You Are A Love Machine

It’s that time of year again, Valentines Day. I personally love Valentines day, not because of the chalky heart shaped candies or the flowers (though I do like flowers), but because it is a day all about the love! The commercialized, pressurized side of the holiday leaves much to be desired, but the spirit of the holiday is one that I believe most people could really appreciate given the right context.

Love. True love is infinite, ever expanding, and abundant. Love is like fresh air in the forest, it gives all of itself, all of the time, to everyone. When you are in the forest breathing in the air and you see someone else and they are breathing that same air, you don’t think “hey stop stealing my air!” and yet that is how people talk about love, like it is finite.

Loving is a doing, not a receiving. In fact, being in love, that feeling of becoming alive and having your world rocked, has little to do with the other person loving you! It is a creation of yours, you generate the love and then express it – and that is where that giddy feeling of being in love comes from. You! You are the love machine. In fact, other people loving you is totally unimportant. This is proven by the fact that you can be love struck without the other person even knowing or sharing your feelings. It’s wonderful for that person if they do share your feeling, because then they get to experience love also.

Sometimes in relationships that giddy love struck feeling eventually transforms into rich, deep, full textured kind of feeling. There is so much richness in this place of a relationship. Love based relationships are not a needs exchange, unlike your relationship with, say, your barista where you need coffee, they need money – voila a quality relationship is formed! Romantic relationships are a spiritual opportunity: and opportunity to grow and evolve as a person, an opportunity to express the love within you, and an opportunity to release your barriers to being the object of someone affection.

Years ago one of my dear friends asked me why I chose to get married, when it “doesn’t really mean anything”. Granted, I can agree that marriage doesn’t really mean anything, until you give it meaning. For us, it’s a commitment to having our relationship be a spiritual opportunity that we would not leave when it becomes uncomfortable. This commitment could be made without being married for sure, but that is what we defined as marriage for us. And these are the promises that we made to each other:

• I will be your partner in life no matter what the circumstances.
• I vow to be honest with you.
• I promise to stay conscious of my choice to be with you in this relationship.
• I vow to bring playfulness and humor to every day of our lives together.
• I promise to support you to live your life with purpose.
• I will encourage you to grow when you are met with obstacles.
• I vow to come from a place of LOVE in all of my interactions with you.
• I promise to keep you informed of my needs and enthusiastically help you get your needs met. (Though relationships are not a needs exchange – it is of the utmost importance to have a needs list and share that with your partner, read this post about needs lists)
• I will share the loving and healing energy we create with the world, and use it to catalyze my life purpose.

Love is all there is, it is the highest vibration, and it is ever lasting. Love is hardwired into you, your birthright, your gift. The air in the forest doesn’t disappear just because you don’t want to breathe it. The air is enjoying being the air and so it continues.

I would love to hear from you in the comments below about how you feel when you are experiencing the love.