loved

How this site works best for you!

You'll notice that there are many underlined link words in each article below. The reason for this is that you have reached not only, "feeling emotional, 3," but the emotional feelings network of sites. There are many sites included within the network that'll be visited by clicking on these underlined link words.

The reason for this opportunity is very simple & yet you may be unnerved by all those underlined words! I've been in recovery from post traumatic stress disorder, depression & many other dysfunctional ventures & thru it all I've discovered that emotion & feeling work may be the missing link that many people miss when trying to find solutions to their problems.

Developing a sense of curiosity about why you feel the way you do, is essential in finding the solution you so desperately are searching for.

If you can't find what you came here looking for, visit the homepage for the emotional feelings network of sites by clicking above & read the options on the homepage for the networks index of sites. Try to be specific when looking for an emotion or feeling word & click on the site you need!

It's very simple & very interesting to follow your way thru the layers of your buried or stuffed emotions & feelings that have accumulated throughout the years!

when you've reached this point, or this website, you know you're making progress!!!! this part gets difficult because now is the time to look within & become emotionally honest with yourself!!!

Best of luck & if you're still stuck, send me an e-mail anytime, by clicking here & I'll be glad to send you an immediate personal response!

Sincerely,

Kathleen

What is Love ? Robert Elias Najemy

Part 1 of a 6 part series on the "The Stages of Love"

Love is our greatest need.

It's our highest most fulfilling state.

Do we really love or are we simply attached to, identified with or dependent upon the persons we "love"?

Is our love free & unconditional, or is it mixed w/various needs, conditions & demands?

What is unconditional love? Is it possible for us to cultivate it?

What's the difference between love & attachment?

How can we determine whether what we feel is love or attachment?

How can we purify our love & move into a higher level of consciousness?

These are some of the many questions that we need to answer in order to create happiness.

Defining Love

Love is a very difficult word to define, perhaps because its reality approaches spiritual dimensions, which are beyond time & space & thus, our comprehension.

Love is perhaps more easily described by what it isn't. Love isn't fear, hurt, pain, jealousy, bitterness, hate, separateness, lust, attachment, aggressiveness, ego-centeredness, indifference, possessiveness, suppression - the list goes on.

Love, like God, peace & other spiritual realities, can be perceived more easily thru the effects that it creates.

We can't see the wind, but we can see its effects, such as the leaves moving, branches swaying, or the sound of air rushing. We know wind exists by its various side effects. We know there's a Creator because we perceive its effect - creation itself.

What then are the effects of love? Love creates feelings of unity. We feel toward others as we feel towards ourselves. We're as interested in their welfare, happiness, success, health & spiritual growth as much as we are about our own.

Loving others means wanting them to be happy in whatever ways they're guided to their happiness. It breeds understanding, compassion, forgiveness, happiness, excitement, peace, joy, fulfillment & a desire to be helpful in any way we can.

Love is expansion beyond our ego limitations. It's the ability to identify with the other, to let go of our self-interest & personal needs enough to really hear & understand the other's needs & interests.

It means caring enough to sacrifice, when necessary, our own pleasures & desires when the other's needs are obviously more important.

Love is the force that brings about unity & harmony. It's the "glue" of the universe. It helps persons with different egos, desires, programmings & needs to overcome all those potentially repelling forces & unite.

Love needs not so much to be "learned or cultivated," but rather released or brought from within us to the surface.

We're love. Our basic nature is love. However, our ignorance, fear & attachment have buried it so deeply within us that it's sometimes difficult to summon or maintain.

Loving others steadily, independently of their behavior, isn't an easy achievement.

Love vs. Need

The power of attraction which we call "love" is expressed on many levels & in countless ways. The most basic level is that of need. We often use the word love when we really mean, "need".

We say, "I love you." But, if we analyze ourselves deeply, we'll realize learn we really mean, "I need you." This is the basic message of most love songs. They lament with sadness, pain, agony & cry out "you left me, I can't live without you. I need you."

This isn't the highest form of love. It's love mixed with need, attachment & addiction. If it were pure love & the other was happier by leaving us or even happier with someone else, we'd be happy for him or her, not full of sadness for ourselves. Loving others means wanting them to be happy, healthy & successful in the ways that they're guided to be.

