that are around you change? Haven’t you noticed how you’re changing? Your body, your circumstances, your attitude and your experiences; they all change over time. Inevitably we live in continuous change.
Love is potentially one of the most wonderful experiences that can happen to us, so we intend to cherish it, retain it and keep feeling it eternally. Love is like that. It is eternal while it lasts, even though we must accept that it transforms and flows like water from a spring.
Loving is incompatible with grasping. Love in essence involves freedom. This is one of the most important lessons we must learn if we want to combat frustration, bitterness, suffering, and even hatred that appears when we hold on tightly to what no longer exists.
By not knowing love we get frustrated
Love does not hurt. It is a feeling that is enjoyed and lived with excitement, with enthusiasm, and with the calm that we are with the person we love. It is a great inner peace and liberation in the expression of our being. With this feeling, there is no space for suffering.
What happens when we love and it is not reciprocated? This common situation that generates so much pain serves as an example that we have not learned how to love. We get frustrated, not because we love, but because we have learned to love with conditions, expectations and pretensions of possession.
“For most people, the problem of love is primarily to be loved, not loving, not in one’s own capacity to love.”
-Erich Fromm-
We find it very difficult to accept when love ends. When the other person does not feel the same way, we feel hurt and distressed. These feelings are part of our idea of love. By making personal opinions that have nothing to do with love we fall into self-destruction.
Frustration ends by understanding our misconception of love: recognizing that freedom begins when we let go of everything that does not allow us to be free since we cling to the idea of how things must be and this keeps us disappointed.
Letting go is our best test of love
We struggle when we resist the changes in love. We can reverse this situation, based on our ability to continue loving, by accepting the freedom of being loved. By allowing ourselves to oppose resistance to what we inevitably let go. This experience is what can actually bring us closer to a state of inner peace.
Learning to let go frees us. It leaves us room for love to continue flowing, and in turn facilitates the process for the other person follow their path. The one they have chosen and need to follow. This is the most honest test of love that we can do ourselves and that others can do.
We love ourselves when we give ourselves the opportunity to begin again and continue to be receptive to the opportunity to learn new ways of love. Without any internal blocks that torment, paralyze and destroy our natural ability to experience our feelings intensely.
The essence of all the beauty we experience is freedom itself. If we are able to stop tightening in order to learn to let go, we can come together on the path of happiness and love.
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