How many times have you felt the lack of love of in your life, looking for relationships one after another and yet ending up in an endless series of emotional wreck behavior, always waiting for others approval or the idea of not having friends or people entering and suddenly disappearing has bothered you. I guess some people might have been lucky always with a whole bunch of friends and fun filled weekends yet a huge number of youngsters, or adults go through a feeling of lack of love. This piece of my thoughts actually took me few days to really put it into words as it was the hardest one I had to explain myself and then share it with others.
Process of life: Based on different cultures and countries and family we are living in we all live in a different scenario especially when it comes to expressing emotions or having that expression from the people around us. Many of us actually suffer with the longing for love as our families, or parents, or siblings, or our closed ones never showed or expressed their love for us. It is not because they don´t love us but just because they were never showed the same in their own childhood. It is lack of mere understanding that how lack of expression can mold one´s brain and behavior in a long term. Love is tricky as it is a mix of emotions from concern, care, compassion, warmth and worries. The mere thought of protecting a loved one can even restrict one to express how one feels or a big misconception that being emotional is a sign of weakness, does all the magic.
Consequences: Children grow and start looking for that love outside home by looking for relationships, or friends and being emotionally dependent on each other. Some people just end up getting married yet never satisfied as then again their partners never showed their love, or any word of appreciation or compliments. Or the big major problem of most of the bonds is that, in start there is always a honeymoon period of any friendship, love or marriage once that excitement period of knowing someone new and once it is over that charm fades away. Complaints like my boyfriend has changed, my friend acts differently and eventually making new friends often or my husband never notices me or appreciate my special acts of dressing up for him or cooking for him etc etc.. The list is same all around the word, everyone has their own valid reasons and everyone is right on their part.
Sometimes this longing for love takes a very dangerous turn in our lives. When we find someone special we start making them as the center of our life by putting them the main reason of all our happiness or sadness in daily life. Their behavior, every little action, every single word, and expressions of emotions can affect us from making us handicapped in our day to day activities. Some become beggars in love losing all the sense of self-respect, self-value or threatening their partners in terms of harming themselves or taking extreme steps on suicide. I don´t think we have any right to judge anyone going through such emotional periods. I guess while our society has alcoholics, chain smokers and drug addicts similarly another major category of people belongs to love addicts. Other people will tell them to stop being obsessive or running after someone but what they don´t know is that, like any other addict even these love struck people have no control over themselves. Sometimes thanks to all the unwelcomed suggestions, these people turn into escapists. Nobody likes to be a victim but with our words we make them feel like one. Some people are strong enough to realize that they are becoming victim so they run from reality in the name of travel and become escapists. A few are so sick of the people telling them what to do, what is right or wrong that they are like give me space. Escapism is not really harmful till a person is only taking a break to find himself or herself. In fact escapism is must for an introvert person to recharge their life batteries to handle their social life.
Buddhism in action: I personally come from an Indian family with the least level of expression of love and the only expression that I came to appreciate now is even without words my family gave me everything even the unconditional love. A support of father saying yes and accepting my worst decisions in the life by being there for me to catch me when I was going to fall in near future. Even though people sometimes blame me to be a cold heartless bitch, my mother always told me that I am an emotional fool. And truth is she is 100% correct. The only language that makes sense to me is love, you get rude and you will lose my attention. I have seen all stages of being an emotional wreck over the years.
But a big transformation came to me with a deeper understanding of myself due to Buddhism practice. My wisdom through Daimoku, studying Buddhism and practicing faith with other fellow members or the people I meet, has given a complete different picture of all this. Over the last 3 years and last couple of months I have really overcame a lot of emotional insecurities and I have learnt to not stop living just because one thing didn´t work. My understanding is that we all are like kids waiting for attention, love, hugs and someone to take care of us even though some of us are good at pretending to be super strong and independent. Once we come to realize this basic nature of ourselves then we can move forward with a next step to pamper ourselves and find our own passions. Personally my mantra for past 4 years was to run on daimoku while now this mantra has broaden with running on daimoku, treadmill, sleeping, laughing, reading, dancing, travelling and so much more. I have come to some level of peace with my inner self that even when people come in my life I try real hard to believe only in present. Believing in present means living daily like a traveler. I meet people or choose to talk to them like it is my last time. This helps me by keeping an open mind, least judgments and the joy of living in the moment.
Sound super easy isn’t it, truth is opposite. I still get attached then I realize and go back to daimoku every other day and put myself back on track. I go for runs and I run like crazy till I find a balance with my own emotions.
Take home message:
* We don´t change but we learn about ourselves and we use our daily practice of Buddhism to find a balance and have control on ourselves and our life.
*We know if present things doesn´t work out, they still give me experience to handle next challenge in a better way.
*Holding onto people won´t make them mine, rather just trusting them and situations will leave me with the people who should stay.
*In love relationships, if you are changing yourself for the acceptance of your partner then you are losing who you are or who you have become. Point is if he or she is the one they will respect you and your past, they will have patience and sincerity to walk with you no matter how bumpy it gets.
*Last but not the least, emotions are not bad, just listen to them, accept them, embrace them and handle them in a right way. Love yourself like you are your own child, lover, care taker and love will follow you instead of you running for the love.
Happy chanting
Priya©
