Falling in Love -- Rabbit Hole For Me

[bellemeadows]

A few years ago, I fell in love with someone, a friend. That love led me down such a rabbit-hole of pain. When that person didn't want me in their life, like Chad, I didn't want to live. It just brought up pain; and all those beliefs about not being good enough, not this, not that, never enough; well of course in my mind they were all proven to be true. And suicide looked good to me; better than the pain, which was pretty unbearable.

Now I'm through that; and I've sworn off falling in love. I've not sworn off love; just falling in love; that in love state.

I feel better for it. I find now that I can have a boyfriend, or a lover, and love them without being in love. It has opened the door for playfulness, for kindness, for real love, love of myself, love of animals, love of friends.

So my Q is, is falling in love real love? For me it wasn't. And my life feels better, richer, more kind and loving and compassionate without that concept.

What about you? Let me know. Blessing from Belle,

[Jennihul]

Sounds like you are describing an unhealthy obssession, not true love.

Falling in love is a process that must be built on a foundation contributed to by two people. One feeds the other. The love is built.

If one rejects the other should fade but if one rejects and the other keeps trying to feed and build, that's obssession.

That kind of falling in love, and the subsequent feelings of low worth when it ended is an indication that you may have loved this person, but you don't love yourself. No one in self-love would ever go to that place.

Rather than giving up on falling in love, why don't you work on repairing your self-love and hence destroy the possibility you could ever get to that bad place again?

Jennifer

[The Cloud]

In my opinion "falling in love," or infatuation, is just a way of attaching your self-worth to another person's opinion of you. So your feelings become connected to how they act toward you, making you dependent on them. Nobody wants that kind of responsibility for another's emotions, so the tendency is for them to become more distant, which of course makes you feel like you are worthless because your worth isn't being reaffirmed by your partner.

So, in short, no I do not think that "falling in love" is love. Love isn't an emotion, it's a state of being. If you love someone, you are that love for them. You don't feel it, it exists on a more basic level than that. It is you and you are it. It isn't based on what they do or how they act or what they believe. It's based on who and what they are, which unfortunately is often rather independent of how they act and what they believe. So it's possible to love somebody that doesn't believe the same things as you, doesn't do the same things you do, doesn't have the same emotional responses to things you do, because those things are on a more abstract level than who they truly are. I'm basing this all on my own personal experience of loving somebody with significantly different beliefs than I have. But beliefs can be changed, although it doesn't happen often. What you are cannot, because you can never be other than what you are.

[bellemeadows]

Thank you, Cloud -- that is very helpful. I agree. Sometimes, I really just feel like love is a natural state for me. And unlike being 'in love', real love is very freeing. It wants the best for everyone, and asks for nothing in return. For when you are love, what more do you need?

Thank you, again -- lovely post. Blessings from Belle,

[bellemeadows]

One more thing -- the 'in love' experience opened the door for such healing for me. For me, there were some old outdated beliefs that were coloring my experience of life; and now I have taken off those glasses. It has been incredible. It is like my life has opened up.

My therapist is ready to kick me out of the nest; I'm consistently enjoying life that much and using the skills she has taught me, and ones I've picked up other places. I guess the bottom-line is there are gifts in every moment; gifts to found even in the tough times.

I am very grateful; Blessings from Belle,