When Love Comes To Town

Marriages, relationships, flirtations … put two or more women together for any length of time and here’s where the conversation leads: love.

It’s as though we’re genetically programmed to talk about nothing else with as much hope, uncertainty – and frequency!

And perhaps we are genetically programmed: As lovers and mothers we are archetypal holders of heart energy, and understand how important it is in our homes, our lives and our communities.

The Miracle of Love

Without love, nothing is possible; with it, true miracles occur.

Being in love is alchemical: every cell in our bodies responds with energy and light; we become Midas-like and everything we do, seems to turn out well.

Losing love, however it happens, changes our chemistry too. We all know a woman whose entire sense of self has been devastated by the end of a relationship.

Loving another person allows us to experience vulnerability, trust and connection; and brings a great sense of meaning to our lives.

Love Transactions

Why is it then that so many women betray themselves completely, by choosing a partner who they could never hope would love them in the way that they want to be?

Two things happen: The first, tragically, is that there are still far too many women who mean “I need you” when they say “I love you”.

For as long as we make our physical, economic, emotional and mental health contingent on someone else being there to “take care of us” we entrench ourselves as helpless little girls, rather than strong, centered women.

The Bigger Picture

The second is a reworking of our personal history: very often, when we are young in years or awareness, we subconsciously choose a partner because he (or she) is in someway familiar to us, and therefore “safe”.

The girl who has grown up with an alcoholic father is familiar with addiction and its concomitant chaos, so may grow up to marry a man who uses drugs or who drinks too much, too often.

What she couldn’t change in Daddy’s life she hopes, somehow, to be able to change in her husband’s.

Who Will Love Me?

The little girl whose parent was generous with criticism will choose a partner for whom she is never enough.

She chooses someone who will repeat the message she heard often enough as a child not to question when she hears it again as a woman: “You’re almost lovable, but not quite. If you could only be prettier / cleverer / more successful, I could love you completely.”

Will he? Never. No matter how many degrees she attains or makeovers she has, she’ll never be good enough for him.

Her only way of surviving this drought of self-esteem is to become good enough for her, whatever that may look like.

Change the Pattern

Once we see our patterns and choices in relationships, we can begin to do the liberating work of letting go of them.

In doing so, we are free to attract relationships that mirror our light rather than our shadow; and that bring us great healing instead of great anxiety.

This kind of love truly is miraculous, and in all the world, it is the only power that matters.