Love is…

A hard knock
A cold clock
Ticking off my time
A long look
But no luck
Couldn’t seem to find
Or unwind
Into peace of mind
While I was trying…

I guess I was trying too hard to understand what love is. All the time I had been trying to find myself, my place in life, solving my internal puzzles, and wishing for happiness—I was looking for love. I thought I had a glimpse, a vision of love…visions of love. One vision was that it’s a dimension between two people, a space just for them and nobody else, where they can be together. My other vision was admiration, that feeling that makes us happy just thinking of those we love. A desire to be better for them, with them… This warm fire inside us, that helps it all make sense. Then, there was passion—a stream of stirred, strong, mostly undefined feelings that created an illusion of life in my brain and chemistry.

I even thought I knew what love was. I had my doubts, of course. If everyone is talking about love as the reason, the source, the meaning, and the way of being, then I must have been missing something. I thought I had loved a lot in my life, but none of it had anything to do with reason, source, meaning…especially the way of being.

Then I learned to be happy—just to be happy as is. To enjoy the moment, just be. But still, I was pretty sure it wasn’t love, because I always felt that something was missing, feeling incomplete. Many books read, multiple self-development trainings attended, great teachers, religions, periods of despair, virtual dying, rebirthing, meditating, giving up, getting my hope back—and still no sign of love.

Many times I have heard: “Love yourself—and then you’ll love others and others will love you,” “Love is within you,” “We all came from love,” “Love is all, Love is new, Love is old, Love is new…” I thought I knew the meaning of all this. I never got it, and still kept thinking that love was a feeling in my heart. A feeling of openness, admiration, delight, and marveling… A stream, a vector, a targeted energy flow that my heart gives birth to and that reaches those I love. But one day I realized I had no idea what love was….

The lost time
And self pride
Are my big mistakes
A clear voice
A bad choice
Sounding like an ache
In my day
Not too bad
But too real
To go away…

I registered at Landmark Forum because I gave up on love. Listening to my heart weeping, I still decided to be strong and persuade myself that I might never find love. Neither the love of others nor my own love for myself. I decided to settle on the impossibility of the idea of me ever experiencing love inside me and with people around me. I decided to focus on doing something instead—something useful for me and for the world, to sublimate an immense desire for love with immense success. I was willing to open up at Landmark and let myself grow strong and learn how to live without love and to be happy without looking for it.

But a strange thing happened. The more I thought I was walking away from love toward anything else, the closer to love I was. I started noticing the stresses of my past years of hard trying to make it in a new country and living a new life slowly melting, opening up space for me to see new possibilities. After Landmark Forum, I felt like I had gotten my life back. I wanted to create again—do something, be around people—open and happy.

After my Advanced Course, I realized that I could do anything. That I could do even what I had never believed I could. I became a little giant—still a baby giant, but a real giant compared to what I used to be before.

It was during my Integrity seminar that I realized that all my life I had been too greedy, wishing to acquire love for “personal utilization.” I finally saw that even though I wanted to give love, I perhaps wanted to receive more. Much more. It was at that seminar that I realized that giving love and receiving love is the same, and not two different events. I was able to understand it, but still couldn’t say: “I know what love is.”

Then the SELP came into my life. At first, I sincerely thought it was about the project, about affecting the community, about being a leader. But now I know that it’s really not. It really is about the community, but the community is not just the group of people that take part in our project. Well, they are in a way, but it’s not the main community. The main community here is us, our group—our groups. It’s in our groups where we really learn how to be leaders for each other, how to support each other, how to be there for each other, how to stand not just for yourself, but for each other and for the group. It was John Nash who came up with the theory that “a group will succeed if everybody in the group acts in the best interest of themselves and the group.” That’s what we have been doing. Our project is our best interest. But working together in the SELP is learning how to act in the best interest of the group, small groups and one big group.

I am so very happy that I had my breakdown this New Year. While trying their best to support me, my group pointed out that I had grown myself a few pounds of stories again. Having my group put their minds and their hearts into helping me not just to be there, but to be happy and complete, they went many extra miles to support me and help me transform. They never gave up on me, stayed committed to me all the time, not trying to change me or make me get back to work. They kept being there for me, giving me space. Looking back to those days of drowning in the ocean of tears, my identity’s stories, and sorrow, I am so thankful for that time because if not for it, I could have never (or at least, not so soon) understood what love is…

And there it was—so clear. Everything clicked into place. They were giving me love—without any demand from me, they just kept giving. And I got it. All this time I thought love was a stream. And I had actually created it—a bizarre stream of “undefined” sensations that was not really lighting up anybody’s life but sucking everything inside itself with a needy demand for interaction. I finally saw it. “I love you, why don’t you follow and let me love you as much as I can” never works. This is not about acceptance, our personalities, who’s better, prettier, stronger, whatever. This is not about admiration, support, care, or even really communication.

And I’m free in you
I’ve got no worries on my mind
I know what to do
That’s to treat you right
And love you kind
Thank you ever on my mind
Love is just like breathing
When it’s true
And I’m free in you

And immediately I could see that when I am caught up by my stories created by my little ego, I can’t see love. I can’t know what it is. Only when I left my stories behind, deciding that I would no longer follow them, did I step outside of my ego. And, indeed, it was so little. I can’t believe I could fit inside it. I found a giant in it—myself. The giant that already knew everything about love….

I was able to see that love is a space. Like a warm ocean, where you just lay on your back on the water, spread your arms and legs like a starfish, and drift. Where everything is perfect. A space of being. A total allowance of being just the way it is. A complete feeling of being complete. And I also saw that there is no love that can come from outside me and become mine. You can never give love or receive love. You can be love. By yourself or with others—it doesn’t matter. It’s not about action; it’s about living it. It’s about sharing the space of love.

The space of love grows inside me. I am the source—and not in any other way. I can only share love by being that space—where anything is possible and everything is perfect and complete. This space can never drag anybody inside it; it just allows them to be in it. And it’s impossible to share love without being that space. And it’s impossible to be that space for others without being that space for yourself first—because I am the source. And I will by default be the first entity that will enter this space that I am creating—the space of love. It’s like an ocean that starts in my heart. First it fills me, and only when I am full can it boil over and create an ocean—space—outside me where everybody can just be—be themselves, be as they are—in “this is it—and this is perfect.”

And I don’t know

How you show
Such gentle disregard
For the ugly in me
That I see
That for so long
I took so hard
And I truly believe
That you see the best in me
I’m enough, for your love
and the thought sets me free

I finally understand what it means to love yourself. It’s not at all about acceptance—something I have tried so hard to achieve and never really succeeded. It’s just about being a warm, calm, deep ocean, my own personal Floridian Atlantic, where I can just be.

And now I know that I can be that space for myself. It feels amazing! And I can be that for others—for everybody and everything. With no need for them to give anything in return or even stay in that space. They can be there if they want—they can choose not to. It’s not about loading them with the benefits of my love. It’s about giving them a space to be themselves.

I am stunned by this understanding. I am living a new life in a new world today after seeing all this last night. Everything turned so beautiful; I cannot express what’s inside me. I am growing my ocean inside—and soon will fill with it—with my love—the whole universe.

For that I am forever thankful.

“Free in You” by Indigo Girls is quoted in this essay.