Page 40 - the NOISE October 2013

Iwas walking in the woods one day after a significant thread: We’re seeing something in that other person that we
breakup in my early 20’s pondering love, relationships
and the point of it all when suddenly it came to me: All of our relationships are experiences to remind us of what Di- vine love is. They’re all just setting us up for something greater, larger than anything we could ever have on a physical and emotional level with another human being.
This isn’t an original thought. Like many lessons or teach- ings from the broad spectrum of teachers whose books I’ve read or classes I’ve taken, the lesson takes repetition be- fore it beams like an Oprah “Ah-ha!” moment. I’ve probably heard some version of this dozens of times, said in different ways, by different teachers, and it never really made sense until I had loved another person so much that I thought my life would feel hollow without them...
Until the day came, and the gap I expected to feel was not as broad as I anticipated, and instead I simply found space to grow.
By this point in time I had been practicing yoga again for a few years and was on the cusp of a yoga teacher training im- mersion, the yoga had softened my edges and a lot of things I had once thought I’d never grow tired of had one by one fallen away unnoticed. I had heard again and again some- thing along the lines of: The feelings we feel for someone, the feelings we get when someone makes us feel that in-love feel- ing aren’t because of that person.
Sure, they’re awesome, they make you smile and you get that butterflies trying to burst through the lining of your stomach feeling ... but what about when you first meet someone and immediately like them, though you don’t yet know anything about them? How can the same top-of-the- world feeling exist when all you know about that person is what you’ve perceived in the short amount of time you’ve been in their company?
Maybe you’ve heard the mirror metaphor before, I have countless times, again, from countless teachers schooled in various traditions and every telling holds one common
see in ourselves. Good or bad.
But I’m talking about amour...
There is something in them, some spark of ourselves.
Maybe that makes us all a little vain, wandering the planet looking for ourselves in other people so we can like them for it ... but that isn’t what I mean.
This person is holding up a mirror that allows you to see what it is in yourself you admire. Because you are looking at someone other than yourself, and you feel this admiration, you drop the laundry list of reasons to not love (yourself) and it’s so easy to see all the good.
The greatest lesson I’ve learned on this path is that if I ever want to be any good to anyone I choose to form any kind of relationship with; I have to love myself first. Unconditionally. Otherwise, I’ll be loving others the same conditional way so- ciety has taught me to love myself, and that’s not really love.
When we have expectations of others to fill a space in our lives, we can’t be satisfied. We will always be looking for something outside of ourselves. Yoga has taught me I have everything I need within myself, from the beginning. I am not lacking, not imperfect or flawed. No one but myself is going to fulfill the things I want in my life.
I’ve learned that all the love I ever feel is really love of something greater. It is a love for my highest self. You could turn the light on yourself and realize it is not some person outside yourself who makes you feel a certain way, that they are showing you the love you have within. Those feelings can exist all within without any outside conditions. No one has to love you for you to be in love.
As soon as you feel that love, unconditionally for yourself or something higher, that love is all you see reflected back to you in everyone’s mirrors.
| Clair Anna rose likes flowers with her tea.
clairannarose@gmail.com
40 • october 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us