Can Love Restore Us?

“In the crux of all our stories lies love. This is as true now as it was centuries past, and it will be true in the future. But with our current efforts to engage more ethically with the environment and accept each other for who we truly are, this means our present is filled with global upheaval. Filled with protests, wars and revolutions. Economies are hard hit. Violence is on the rise. Catastrophes, such as the rise of pestilence, floods and drought, loom like portents of doom. Yet, within it all, there are those that continue to frame such events within the universal language of love. Are they right to do so?
— Mickie Kent

The story of life is represented by some as being filled with magic and oddity. But let's not kid ourselves. Living, like anything else, takes effort. It's a work in progress. It's often mundane, hard work. And one way or another, if what some astrologers tell us are true, 2014 will be hard work for many. Hard times will continue, especially during the coming spring and on though to next winter. But is our destiny in our minds or our stars?

I know many look for signs of doom in the news, as though it will somehow predict the end for us. For instance, scientists have described the growing resistance to antibiotics as a "ticking time bomb", while the world's landscape has been ticking turbulently socially, politically and economically since the start of the 21st Century. Some believe it's payback for our carbon and ecologically devastating footprints. They say it's time to pay the price. The golden age of man (or more precisely the West) is over. But whether or not any predictions of doom come to pass, or the astrologists are right when they say upheaval will be with us until 2015/16 right up to 2020, we can find restorative ways to relax through it.

Our problems are there for us to celebrate a solution. These challenges can make better warriors out of us all, where we do not fight to harm others, but to protect ourselves AND others from future harm. The fact is, to secure a better future is really a progression to better ourselves, and every personal upheaval suffered can be viewed as a step up towards that aim. Yet many choose to embrace the psychology of helplessness and victim-hood, preferring to explain all their struggles in terms of the actions of others. But our great enemy is what we demonise as negative emotions.

Rue McClanahan: "Every kick is a boost"

Fear, self-pity, envy, jealousy and anger hold us back, can tie us down and suck the joy out of life - unless we love every emotion and make constructive use out of them. For when we use the difficulty that appears, rather than push against it, we will find footholds through the obstructions to climb to a higher position that we began. Actress Rue McClanahan, who played Blanche Devereaux on comedy series The Golden Girls and for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1987, said in her acceptance speech that her mother told her "every kick is a boost". From where she stood, she could see clearly that every rejection she had ever received helped boost her to that podium to take her award. And the way we can do this, too, is to be able to see every event from a divine perspective of love.

Now, some will say love has more than its fair share of ups and downs, and that it's simply a series of chemical reactions which toys with our emotions. The science says when we fall in love, our brains release serotonin or dopamine so we feel euphoria, happiness or contentment. But the many negative upheavals we may feel when we believe ourselves to be in love, and the chemical and hormonal imbalances said to come about through romantic love, could be no more than a result of infatuation, unrequited love or something even darker. Infatuation is often the hardest, because it occurs when there's enough intellectual beauty to make one "fall in love". And then, as in all love affairs that become requited, there's the cooling off period of realising that love isn't ours to dictate to. How could we ever have fancied it would be?

German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, amongst many other clever things during his lifetime, that we are shaped and fashioned by what we love, and yet there are many reasons people are afraid of love. Emotional burnout is just as debilitating as physical burnout, and some argue we all need to love - just not too intensely, because it can make you feel vulnerable. Suddenly you find that your life holds much more value, and so have more to lose.

It was Goethe who also believed that the true measure of love is when we believe that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us. Likewise, when we fall in love we want to believe that he or she is the only one we shall ever love, and that all loves before and after will either be experimentation, mistakes or moments of denial. Yet most relationships bring up an onslaught of challenges, because getting to know our fears of intimacy, and how they inform our behaviour, is an important step to having a fulfilling, long-term relationship.

Real love, however, does not isolate us from ourselves or others. Love should not be a drug that divorces you from any every day reality, but makes the every day a better reality. Such love expands what it consumes, it does not narrow. It does not create a vacuum, because it cannot survive in one. True love balances, because it is the one real balancer in life. And although romantic love may feel unbalanced and unequal, what we're really feeling is our fears getting in the way of real love.

But it's also during times of imbalance we have an opportunity to take the path less travelled - the one that leads within. It's part of human nature to want to restore balance, and it's only when we are strong on the inside that we can become stronger on the outside. Any healing must start from within to change the outlook we have on life, and looking inwards is sometimes the best way to turn things around. When you repair a machine, you must look inside. You take the cover off, and identify all the parts. It's only when you really look at it for a while that you can understand how it works.

