Want Real Love? Be Blunt

Real Love Doesn't Hurt: by Joana J. @deviantart

I have a friend whom I had a long conversation with about this topic today. She is a friend like many of us have. She is young, a single mother, and also happens to frankly be one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. One of those women that either make you green with envy or fall in love instantly.

The first time I met her her child was just a baby, and she was only eighteen. I remember simply being awestruck when I first saw her, even in today's superficially enhanced world it is very rare to find someone that is so physically beautiful in the natural sense. The dark, squirming angelic child she held on her hip, the little cherub man with her lovely face, charmed me beyond words. Most mistook her child for a girl, as his features (like hers) were so beautiful, it was hard to believe a little boy could possess them.

Being the friend of a friend, we were in contact often, and soon we became close friends, and best friends over the next year. As stereotypically shocked as this must sound, I was surprised to find that this beautiful woman was perhaps more similar to me than anyone I had met on a mental level. We were both very much typical Virgos. Both of us struggled, especially in love. Being her friend taught me a lot about the being a woman, and gave me a level of compassion for us all, regardless of appearance, that changed me in many ways.

I learned quickly that even the most beautiful of creatures are as stricken with doubt and low self esteem. And in my eyes, there is a direct correlation between self doubt and our ability to find real, meaningful love. Even our cultural ideals of what love is are tremendously skewed, to a point that most never even recognize it. How do we even find what we can't even recognize? In the reflection of Freyja, there is a hidden knowledge of love that most do not recognize.

Disney movies, romantic comedies, religious institutions, all brainwash us into a mindset of love expectations. If we ascribe to a cultural image, we will be desirable. If we behave in a certain way, someone special will take notice. If we are ladies and gentlemen, we will of course have no difficulty finding real, lasting love. All these ideals of love falsify our inner nature, and serve only to bury our true selves. And when it comes to real love, your not gonna find it unless you expose the reality of who you are, to the core. It's the only way.

Sometimes we find someone, and desire and belonging overwhelm us. We feel we know what love is, and are sure of it. Yet time passes, and we come to see the reality of both ourselves and the other. In our quest for love we are blinded by the signals of cracks in our facade of love. It crumbles and we are left not heartbroken, but empty. We wonder how we managed to fail to see the signs, yet all the while carefully constructing a new mask for the next time.

Some people get caught in an endless cycle of false love and broken relationships. Some people, like my friend, simply decide to give up on love altogether, convinced after failure that is an impossible dream. Others, like my mother, completely forego their romantic selves, and instead bind themselves to their children in the only love relationship that they cannot deny is real.

Yet what happens when one comes to this point, gives up altogether, yet finds their real self screaming still for longing? What happens when you are pushed to the point of loneliness and despair for lack of that intangible real romantic love? What if you come to what feels like the death of your heart, and you come to a crossroads?

For me, the answer is not a pretty one. My advice is not like the common opinion. I won't recommend holding your chin up, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, or any other such nonsense that only leads to the same tired routine.

My advice: wallow in it. For once, let yourself feel all the lies around you, truly experience their pain. Don't hide from it. Be alone, and let yourself gather all those lies around you until they become as black as night. Stare them in the face until you can see them as if they were there beside you. Hate the lies, the masks, the facades. Let yourself hate all those things which have swallowed the reality of who you are until you cannot bear them anymore. Because the moment of freedom comes at the moment you recognize them, as if they were objects. At that moment you realize that those things are not YOU. At that moment you can cast them aside like any other object.

It's not an easy task. TRUST ME. It's like living in hell for a time, but the rewards of it are beyond anything the average person imagines. Yet once you take possession of your true nature, love is possible anywhere. It might be the most ordinary or extraordinary place. It starts as an introduction, a chance meeting, a conversation. Yet soon you realize that you are no longer afraid. The truth flows out of you to them, you feel no need to judge it, to measure it, it is simply the true self pouring forth into the ear of another. And if your lucky enough, you might find the listener recognizes that in themselves, and responds to your truth, with their own. Unblunted, unbiased, unfettered plain talk becomes magic. Sweet nothings lose their meaning, and the truth, the real honest truth between yourself and another is like a balm for the soul.

So, here is Miss Cena's new list of rules for REAL LOVE.

• STOP "looking for love." Love is not a substance, nor is it something you "find." Love is a force and an energy. It is like dark matter, it is only visible in the observation of it's effects on yourself and another. 
• Let go of the absurd notion that you can "make" another love you. Accept the fact that love is beyond your meager capacity to control. It is there or it isn't.
• Love should never be dependent upon personality and behavior. By this I mean, STOP thinking that changing yourself or another will somehow make love happen. It won't. Not ever. If you do not feel love for another, any amount of change in them or yourself isn't going to change that.
• Don't create an "ideal man" or "ideal woman" for yourself. By this I mean physically. Love never has been and never will be dependent physical features alone. I guarantee as soon as you create that list, the love you find will be the complete opposite.
• There is NO WAY that you will ever have real love unless you possess the ability to be BRUTALLY HONEST 100% OF THE TIME with an individual. If you can't feel that comfortable with someone, that is your signal that it's not right. This is perhaps the hardest part of the equation, and why so many settle for less. It takes massive amounts of patience and a willingness to wait in uncertainty. But if you do, I guarantee that you will find that person, and you will know from the moment it happens.
• Give up the idea of a SOULMATE. Realize that the universe is not limited to such small terms. You may have known real love before, yet lost it. Perhaps you grew apart, or in the worst case lost them to death. Never believe that loss of love means you will never find it again. Our ability to love and be loved is not limited to a certain amount.
• Instead of looking for love, focus on looking for yourself. Because real love lies on the same path as self possession.

I could go on, but frankly I am tired of writing. If their is anyone catch all for finding love in my opinion, it is as simple as this.

BE YOURSELF.

NOT WHO YOU WANT TO BE

NOT WHO YOU WISH YOU WERE

NOT WHAT OTHERS THINK YOU SHOULD BE.

NOT WHO YOU WERE BEFORE.

BE TRUE TO YOURSELF IN ALL THINGS.

LOVE WILL FIND YOU THEN.

In Frith

Cena