”Never make someone a priority when to them, you are simply an option.”
It’s funny I was schlepping up and over the mountain one morning last week and this quote came to mind. And interestingly enough, a few days later, I saw it posted on a friend’s wall on Facebook. This quote never sat well with me. Perhaps because (for me) it represents the kind of love Tony Robbins refers to as horsetrading. Summed up, he defines this kind of love as partners giving if they are given to and no more. That’s the feeling I experience when I lean into this quote. Perhaps because I have always loved for the sake of loving. In relating to the people I care for the most (lovers, closest friends, intimately family), during challenging times, I’ve waited and sat with myself until I found the purity of my own intention before acting. Sure there are times when I’ve messed up, I didn’t act from a place of purity, but I have often caught myself in the mere act and have done whatever I could to re iterate from a place of light. My mom oftens refers to me as “the heart on two legs”. It wasn’t until recently that I understood what she really means by this (and that’s a story for a whole other post). And sure there were times when I’d wished for more. I think we’ve all experienced wanting something that wasn’t accessible to us but I didn’t let what I was (or wasn’t getting back) drive how I prioritized my feelings. And likewise, I never loved people, even when they love me back, because of what they brought me, but rather for who they were.
Anthony De Mello describes it so well in his tiny but powerful book: A Way to Love when he sais
when we admire the mesmerizing beauty of the sunset we don’t ask for anything back from it. We simply love it. And when the rose shares it’s beauty and inspires us to feel love for it, neither does it ask for anything in return. That is the nature of unconditional love. In human terms, this is difficult if not virtually impossible. It still doesn’t mean we can’t strive to move towards it.
Love is an internal experience within ourselves that graces the Beloved with the experience of being loved. But I’m not sure, at this point in my evolution anyway, that love can be given away. It is simply experienced. Sometimes we experience love for someone and the Beloved is not even aware or open to it (think of times when you get a flash of something your child or honey did and your heart swells), and other times he/she is (when you gently comfort a crying child or hold your Beloved in your arms). This does not change our own internal experience. That means that we have access to love within ourselves at all times, independent of others. You just get really darn lucky if you both share the same experience at the same time. Why? …Because, that is human nature, the desire to feel connected, and to share this connected experience with an other(s).
Q♥