I am spending lots of time with my student who is 18 years old, some days up to 7 hours, and today the topic of Love came up following the documentary 'The Trap' that we were watching together for his listening skills.
A few interesting things happened as we watched psychologists trying to delve into the Human Mind, one was that he became uncomfortable and said 'I don't see the point of doing all this digging instead of accepting we'll never be perfect because it's just Human Nature'.
Our chat started on these lines, it's interesting that lately we have spent lots of time together, hours for which I don't charge him because we don't just do English but end up chatting away about his life and what he is going through as he has been lonely lately and at odds with himself and since he enjoys staying here I am assuming this is where I need to be as physical support to someone as one with me, as I would like to receive it, would have liked to receive it, when I was growing up in confusion and turmoil at his same age.
On this point of not charging him today my mum made a joke about how 'clever' he is to get "therapy" for free and how 'silly ' I am to give my time for free, because time is Money and the fact that I am not suspending a Money related activity to support him but just diverting time I would spend on the Internet NOT making money, it's still a nagging point, such is life and how we have come to monetize everything we do with each other, for each other, how uncool is that?
Those chats are of great assistance for me as well, as I notice how I either cruise now through a past potential reaction trigger unfazed or I feel the slight reaction coming up, which happened today.
The reaction was about Love, as I said he is a student of classical studies and so by his 18 year of age he has already solidified an opinion about Love, from classical writings such as Greek tragedies of Gods and Goddesses, or books and movies about what Love is and, due to how we keep passing on our own demented views of the world to children, he lost quite a bit of common sense thanks to system and family indoctrination, a spice of religion and adding to this lot, our 'Love' Culture as Italians, the end result doesn't turn the topic into an easy one.
I offered the question 'Is Love Fear?', as we looked at the dynamics of the documentary 'The Trap' that sent him into reactions, which was specifically the point were Family dynamics were questioned as secret Mind games for Power and Control and so we went looking at how love manifests within family relationships, the biggest point that came up in our interaction was not the denial of Love as fear, but the acceptance that Love without FEAR wouldn't be Love somehow, because how do parents demonstrate their Love for their children unless they insist on warnings and worries, how would the children KNOW they are loved?
The second point was 'Can Love be defined objectively?" such as a glass, we may like it or not but a glass is a glass and we may come to an agreement on its definition, a thing that we cannot do about Love since is a subjective make belief experience which usually is best described with 'I can't explain'.
I found this image on Internet as I looked for a picture for the Blog, what stroke me was how I have never experienced Love as it is represented on the Left but in my Mind alone, in fact even this past week when 'Love' came back up in my life as a possibility, so to speak, the first thing I felt was excitement, which is what we connect with Love in fact, but on further digging in self honesty, the excitement was nothing more than Fear, I moved into the fear that I would allow myself to fuck with myself about it and as I have taken off the pink glasses, quite frankly, there was nothing cool or exciting about it, the excitement was a friction I experienced, I felt tense and not relaxed as the chart says and looking back I always mistook this 'tension' for excitement as a 'positive experience' as Love, when in fact I was living most of what is written on the above table on the right, trying to control myself, self judgement, trying to be better than, as in competing for that special place and then when all else failed, destroy it all.
So the only true thing I saw from this chart is, that on the left there is what we Imagine and like to believe 'Love Is', but it's non physical but Spiritual AKA Mental and then when we try and drag that mental experience in the physical we are left with the truth of how much the experience of Love is about Fear, because in the seeking of Love I am already in separation, in self judgement, in competition as I turn this 'thing as an experience that I must have' into just another Consumerism product I must have access to, hence I build up tension to get there, to get what is not available for all, to get what I must strive for, reach for and as I move away from Me and increase the Gap, the friction I experience increases and the dream is never delivered, Love is basically, in one word and in its best form, Eternally ELUSIVE, it's not meant to be lived but longed for, desired, craved, because when it moves from the Mental (spiritual) to the Physical, the construct doesn't Hold and everything breaks in one million tiny pieces beyond repair.
As I walk those points of 'Love' for myself and what it meant in my Life, and as I realize that unless Love has a physical application of support where the participants are both improved, expanded and have chances to grow and self realize as Life, then Love is really nothing at all, but a self serving Mind/Emotional game.
