On Relationships

We had another blissful fifteen hour weekend of yoga immersion teacher training this last weekend. In honor of the current life situations of the students, we discussed LOVE.

My instructor and guru, Syl Carson, expressed her belief that love is a mirror. We fall in love with our own image projected onto others. When we love our partner's compassion, we are really seeing and loving our own capacity for compassion.

Likewise, when there is something about our partner that drives us crazy, while they may really posses that quality, it drives us crazy because it is a trait that describes ourselves. For example, if I was enraged to see my partner sitting in front of the TV, it is really my own denied idleness that enrages me.

In a love relationship, we make an unspoken agreement to see in each other the divine love that we have for ourselves. Doing so allows us to feel safe in understanding our love for ourselves. We make an agreement to do this for one another. Our partner therefore becomes a placeholder for divine love.

This is why it is so scary to be abandoned by a lover. We then feel unable to know the Divine's love for us.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to see myself as God (God being an all-encompassing term) sees me. As Syl said, “If I can love myself as God loves me, then I have intoxication of self-love!”

Doing this takes the fear out of love, and removes the fear from being alone.

So kiss yourself.

Namaste

*Rebecca Sky*