WHY LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS do NOT go TOGETHER

What if the Beatles were wrong?! What if LOVE is not ALL THAT WE NEED?! Hold up just a moment before you curse me out or throw daggers at me from your eyeballs. Ok, so maybe bringing the Beatles into this conversation was a bit dramatic, BUT NOW, I most definitely have your attention.

Maybe LOVE is NOT all we need OR what we actually NEED is to get WAY more CLEAR and aligned with what we are CALLING LOVE… because from the looks of it, what people are claiming is love simply CANNOT be truth, hell, what I claimed to be love was most definitely not TRUTH! It was more like, control, fear, insecurity, possessiveness, and distrust. Personally, I used “LOVE” as an excuse for my own bad behavior more times than I can count. Just a few examples….invading privacy and searching computer history or phone messages, manipulating with the power of money, and using emotion, to get my own way. This is not to say those same techniques were not used upon me, and not just by romantic partners, but by parents, siblings, friends, and other relationships.

And there it was, the key word in all of this, RELATIONSHIP. This may strike a few raw chords in some of you…but maybe, just for a moment, CONSIDER that LOVE and RELATIONSHIP are a complete contradiction. Maybe LOVE does NOT equal a relationship, but…a “state of being.” Think about it, the word relationship comes completely bound up in strings and chains and bars. From RELATION right to SHIP. By being a “relation” we ALREADY have expectations of what that means and what sacrifice that entails, different for each family, but certainly potent for each one. And who decided those!? It certainly wasn’t you! Generations upon generations have piled up layer upon layer, guilt upon guilt….like a massive lunchmeat sandwich! AND the pickle on top: is a BELIEF imposed on YOU as to what you are SUPPOSED to DO and BE and FEEL so you can be considered a “good” daughter or son or mother or father, or spouse or partner. And how many of us ACTUALLY live up to that?! And THEN after all that… you are put into a small confined ship with NO escape. Where is the exit?? Because if that is what LOVE is, dump me into space, or the ocean, or ANYWHERE else but where this tiny, claustrophobic, SHIP, filled with a small number of people, and a stinky lunchmeat sandwich is going!!!

What if we considered Love a verb that could only exist in the moment, unadulterated by ships or lunchmeat, relations or expectations? So to be in the “state of love” would absolutely NOT impose demands or disappointments. Because LOVE would simply be something we share. We share it because we want to, because it is overflowing from the divine well within us.The moment we share it to GET something in return, is the VERY SAME moment that flowing water turns rusty, stale, and stagnant. It attracts mosquitoes and grows mold. It is the water of “I told you so’s,” threats, and abuse. This is NOT to say we don’t get to receive LOVE, we absolutely do! We get to receive it so FULLY and so FREELY, because we do NOT NEED it from an outside source, because we are not dependent upon it! Because we don't HAVE to be in some hot, stinky, sweaty ship, jammed up to some annoying cousin, who happens to be our relation…in a ship that we did not EVEN choose to be on.

Love because you GET to, not because you HAVE to. LOVE because you WANT to, not because you WANT someTHING. Love so FREELY and so FULLY because there is no FEAR in LOSING, there is ONLY BEAUTY and BLESSING in SHARING. 

Please do not mistake this message as one to allow toxicity or abuse. To be in a “state of LOVE” we must first LOVE ourselves SO much that we do NOT tolerate someone else’s misguided beliefs imposed upon us. Sometimes to be in a “state of LOVE” you must LET GO of what is holding you back from that “state.”

Blessings and LOVE to you my friends,

Andrea Dawn