The Widening Scope of Love

I have come across a few writings about Love and how our understanding of it can widen, taking up more and more space in our lives.

It made me want to write about it.

When it comes to romantic love, I have often found myself unable to see through the same lens as many others. Because the way I love, has always felt different.

At one point I even wondered if I might be polyamorous, simply because loving only one person has always seemed impossible for me.

I have loved my friends deeply. But rarely has that meant I was romantically in love with them. And that brings me to wonder how little we actually understand about love itself.

It sometimes feels as though, in modern society, something like agape would almost be considered a mental illness. The inability to grasp the possibility of loving so deeply, so broadly, feels like we may be missing one of the most important truths there is.

I often say:

Life = God = Love

Because for me, these three are inseparable.

God is the Life pulsing in my heart, and Love is what I am.

For a long time it was rare for me to hear the words I love you, or to say them myself. And still, every time someone says them, they pierce my heart in the most startling way.

It feels like a reminder from my deepest Self:

“Remember? This is what you are. The Love someone feels for you is what you are. It is what they are. It is what we are. Please remember.”

And yet, how easy it is to forget. To hide my heart and my love.And how much it aches to do so.

How many times has someone trampled on the heart I offered, simply because they were terrified of meeting themselves?

And how many times have I done the very same?

Too many, way too many.

I want to keep extending my love rather than keeping it small, reserved only for a chosen few.

I want to become brave enough to say I love you more often, not as a declaration of romance, but as a recognition of what already is.

I can choose Love.

And I don’t believe it is something that belongs only to a few special people. I believe Love is one of those rare forces that multiplies the more it is shared.

Someone once asked me, in response to my post about protect everything you value through the act of giving it away:

“Even love?”

And my answer was no.

I don’t think you can give Love away, because you are it.

But you can share, extend and multiply the space of Love alone and with other people.

You can help it grow by gently removing the barriers that still hold it back.

One of the things that surprised me most was realizing that the Love I feel for my former partner has only grown as I moved farther away from our relationship-physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Today it stands like a mature garden.

We rarely speak and hardly see each other. And yet my Love for him is immense.

That doesn’t mean I want to be in a relationship with him. It doesn’t even mean I want to see him.

It simply means…

I may just love.

Love feels like a mystery. The quiet undercurrent beneath everything. The source of great suffering when resisted. My greatest teacher.

And perhaps the most beautiful path I know how to walk.

In gratitude,

and in Love,

I walk.