Love doesn't create the pain we feel when someone leaves us or rejects us. That pain is generated by our dependency upon that person for our security, pleasure or affirmation.

Needs & attachments create fear, pain & suffering.

Love creates happiness, fulfillment & the experience of our True Selves.

Love or Need for Security ?

Robert Elias Najemy

Part 2 of a 6 part series on the "The Stages of Love"

Our Love is Mixed With Need

Our love is still mixed with a considerable amount of need. Love wants to give. Need wants to take. Sometimes what we're seeking to take is very subtle & requires deep inner inquiry.

Whenever we feel pain, fear or anger in our relationships, it's because we believe that our needs are in "danger" of not being satisfied. When this happens, our "love" turns to "hurt," disappointment, fear, loneliness, inferiority, or bitterness, anger, hate, rage & desire for revenge.

How can love become all these negative emotions? It can't. The simple truth is that our emotion never was pure love to begin with. It was an "attraction" based to some degree also on need.

This doesn't mean that we should reject ourselves because we've seldom really loved purely. As we aren't yet enlightened spiritual beings, how could we? It would be like rejecting ourselves because we don't yet have a university diploma when we're still in the 1st grade or because we're a flower bud, which hasn't yet blossomed. It's only natural that we can't yet love unconditionally. This is our stage of evolution.

Freeing our Love from Need

The 1st step towards opening our hearts to real love is to accept & love ourselves exactly as we are with all our weaknesses & faults. Only then can we proceed effectively.

The 2nd step is to begin observing the feelings that are stimulated in our transpersonal. Thru objective self-observation, we can determine in which situations we love unconditionally & in which we're feeling "loving" with specific conditions.

Main Entry: trans·per·son·al
Pronunciation: -'p&rs-n&l, -^&n-&l
Function: adjective
: of, relating to, or being psychology or psychotherapy concerned especially with esoteric mental experience (as mysticism and altered states of consciousness) beyond the usual limits of ego and personality

Following are some examples that will help.

Needing Those Who Make Us Feel Secure

We look to others for security. We might seek security from our parents, spouses, siblings, children, employers, friends, ministers, spiritual teachers or others.

We do feel love toward these beings, but often that love is based on the fact that they offer us a sense of security. If they start behaving in ways that obstruct our feelings of security or if they decide to leave or ignore us, will we still love them?

If our employer fires us, will we still love him or her? If our parents throw us out onto the street, will we still love them? Or is our love tightly woven w/the need for security?

If as parents we dream that our children will become economically well off & socially accepted professionals, will we love them the same if they become street artists, beggars or anarchists? Some parents will be able to; others will not.

The basic question is whether or not our feelings of love are steady & consistent regardless of the various changing behaviors of those we "love". In each case where we perceive our heart closing, we need to discover what we fear in that situation. What might we believe is in danger? Most frequently we lose our love when we fear that our security, self-worth, freedom or pleasure are in danger.

Only when we have realized total inner security, perhaps based on an inner spiritual awakening or on our faith in the Divine, will we be able to love without security attachments.

Only when we know that we can live without others can we really love them steadily.

Society has caused us to completely confuse this matter. We believe that if we love others, then we must be totally dependent on them & should fear that our world would fall apart if something happens to them. This is insecurity.

This is a lack of awareness of our inner spiritual nature & our ability to deal with life. It has nothing to do with love.

Perhaps this is why the Apostle John wrote,

"Where there is perfect love, there can be no fear".

Love, Pleasure or Affirmation? Robert Elias Najemy

Part 3 of a 6 part series on the "The Stages of Love"

Needing Others for Pleasure

Let us examine how our needs for pleasure & affirmation can limit & distort our experience of love.

We create relationships that give us pleasure & affirmation as well as security. We may be dependent upon the other for money, shelter, sex, travel, clothing, encouragement, compliments, humor, tasty food, a clean house, comforts or even his or her beauty.

Yet, if he or she stops providing these for us, or decides to provide them for someone else, do we continue loving that person or do we feel hurt, disillusioned & overcome w/feelings of injustice, anger & perhaps revenge?

The condition here is that "I love as long as you provide me pleasure, happiness or excitement. If you stop, my feelings change." It's conditional love.