In this manner you become more conscious of the machine and what it really is, how to quickly identify the problems affecting it, and when you become an expert on the machine, how to improve it. This is not possible until you can become conscious of the machine for what it is. So, too, with material objects. To become more and more aware of who you really are, you have to choose a process of becoming more conscious.

The more conscious you get, the more you can expand your awareness to include the broader aspects of consciousness. When you do, you will find that you become more "you", and at the same time, become more aware of "us" - the living community. Because while the world is in a long season of changes, so are we. It suggests that everything is a microcosm of everything else. What goes on within you at a personal level is also a reflection of what is going on in society and, indeed, the universe as a whole. It might sound like a stretch sometimes, but it is, in fact, a good way of understanding many things in life.

Some make a great mystery of enlightenment, but many believe the process of enlightenment has much more to do with how you feel than how much you know. However, the intellect and the emotions are inextricably linked, and the process of intellectual discovery can itself be very exciting, and an aid to strengthen emotional intelligence. This conscious unfolding of the process of finding of self, and expansion of self, involves reaching for thoughts and states of being that feel better.

As a result, in this expanding interlude every revolution of self is really a breaking down to basics, to let go of what no longer serves and what needs to be changed in order to support and strengthen the heart, body and mind ratio.

Learning to work better

It can be frightening to discover how easily we can lose control of our lives, but even these challenging episodes are "warning signs" for us to heed, before it's too late. Deciding what matters to you most and focusing your attention on that isn't always easy, but the best tips to creating the life you want resides in knowing how to make your challenges work to your advantage and not against you.

Learning how to work better is just one facet. To reconstruct we first need to de-construct previous habits that may have us locked in a cycle of negativity - consciously replacing them with new ones. This may be the most important reason for embarking on a path of awakening. Our daily choices create effects in the world that we may never know, but when we are conscious of our motivations, we can choose wisely. And whether your problem is joblessness, addiction, overspending, obesity, or a damaged personal relationship, you can only move closer to a solution the moment you stop the blame game.

This works two ways. We either subconsciously sabotage our efforts because we are filled with self-blame, or we refuse to take responsibility for our lives by constantly blaming others for our problems. Every time you blame someone else or make excuses, you give your power away. You feel weakened and diminished. Without the acceptance of personal responsibility, no progress is possible.

On the other hand, once you accept total responsibility for your life, there are no limits to what you can be, do and have. Likewise, when you stop blaming yourself and others, you'll realise it's impossible to stay destructively angry. The very act of removing blame and taking loving responsibility short-circuits and cancels out negative emotions. In doing so, you gain the awareness to use what may once have been destructive feelings to your advantage.

Upheaval is never an easy time, but we must steer clear of blaming ourselves or others in a crisis. There is no quality more closely associated with unhappiness than the habit of blaming others for our difficulties, or continually blaming ourselves. It's also linked to poor self-esteem. Low self-esteem is generally characterised by a hypersensitivity to the opinions of others. No one wants to lose the respect of others, but conscientious people don't need to fret about what other people think.

We need to live life in a centred way, rooted in our inner reality - not being dependent on or clinging to others, or expecting them to make us happy and fulfilled. Doing this will allow us to let go of what stops us from moving forward. We must take responsibility for our lives, not for the actions of others - but neither must we allow self-blame to keep us from rationalising why we procrastinate over NOT doing what needs to be done to better our lives.

We don't always know the consequences of the choices we make, but turning negative self-blame into positive responsibility, to make amends or fix what has been done, will in the long run eliminate any need for blame over things that have gone wrong in the past.

This is not to say there aren't times when our lives are significantly influenced by outside forces, too. There are certain moments in your life that will take you, and just rip you out of your own skin, and we have to live with that. Things will go wrong that is the fault of no one it affects - and we are living through a prime example of such times. But victims don't create change. It's only when you choose to focus on what you can do and how you should act that you gain power. The difficulty can be a stepping stone to something greater if we continue to love when things go badly.

You can be negative only as long as you convince yourself that you are entitled to be angry. Unhappy individuals will always be found explaining and elaborating on the profound unfairness of their situation. But when we have a positive outlook we realise that we are changing ourselves rather than the situation, and the way we perceive it.

Self-revolutionise with love

Psychologists say human beings have a natural propensity to accumulate pride and shun regret. Whether we recognise it or not, we tend to take responsibility for the positive developments in our lives and attribute unfavourable developments to others or circumstances (or else to subconsciously blame ourselves while deflecting that on to others).

But taking ownership of your actions creates freedom and control. It gives meaning to life. Believe it or not, life IS beautiful, and conditions need not apply. Self-reliance is the great source of personal power. We create ourselves, shape our identity and determine the course of our lives by what we are willing to take responsibility for, and by accepting that there will be challenges to face. Ups and downs are the general terrain of life.

