Tatiana Khodakova
Your life is the only reason to feel love.
The theme of love will never be exhausted. It is written about, talked about, drawn, danced, sung, and played. People dream about it, praise it, and wait for it… But it does not come when you wait for it. It is felt.
It has become the case that we learn to know about love and gradually forget how to feel it. We expect a reason to appear: someone will come, or something will happen, and we will immediately begin to experience love. We wait for it to be an event, an action, a triggering external stimulus.
Since early childhood, we’ve “tied” many conditions to the feeling of love; we’ve draped this feeling in reasons. And then, without even realizing it, we wait for a reason, we wait for a cause to feel love.
Every person is born with an inner feeling of love
And in childhood, the first people with whom this feeling begins to emerge are the parents (or those who replaced them). The child feels love around their close ones. Unconsciously, they attribute the knowledge: “I love them, and they love me because with them I feel this emotion”. Following that, the parents take care of them. Now, care will be associated with love (with the feeling of love).
As they grow, a person will unconsciously wait for a reason to feel the love that lives inside them. If they are cared for, supported, and praised, it means they reproduce this feeling within themselves. If there is no care, protection, or praise, they will unconsciously choose not to feel love.
But it hasn’t disappeared. It still ”lives” in their feelings; they just choose not to notice it.
Let’s take breathing as an example: we breathe even if we don’t feel this process. But as soon as we choose to feel it (direct our attention to our breathing), we immediately notice it. The same goes for love. Yes, breathing is a physiological process, while love is a feeling. But all feelings are reflected in bodily sensations.
It turns out that, without even realizing it, we spend our lives seeking “reasons” to feel love. Essentially, everything we do, we do for this feeling.
We reach the peaks of success to feel love, conditioning: “If I achieve the desired result, then I will be loved, and/or that will be a recognition that I love myself”. Or: “Once I create a family, I will feel the love of my partner — of course, if they care for, support, cherish, and appreciate me. Otherwise, I won’t feel loved”.
Thus, we spend our entire lives searching for a reason to feel love, which we can feel without any reason at all.
Yes, in this case, we might lose that artificial romanticism; we will become less manipulable and won’t buy into “trends” just to feel love for ourselves. But we will gain something greater — freedom. The freedom to feel love not ‘because of’ something, but always.
For this perspective — though not very traditional but truly liberating — to be more than just words, I suggest conducting an experiment. Picture in your mind a person you love. They’re not physically present now, but vividly imagine them. Now, feel what you feel?”
Love, right?
But right now, it’s not there; they’re not bringing you coffee, not transferring money to your account, not supporting or inspiring you. So whose feeling is this? What does it depend on?
This is your feeling of love. You can feel it with a person or without them. It’s not them who is the cause of this feeling; it’s you. More precisely, there are no reasons or occasions for love, apart from your choice to feel love.
So what happens between people that is called romantic love? A lot! You meet someone you find attractive; you enjoy the physical and mental connection with them, and you want to spend time together. Yes, with them, you allow yourself to feel love. Your love. And they choose to feel their love next to you. This feeling is what we call mutual love.
So now, should we not care for others? Why not? Care for them because you enjoy showing care, providing support, and giving gifts. You enjoy making someone else happy. And love is always within. Inside each of us. We don’t need to learn to love ourselves or anyone else, and we don’t need a reason to feel it. Yes, it’s that simple. Don’t complicate it.
And yes, we can acquire trendy things, but only because we like them. And yes, we can achieve our goals, but only because we want to, because it interests us — not to feel love. To feel it, just having inner sensations is enough!
If you dare to realize that love (the feeling, not care, not support, nor time spent together 24/7) is your feeling, then your perception of others’ behavior will change significantly. It will become much easier for you.
If another person does not show care, does not pay attention, does not belong to you entirely, it simply means they do not want to, cannot, lack the ability, or do not consider it necessary to do all that for you. But this has nothing to do with love.
And you can choose whether to be with such a person or not, whether their behavior suits you or not. If it does, you stay with them. If not, you are free to be where you feel good. And love is always with you, wherever you are and with whomever you are.
Here it is — free love. The freedom to feel love without a reason. Your life is the only reason.
LOVE IS ALWAYS WITHIN. TO FEEL IT, JUST INTERNAL SENSATIONS ARE ENOUGH. EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST DECORATION
Photo by Miha Arh
Read also:
A reality, where there is no fear
How Our Feelings Change DNA and the World Around Us
Татьяна Ходакова
Практический психолог
Интегративный подход
