My love is my business; it has nothing to do with you. You love me, and that isn’t personal. You tell the story that I am this, or I am that, and you fall in love with your own story. What do I have to do with it? ~Byron Katie
Falling in love is one of the most powerful projections we experience, if not the most powerful. We open our heart and take all our love, light and amazingness from within and project it onto the other person, the one we have decided is the object of our adoration. Just as we take the dark, painful sides of ourselves that we don’t like or can’t own and project onto others, we project out our light and love.
It was love at first sight! I just fell for him! Yes, you loved them at first sight because they matched something in your story of how an “attractive” man or woman should look and be. Your longing to live more fully in love was activated and found a “target.” Or maybe, over time, you told yourself some positive stories about another and more slowly fell in love with them. Either way, you are falling in love with your own happy story about another.
How do you react when you believe the thoughts: “She is so sweet and sensual?” Do you feel sweet and sensual?
“He is so kind, helpful and reliable.” Do you feel kind, grateful and safe? “He is so hot.” Do you feel turned on?
What images do you see with these thoughts? Do you see them in your mind in a very positive, sensual, kind, sexy light? Mmm…does these images open your heart, make you smile and activate a surge of sweet energy in your body? Physical sensations starts in the mind with images and thoughts!
“She is my soul mate! We were meant for each other.” How do you react when you believe that thought? Propose to her? Do you see images in your mind of the two of you living happily ever after?
All of this would just be so sweet, sensual, kind and fun if it weren’t for the fact that sooner or later the real person won’t match up with your sweet story about them. Or you loose them one way or another. That’s when the disappointment and heartbreak comes.
So is falling in love only an illusion? Should we not believe our romantic stories?
Before I meet Hubert, my sweet story man, I went through a series of intense heartbreaks that caused me to really sit in this inquiry. A man I was crazy about dumped me and left town with another woman, she was twenty years younger than me, just to make it really juicy. They went to Italy and I saw images of the two of them riding a gondola together in Venice with some Italian love songs playing in the back ground.
The pain of that heartbreak forced me to get real about the practice of turning around and bringing home positive projections:
I am in love with him became I am in love with myself.
I need him became I need myself.
He is so amazing became I am so amazing.
He is so sexy became I am so sexy.
I need him to make passionate love to me became I need me to make passionate love to myself.
I need him to come back to me became I need me to come back to myself.
For each turned around projection I found authentic examples of how it was as true or truer.
I brought that massive “in-love” story home to myself and sat in it. Each day I would walk for hours finding examples of how I was in love with myself, seeing myself with the same eyes I had looked at him with. I found that the sweet, sexy, amazing love originated within myself; I could just sit and bathe in it. It began to expand out so it was not just the limited personality, Helena, that I was in love with; I fell in love with the true nature of the being living in this body. The true nature of love, the essence of love, flowing through this body and out into the universe. I fell in love with everything.
At times my mind would try to escape all that love and think about him again and how I really needed him to come back to me. Deep breath, come back to the present moment, and continue looking for real examples of the turnaround: I am in love with myself.
Examples:
All that love is still present in my heart.
I am touched by this woman, Helena, who is so devoted to her practice.
I am vibrantly alive and tingling with energy.
I am in love with everything around me because I am looking at it from the same place within that I was looking at him from.
Back to Hubert; the one I am telling a lot of sweet, happy, supportive, sexy and caring stories about these days. The difference now is the awareness that I am telling myself happy stories that makes me happy. Hubert is my happy story, my own love for everything projected onto him. I am so glad Hubert wants to be part of my happy story.
There is something else available without the “in love” drunkenness, it more of a noticing: oh, wow, here is man wanting to share in this love bath I am living in. Sweet! It is deeper, more relaxed, grounded, real and oh, so fulfilled within itself. Hubert sounds like my own mind does these days; “Helena, you are amazing! Helena, you are so sweet! Helena, I will always be here to support you.” And when he is not able to live up to my sweet story, maybe he is busy one day or have something going on with his family that bugs him, there is no disappointment or pain. There is no lack or longing for anything to be different because there was never any need for him in the first place. There is no drama or emotional stress because anything that arises in a “turned around” relationship is within myself, if I need, I can do inquiry so that I can return to love and my happy love story.
There is no difference between being with myself or being together with Hubert’s physical form. The love we share is immovable and not dependent on how much physical time we spend together. Being in love is internal these days and sharing it with Hubert is simply extra frosting on the cake. Sure, we speak all the sweet nothings: I miss you baby, can’t wait to see you baby…and there is no lack or missing anything, it’s just fun.
We are just hanging out in the moment, noticing love arising. And, who knows, maybe one day we will feel inspired to create a ritual called wedding…
Join me in Sierraville Hot Springs for the Radical Love Shift Retreat for Women Aug. 10-12 or join Hubert and I in Stockholm at Halsa utan Granser Sep. 6th for more on this juicy topic. (You can sign up for these events on the Seminar page.)
