"To Love, NOT Possess" ...
People often confusion love with possession. It's easy to understand why; it's built into the fundamental assumptions of our society.
"You're mine" says the popular song, or "we BELONG together" Hardly anyone stops to question the sentiment.
Often times the "need" to feel love, is an attempt to possess. We speak confidently of "MY Boy friend, or Girl friend, MY WIFE, My HUSBAND, MY child, MY Parent. We feel justified in holding expectations about those people,and we consider it perfectly reasonable. Why? Because concepts about love most often are derived from "Romantic Love" -and romantic love is furiously, frantically possessive. We want to be with our lover, to have him or her to ourselves, to POSSESS.
So strongly do we equate Love with possession that we may even feel that if someone does not want to "Possess" us, he or she doesn't really love us. I argue that what we call, "Romantic Love" isn't love at all, it's a kind of emotional storm, an overpowering, thrilling attraction- but it is NOT love! Why? Because real love isn't possessive. It can't be.
Love involves giving, not taking. Yet the desire to possess actually may spring from the lovers own need, the need for approval from the beloved, for support from a parent, straight A's from a child, for status, for something! A possessive lover is overly focused on what he or she is "getting" NOT "giving." The lover may dignify this dependency with the name LOVE, but I don't believe it to be true. How can you REALLY love someone when you are totally dependent on them for things you NEED? That isn't love! ~ that's just manipulation to keep the "needed" stuff coming your way,and love is not the same as "need"
Of course, a loving relationship will produce interdependency,but too often, the pleasure of freely GIVING, changes to a fear of not GETTING, this person, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, whomever, is suddenly SO important that you worry about what is going to happen,and in that moment... LOVE STOPS!!!
Then what's the problem about recognizing love? Simple! Most often its because they are feeling a sense of conflict.They feel the depth of their NEED, NOT the height of their LOVE.
There are ways to know real love. It feels calm. Its soothing, and steady, and it can easily last a lifetime. Its nourishing, calm, people grow under its influence, they become who they REALLY are, not what someone expects or "needs" them to be. Real love isn't blind; on the contrary, people feel understood and excepted for who they really are, its healing.
So whenever you hear, "Love is Blind" or that "Love Can Never Last" our "Love is destroying me" you can be sure that you are actually hearing a description of "Lust" or perhaps "Needs" ~ its an accurate description, because "NEEDS" really are transient, and destructive.
But love? Love is something entirely different, an emotion of such deep caring that it asks of nothing in return. An emotion so fulfilling without any expectations at all,and so so rare that most people in our society can't even imagine it. They can't imagine feeling it, nor receiving it, they may not even believe it truly exists, but oh, it does! And its the best thing that there is!
J..Michaels