Needing Others for Affirmation

We may also depend on someone for affirmation. This may take various forms.

1. We're affirmed when others obey us. "You listen to me & do what I say. I can control you. That makes me feel powerful & worthy. If, however, you stop doing whatever I say, I'll stop feeling love & unity w/you."

This becomes a problem for parents when their children move into adolescence. This can also occur between spouses. In many countries a wife might be suppressed at first & thus, the husband feels powerful & affirmed. If, however, she begins to think & act for herself, he begins to panic & can become angry & sometimes aggressive. The roles may also be reversed where the woman controls & feels affirmed.

2. We also feel affirmation when someone needs us or is dependent on us. This could occur between parent & child, teacher & student, friends or between the "savior" & the "needy."

In these cases, the "needed" feels affirmed by & perhaps superior to the "needy". This is one aspect of codependency. Some of us find meaning in life because someone needs us or depends on us. If however, the other doesn't want to be the child, the student or the needy one anymore, do we feel the same attraction & love? If not, our love is mixed w/our need to be "needed."

In such a case, we need to give, offer & sacrifice in order to feel useful, worthy or boost our self-image. If this is the case, then all that we offer in these situations, all our sacrifices, are actually for ourselves & not for the others.

That doesn't negate the fact that others may actually need us or that we also simultaneously have feelings of altruistic love. We're often motivated by 2 or 3 motives simultaneously

3. A 3rd aspect of this attraction for affirmation is the situation in which we "love" those "who affirm our rightness," either verbally by telling us we're right or simply by belonging to the same social, political, religious or spiritual group & thus embrace a similar belief system.

"I love you because you agree w/me, you're like me, you affirm me". If they change beliefs & convert to another political party, religion, or spiritual group, will we feel the same closeness & "love?" Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

A 4th aspect of this affirmation principle is infatuation - called "Eros" (in Greek "erotas") or "falling in love." In this case there is a mutual (occasionally only one-sided) infatuation on the physical, sexual, emotional & sometimes mental level.

This is a special attraction between two persons who excite, bring joy to & stimulate each other positively. This positive stimulation often has to do w/the needs for security, pleasure & affirmation.

This intensity of these feelings seldom lasts more than a few years. The couple then has the possibility of transforming their "Eros" into a steady form of unconditional love or facing the sadness of conflict &/or separation.

Sooner or later, we will come face to face w/the other's various negative aspects & if we can't love them as they are, the relationship suffers.

Until we're able to love unconditionally, we'll be unhappy, insecure & frequently in conflict w/those around us. We'll be able to do this only when we've matured sufficiently so as to experience inner security, inner satisfaction, inner freedom & a steady feeling of self-worth.

In other words, we can love purely only those who we don't need.

When we need others, we can't love them unconditionally. This might be difficult to comprehend at first, but deep thought & observation will prove it to be true. Being able to love w/out conditions is a basic prerequisite for both a happy life & spiritual evolution.

Selfless Love Robert Elias Najemy

Part 4 of a 6 part series on the "The Stages of Love"

Selfless Love for a Specific Person

An essential stage in the evolution of love is being able to love others regardless of their behavior. Probably the closest most of us have come to experiencing such love is towards our children.

There are some parents who have totally selfless love for their children. They maintain steady love for "their child" even if he or she doesn't live up to the parents' expectations, even if he or she rejects & abuses the parents & even if he or she becomes a dangerous criminal.

This love isn't universal nor is it totally unconditional because there is one condition, that the other is "my child" & not someone else's.

We might also experience this type of selfless love for a specific person when he or she is "our student" or under "our care or responsibility." This type of love often has to do w/the role of protector or feeling responsibility for someone. It enables us to accept all types of behavior from others & continue accepting & loving them w/understanding & compassion.

In some cases, we may also feel such love for persons who belong to the same grouping, i.e. nationality, religion or social class.

In these cases, we don't gain something tangible from these individuals. We don't require anything from them. Our love isn't dependent upon their abiding by a certain type of behavior or even reciprocating our love. Our love is more selfless but still specific & not universal.

Universal Selfless Love

The next stage is to expand our feelings of unconditional love & acceptance to a wider circle of people & eventually to all beings - including animals, plants & insects. This love, however, is still directed toward form.