My point of reaction was when he told me 'You hold a negative view about love and that such a pessimistic view would be something I would rather never embrace - no matter the reality of it' and as he spoke those lines I perceived myself drifting away looking to justify my negative/bleak view on Love because I perceived the departing from my culture to such a point that I felt diminished and went into fear of judgement as a lunatic and, interestingly, as someone not in touch with 'reality'.
What was cool was that I did not do that, as justifying why I am not negative, as I saw and realized in the moment that those were my own judgements and fears, but stuck to the physical practical explanation of the application of love as support, as an unconditional presence as something that is tangible and takes place in physical reality vs what goes on in our minds where we don't even require another to participate or even worse, we resent another participating and standing in the way of our 'loving feelings' even when they are the apparent reason for them and we could come to a mutual understanding that didn't leave uncomfortability as misunderstandings as I avoided pushing for my own knowledge to be driven home but stuck to what I have self realized as I walk this point.
In this I assisted myself with what Bernard once said, that humbleness is to set aside your desire to be right or to tell someone they are wrong because you see in that moment that your support to them is more important than making a point, and this was a cool example I lived today for myself.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to react to what my mother said about time and money, not because of what she said, but because I myself had gone into my Mind evaluating the point that I spend so much time with this boy for which I am not rewarded, but since I did not like this thought to be me thinking such things, I suppressed it and denied, only to have my mother say it our loud and then feel pissed at her, wondering why did she have to mention that since then I would have to look at that point and take responsibility for how I have monetized everything about myself and this existence to the point that I equate my time with money, no matter the fact that I am not in fact 'losing money' but still my time has a Money value I have assigned to it since I was working and since I have been asked to give my time for money when I was a young kid to help around the house, and for feeling ashamed that I have accepted and allowed myself to live time equal to money and as such live a system of credit and debits relative to the time I give 'freely' to others I forgive myself
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to, when my mum made that joke and I felt stupid and silly for NOT charging for my time, to reply that I had been given a Christmas cake, which of course just added fuel to the already compounded suppressed thoughts and my desire to believe I am not such a person to monetize everything I do, and for desiring to justify myself so I would stop the self judgement of myself as silly, not business minded enough, I forgive myself
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to, when my students overstays, catch myself going into my mind calculating my time x money equation and then, instead of dealing with why this thoughts come up, pop up just because I feel ashamed of them, suppress them as if they were not my thoughts and then justify them as in 'everyone's gotta make a living' when in fact I am just trying to stop the shame without correcting the point, and for feeling ashamed of myself for what I have become relative to Money and Time I forgive myself.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to fear the judgements of others of me as a lunatic out of touch with reality for walking myself out of the Love Construct as if I lost something of myself that I can never get back, and for not seeing, realizing and understanding that I in fact fear my own self judgement as having done a terrible thing, having betrayed my 'loving' Culture for Life, because this is the premise of a CULT, to not allow the space for anyone to move out of it and as I am practicing self correcting myself on this point I have activated the CULT defense mechanism to make sure I don't change as I fear who will I be if I will give up the chance to Love and be Loved forever
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to, when my student said basically that 'I am sad' to react within with a sense of diminishment, wanting to justify and explain why I am NOT sad as in a sad old lost soul who has given up all dreams such as 'Love' to get real and what's the point of it, who was I harming with a bit of Love, instead of seeing and realizing that I still resist the complete let go of this construct as I fear having to face the LOSS of such a big important part of my Life that I have used to define myself and to separate myself from others
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to fear to see the similarities between my feelings of "Love' and my feelings of 'FEAR' because when and if I did, this game would be over for good and since I defined myself with lines such as 'you are nobody til somebody loves you' you are my everything, my life, my soul' then I feared that I would have to face the nothingness of me beyond my chance to be loved/love again, because I did give up the loving, but not the hoping and for hoping that Love would rescue me from myself, I forgive myself
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to live Love in and as fear, fearing to lose the excitement, the perceived More-ness of me as the experience I lived when I did allow myself to move into this construct I have myself created, instead of seeing realizing and understanding that Love can only be Real when it's me as Love including everything as Life, and not an 'experience' of energy as a positive/negative experience, but a stable physical application of myself to give as I would like to receive and to push myself beyond my limitations such as mind constructs to realign myself to Oneness and Equality and what is best for All.
awesome blog Eleonora - thanx for sharing!
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