When you love someone, its important to remember that that love should not come with conditions, control or constraint. All love needs freedom, trust and respect to thrive and grow.
There is a beautiful story about love that I always refer to. It is Krishna explaining to the Pandavas what Kaliyug will be like. When one of the Pandavas comes across a cow licking her new born calf, she does it so single obsessively that she does not realise that the tender skin of her calf is bruised and bleeding. People have to force her apart from her calf as she was hurting her baby. In Kaliyug, parents will love their children so much that their love itself will destroy the lives, dreams and the future of their children, explains Krishna about the relevance of this scene to the Pandavas.
I draw reference to it because it is like that. Not just with children but with partners, spouses, friends and lovers. Today, love is tested on the scale of loyalty and loyalty such that an individual must carry the weight of another person’s ideas, values and conditions through life to be deemed worthy and true.
Today, love can often smother; repeated well-meaning acts of love that are often actually detrimental to wellbeing. There are parents who will give their children everything before they ask for it. There is a saying – don’t eat unless you are hungry; it’s true for a lot of things in life. Too much, too soon disables you.
Then there are couples who are constantly calling to find out what the other person is doing, who they are with and where they are, they check their partner’s phone behind their back… and to these people I question: why are you even in the relationship because if you feel you have to do these things, there is no relationship. Know that just loving is not enough, you must allow the other to be who they really are and not a version of them moulded to what you want.
When you love another truly, you will be willing to step back, to stay away, to not know, to know… and just like everything else of value, love must be earned. Not bound by conditions and demands, it comes with pure acceptance.
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