Similarly, self-revolutions are necessary upheavals. It's what restores us. There will be times we discover the pendulum that swings inside us, which moves to the rhythm of spiritual refreshment. It's a way of evaluating how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go. And although self-discovery can be an uncomfortable quest, when done with wisdom, a spring clean of the accumulated dust of the ages - mindful of past acts in the context of the present - can be the step back we need to propel us even further forward.

Of course, there are ancient wisdoms we must keep because they speak to the truth of who we are, but there are also old beliefs that we must leave behind if we are to continue to progress on this planet. French Enlightenment writer Voltaire said history is nothing but a pack of tricks we play on the dead, and I say if we doom ourselves to repeat the same tricks, then the joke is on us.

But it's not one we should laugh at. We are still paying the price for the wars we have fought, even with the best of ideals, and it's odd to talk about winning. In World War One, swathes of Europe lay wasted, millions were dead or wounded. Survivors lived on with severe mental trauma. The United Kingdom was broke. And of the estimated 70 million people killed in World War Two, 26 million died on the Eastern front - with up to four million of them still officially considered missing in action. While Holocaust Memorial Day, on the 27th of January, is an opportunity for us all to remember the millions murdered in the Holocaust under the long arm of Nazi persecution, and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

For a long time we have dominated the world in such ways, forgetting that the world IS bigger than us - even if most major religions try to tell us it's our own special domain to do with what we will (as long as we abide by their rules). The fact is that if we compress the world's entire lifespan into 24 hours, we have only been alive for a minute of it, and look what destruction we have wrought in that small time.

Shall we continue repeating the same tired old joke, like a running gag that has gone on for far too long? Shall we continue holding our reason hostage to irrational fears over our perceived differences? Become so busy looking for the next terrorist, that we begin to see one on every corner of our lives? Carry on setting up lines of separation between people drawn over culture, colour and creed?

And though we are in 2014, we are doing just that - and subconsciously condemning history to repeat itself. Terrorist acts will continue on a major scale, because while wanting to win the war on terror, we have lost the battle for hearts and minds. Don't be surprised if we experience the same global upheaval of past years, if we continue making the same mistakes, and allow ourselves to be led astray by futile distractions.

In America, while racial profiling and white-hate groups are on the rise, we are scandalised more by the stories of monogamous gay couples raising healthy, loving children. But to awaken spirituality, we need to be grounded in reality. An enlightened state does not exist in absolute isolation from the world and worldly matters. It teaches us how to live and how to shape our lives with a commanding sense of purpose, capacity, and meaning.

Love teaches teamwork

We should not be afraid of difference, or of changing to be more inclusive. Nevertheless, some of us still fear when others try to use the best, most inclusive language then can, to replace the rhetoric of the past.

For example, I often find it strange that people who complain about "religious persecution" when Christmas is called the holiday season by some - so as to be more inclusive - will in the same breath shout "freedom of speech" to use their religion as a pulpit of hate to preach against same-sex couples.

But why are we making our lives more difficult by adding insult to injury? Everyone has the right to live within a groundwork of human rights and freedoms, and no singular belief has an overriding right to encroach on that dignity. It's a dignity we must afford to every living thing simply because they are alive. We should not define people by their religion, or their sexuality.

Moreover, repressing our sexuality, or our true nature, is wrong. It can have devastating consequences. Many experts tell us that human appetites for sex and food are normal, and attempts to suppress either, will make men and women nervous wrecks at least. Sex is best within a monogamous, trusting relationship, but sexual desire shouldn't be viewed as sinful. As Adam Gopnik, writing for the BBC, says:

I think the French view of sex and life is essentially right and ought to be universally applicable: Sex with children or by force is wrong, and the rest is just the human comedy, unfolding, as it will. Puritanism is a sin against human nature, and the worst of it is that puritanism is the most leering and prurient of world views. Far from wanting to keep sex in the private sphere, the puritans can't wait to drag it out in public. Puritans are the least buttoned-up people in the world. They can't wait to pin a scarlet A for adultery on someone's clothing, or hold a public humiliation ritual.

Naturally the power to refrain is necessary in certain circumstances. We indulge our hungers while not overindulging, at the same time. We do not gorge. We consider the company, and the occasion. We think before we act, and we are mindful when we do so. Otherwise life comes to represent a gargantuan ego. For instance, focusing on true self does not mean blindly focusing on ourselves. That is focusing on ego. When we focus on true self, we focus on the love, and the ego takes a back seat.

