Love Never Fails

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (New International Version)

Love never fails us. To some that will be a big boast. We'll think back to past relationships and think: Love failed me big time. But we'd be wrong in thinking that. It either wasn't the real thing, or it ended because we failed love.

Lyrically, when you look in the dictionary under "L" for love song, some would say Percy Sledge's timeless classic ballad "When a Man Loves a Woman" could be the only definition. Sledge seems to cover the full range of sentiments about love and the human condition, in just under three minutes. Love hurts. Only love can break your heart. It's a thin line between love and hate. Love stinks. Love is like a heatwave. Love is like oxygen. My world is empty without you. Love kills me baby.

But for me love doesn't hurt. It's not just in the songs, everyone says love hurts, but that's not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that doesn't hurt.

We think that love can be full of doubt, but it's really we that doubt love, or fill our love with unnecessary insecurities. And sometimes all we have to do is take a good look at our partners and realise that no matter what happens, the present we have is the most beautiful time of all. The future will always be uncertain, but if you're truly in love, today the answer will always be yes.

Last year I remember watching two friends dance to the song "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys at their wedding, and it was one of the most romantic things I've ever witnessed. We all felt a little more love that night as the lights twinkled down on us and the song made us all ponder a moment over who we'd be without our partners on that dance floor. The joy mixed with melancholy sentiment in the lyrics captures perfectly what it is to be connected in this life.

But love doesn't mope. It turns you around. It reminds me of one of my most favourite love songs which surprisingly comes from The Cure's dark catalogue, and was covered by Adele in her album "21". It only took a deceptively subtle two-word twist for Robert Smith to modify all of his previous moping, revealing him helplessly, hopelessly in love in his 1989 hit. "Whenever I’m alone, with you…" Written as a wedding present to his childhood sweetheart (now wife of twenty-three years), and containing only the starkest, simplest language possible (plus some truly, truly sweet guitar), it earns its blankly descriptive title "Lovesong", lifting it to some sort of platonic ideal. I believe this song is a twin flame love song, written by a man for his ultimate partner.

Sometimes someone says something so small and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart. That's what love is.

Love doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be true. Real love, true love is giving of oneself and one's resources without expecting anything in return. Love never allows someone to be just an option, while making something else a priority. When you are important to another person, he or she will always find a way to make time for you, no excuses, no lies, and no broken promises. Love is an oath to be together forever, never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart, as the saying goes - because real love doesn't make us want the most beautiful guy or gal in the world, but the guy or gal that makes our world the most beautiful.

Moreover, love makes us recognise how blind we've been. The minute I'd read my first love story I started looking for my other half, not knowing that lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along.

And love is more than blind faith, which is sometimes called on to keep us moving in the right direction. We must certainly keep the faith. It will help us discover the magic of love - that faith that keeps us believing, keeps us going when we haven't yet seen the benefits we hope will happen.

But faith and your belief in yourself need to work together with the absolute conviction that love never fails, before we - ironically - realise its secret.

That only when we stop defining love, will love define us.

Yours in love,

Take Action with Love

One of my best girlfriends and I had lunch the other day to catch up with each other's lives, and the subject came on to singles. She split up from her partner of 5 years about a year ago now, and is still single.

After having the sense to get out of a bad relationship, she was telling me how the past year had been a huge eye-opener for her and she was loving every moment of what she called her "singlehood".

Click here for things to do when single.

As we sipped our wine over a cold meat lunch, my friend explained to me how, for her, singlehood is the time in your life where you have the greatest degree of flexibility and freedom to do whatever you want. You can be more spontaneous, independent, selfish, and adventurous because there can be less commitments and more time to pursue the things you want to do; you can make your life into anything that you want it to be as you're completely in the driver's seat.

She also said how other aspects of her identity (career, family, friends, pets) gained more emphasis, as she had more time to focus on these relationships.

Feeling energised, her self-esteem had fully returned - and I was reminded of the modern adage that when we feel good about and love ourselves, we are better able to love others.

The benefits of being single

More importantly, though, you're responsible only for yourself and can make choices and major decisions without having to take another into account or to have to answer to anyone - meaning you have more time to focus on your personal development in preparation for the time love comes along.

Being single puts you in the ideal position for cultivating yourself to reach your fullest potential as an individual. It's an opportunity for self-exploration and investing in your own personal growth and development. That's why it's the ideal time to learn what's needed to be fully prepared for love when you find it - to experiment safely with your sexuality, and to explore different types of relationships to see what's right for you.

Singlehood is fertile ground for learning about who you are and what your needs are. Harville Hendrix says it best in his book, Keeping the Love You Find:

Singleness would be recognized as a vital stage of the journey to maturation, a time to learn about who we are, to learn responsibility and self-sufficiency, to identify our true desires, and to confront our inner strengths and demons, a time to make changes in the things that stymie our pleasure and progress in life, to learn how to connect and communicate on all levels. It would be sorely needed relationship training.

And with the ability to enter in and out of situations with relative ease and to meet a variety of new people thanks to social networking sites, for those of us still single this should be the golden age. A time where we can quite literally randomly meet people on the other side of the world.

However let me just add a little proviso here: Don't let technological advances become a substitute for the real thing, or you could end up feeling more isolated from real interactions with people than ever before. And web meets just for sex could make you feel worse, because it could be the promise that never actually delivers.

Another point my girlfriend made was that getting back into the dating game had taught her making advances is no longer a boy thing! Putting herself out there had given her a new found confidence with the opposite sex, and her self-esteem a much needed boost.

I asked her during our informative lunch if she had any tips for my single readers who contacted me for advice, and she said the first thing was to "take action", but to do this with "a focus on love".

Before we parted to meet again next month, I requested that she send me an action checklist for singles that I could share with my readers, and she was happy to oblige.

Active steps for navigating your single life

The following are some practical tips and suggestions for managing your singlehood to promote a positive acceptance and enjoyment of this special time in your life as provided my friend.

But remember, as with anything you do in life, work out if it works for you, then make whatever adjustments you need to make to create the results that you want. Let your intuition guide you, to make learning about yourself fun. And always take action with love!

• Create a checklist of the opportunities that being single affords you and start living them!


• Start a journal about your single-status and what it means to you. Answer the following questions:
  1. Why am I single? How do I feel about that?
  2. What do I want from being single?
  3. What thoughts, feelings, and behaviours hold me back from being able to embrace this time of my life?
  4. How do I contribute to my own self-fulfilment when single? Or how do I sabotage myself?
  
  
• Don't deny your feelings or ignore your desire for a relationship. Process these feelings in your journal and write about ways you can create more meaning and purpose in your life.


• Identify the biggest challenges you face with being single and develop goals to defeat them.


• Develop affirmation cards. Grab some index cards and write positive thoughts, motivational statements, advantages and opportunities of being single, and self-improvement goals onto the cards. Read them to yourself daily to begin internalising the messages. Alternatively, stick the cards in a jar and during times of loneliness or depressive dips, refer to the cards for a quick pick-me-up. You can also hang them on your wall, make them part of the décor by using inspiration decals.


• Identify things you've always been meaning to do or try but never made the time to pursue or learn. Take action.


• Build your support system, join a class, volunteer for a cause that's meaningful to you, commit yourself to health and wellness. Be active.


• And last, but certainly not least: Live your life to the full! Make it count!

Yours in love,