Finding "Love" vs. Building It

Do you ever experience deep revelations while sleeping? Sometimes, when I'm in a deep sleep, a single word or phrase will come to mind and all at once: clarity. That's what just happened. This morning the saying that echoed in my mind was:"True love isn't found, it's built."

I really thought I understood the message behind this: work things through. But, it's not just that. For many of us, our objective is to simply find "the one". ("The One" theory is a theory I'm not too on board with, but that will be in another post!) So we date around, and when we meet someone quite impressive think, "this is it". I think that's where we go wrong.

I'm guilty of this, too. Too often, I give my all and "choose" someone based on feelings before really knowing them. That's what I was taught; to pick someone and be committed. But the flaws in this thinking are numerous.

If we give ourselves away all at once, if we choose early on, there can be too much pressure on yourself and the other person to make something succeed. And the entire notion of forcing something to work is driven by fear. And what's driven by fear, instead of letting go and learning the ebb and flow of a relationship or learning how to just be in a relationship day by day, will ultimately fail.

People are meant to know each other piece by piece. Personally, I've struggled with this. Since I've equated the success of relationships by only what I give, I've been stuck in roles of carrying relationships. The only way to position yourself in a relationship where its 100%/100% on both sides, is to be patient and not worry about the destination. It's to not worry how it's going to work. It's to stand beside the other person and walk side by side. To slowly grow into each other and learn how to share two lives. To learn each other.

This also allows mutual trust to be built little by little as trust and commitment are earned, not given freely. The journey is to learn each other and out of that process comes true love. True love doesn't come before that process. Before that process is infatuation and sentiment which are two things that don't sustain a healthy relationship.

Wow. That was some heavy thinking, but damn...it's good to finally understand how a relationship is supposed to work.