It's when the mind is partnered equally with the senses in this way that sensory pleasures bring inner joy. In other words, a balanced state will always involve some balance of appetite served and appetite curbed, yet moderating oneself isn't to deny, but to merely promote growth. A pruned tree grows healthier, stronger and eventually higher - but to do so it must be watered at the root. Deny a tree water, and it will die.

Nature dictates that all things must decay and die, all things must come to an end - but not while it lives. No one can progress in a deadened state such as that. Love, therefore, is the water that brings life to the root. It allows life itself to take root and grow. After a harsh winter season, it can be the spring that restores. And as every tree stands individually on its own, it must do so within the family of the forest.

We, in turn, must learn to be as one like a forest, where all trees of the same genus stand side by side together, growing in the same soil, watered by the same rain that makes their roots grow. If we are to develop past our turbulent history, then we need to bring such peaceful analogies to life. And those in the process of self-improvement will testify that real development is democratic, because teamwork makes progress easier.

It's a terrible statistic suggested by one survey that as many as a third of British adults feel they have no-one to turn to in a crisis. Every crisis is personal and can have a lasting impact on the individual affected. There are a growing number of people facing crisis all across the world, reluctant to turn to a voluntary organisation because they are embarrassed to ask for help. Yet helping others is as integral part of life as learning how to help ourselves, because it brings us in sync with our humanity.

Let love restore your true nature

To me the most exciting part of personal progress is interacting with our true self, and with other people. Rather than fight or dehumanise each other, it's so much better if we can pull together, with each being for who they are. To share, to give, to understand, and to grow together, not simply to tolerate, but to accept and respect the unique differences that make us who we are.

I realise some will point out how this may sound unrealistically idealistic. Those that know their history will realise humanity has played this tune before. In the sixties and seventies of the last century many groups believed that if world leaders just got together and used the language of love as opposed to the rhetoric of politics, somehow it would eat through all that red tape for them to realise we have a lot more in common than we think.

It was a utopia; a neat idea that didn't work - but that's not to say it was without merit. We just didn't believe in it hard enough, or maybe we weren't as committed to it as we could have been. And so fuelled by greed and preoccupied with consumerism, we continue to outdo each other in the scams we cook up to trick people well into the 21st Century. And as we watch nationwide power cuts, our economies in meltdown and cities going bankrupt, governments use austerity as an excuse to curb climate controls, and bribe councils into using controversial extraction processes for energy rather than renewable energy sources.

But the green movement doesn't mean giving up all the things we enjoy and stopping having fun. It means doing things responsibly and with consideration for the world we live in. Today many of us are still in search of a fairer, moral economy, but taking an active interest in our environment, wanting to use our democratic voice to protest feels difficult in a climate where well-intentioned activism (even eco-activism) can cross over too easily in to destructive terrorism.

It's hard not to become disenchanted, disengaged - and disenfranchised. The moderate amongst us have become wary of taking sides. So, we go through this cycle of people whole-heartedly committing to things they'll only half-heartedly execute - not because we feel we can't change anything without resorting to violence, but because we fail to believe we can. The problem is no one is challenging us to do better, no one is keeping us accountable for the things we need to do. Yet we do have examples of countries doing better. In Scandinavia for instance, if you think of the Finnish psyche, it's a very fair culture, while all forms of corporal punishment have been outlawed in Sweden since 1979, where the uptake of pioneering practices has historically been quicker.

But the majority of other nations have yet to follow suit in regards to changing our stance over violence. Or better still, of setting an example that to be non-violent isn't a sign of weakness. On the contrary to dismiss the need to harm another living thing takes great strength. But, no one is introducing us to a different perspective. Quite the opposite, we have become communities and nations that are all too frightened of a different view.

No where is this more clearly evidenced than by our use of networks, once created to be free and open, to spy on each other and track every thought different to our own. Everyone is entitled to their opinion - it's just that we mustn't allow differing opinions to divide us, but instead become a bridge for greater understanding. For at the heart of making the most of life today is the ability to identify and then treasure and protect our connections to what we care about. It's about making our moments more human. We only have a finite amount of seconds to spare on this planet, and we need to make them as human as possible.

It's said by the time you are 32 you will have lived over a billion seconds. The question is how will we spend them? By restoring, by revolutionising, by loving? Or by repeating the same mistakes of the past? If the latter, then the doom many predict for 2014 is just around the corner.

But even then, it can still be an opportunity or "morning call" for those that still slumber in the past century to wake up to the new. And one thing will be certain for all of us - that it's finally time to let love restore us to our true nature, and to a life of abundance we all deserve to live.

Yours in love,