True Love Is an Act of Becoming

Most of us approach love as a sedative, when in fact it’s a call to wake up—which is the only way we’ll ever be able to stop seeking external things to calm our nerves. What we often call love is in fact a good nap with company, a way to avoid our life without having to feel lonely, where two minds can agree to be only half-aware, together, so that in this state of merging they can live half asleep as one and be safe. The way most people say “I love you” is by saying I’ll be half the person I was before we got together. This is often affirmed by the “coming back to life” people have after a breakup.

True love inspires us to greatness for our beloved, ourselves, and the world around us.

We often deliver a one-size-fits-all love that, at its extreme, is a selfish act of giving only what we want to give. We drain excess affection or offer it as an exchange, with the expectation of getting something in return. Rarely are we willing to offer a stroke-by-stroke attentive love or a targeted love, a love that takes into consideration the locked doors and blind alleys of another person’s soul, and instead of ignoring their existence, refusing to venture into them, or getting angry that we can’t find the keys to get in, making it our vocation to learn the individual, unique quirks and gifts of that person. True love loves a person according to the conditions their soul sets. It loves entirely on those terms and not our own. It doesn’t always feel as heady and intoxicating as the idealized, mass-produced love.

More often than not, to deliver true love, we employ a friendly trick—figuring out how to love a person in a place they have never allowed another into. How do we love someone with a fierce soldier’s heart who loves by ensuring those around them feel safe and protected, always looking outward? How do we let them know they can let down their guard, that they, too, can be taken care of, without triggering their fear that there will be no one on watch? How do we love the person who has been the dominant one, the one who has been willing to take responsibility for their partner’s experience, especially carrying the dangerous part of the load, like sexuality? How do we give them permission to know the other side of existence and receive the pleasure of being able to submit? How do we sneak love into a person whose outstretched hand is unknowingly holding people at bay in such a way that we don’t trigger their underlying fear of not being deserving of the very things they ask for? How do we take a person steeped in addiction and shame and inject them with enough approval in the dark room of their consciousness so they can see enough light to find their way out, without getting burned by a light they have not seen in a long time?

True love is a stealth act. One that in a world of mass production, could seem too high-maintenance, too time-consuming, or requiring too much attention: a moment-by-moment engaged attention. Yet, the rewards are great. When we liberate something that has been caged, a pure line of devotion opens. And, more importantly, we become the person we have always wanted to be in the process of developing the attention we need in order to ensure our loved ones are genuinely loved. This is the secret gift of true love—it demands we develop the aspects of ourselves that are most needed to evolve us into who we are: beings capable of unconditional love.