The Mastery of Love Part 7 of 10: Self Love Vs. Selfishness
March 24, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
This is a big topic. At first glance, these two things seem to be precisely the same, when in fact they are polar opposites. When we love ourselves we will not act selfishly. When we hate ourselves, we will act out of fear and loathing and will respond to the world in a selfish way. Remember in last week’s blog, we talked about two courses that we can pursue in a relationship: the track of love and the track of fear.
When we love ourselves and are happy/content in our lives, we can radiate love to all those around us. Our magical kitchen we talked about yesterday is full, and we can make any dish that we want. However, when we live in a fearful state that we don’t have love, then we follow the track of fear. By doing so, we only see scarcity and we act out of fear that we will lose that precious relationship because we are needy. Alternatively, we may be just filled with emotional poison that we transmit to all of those around us like the emotional ping pong that we addressed last week. When we are filled with self poison, self loathing, and self hatred, we look at the person next to us with that same dread and we push their emotional buttons to release our own poison. We then have that other person release that poison back onto us, and matters escalate.
When you are accepting of yourself and when you reach a happy state even without reference to another person, you invite love in. As I talked in my leadership series, you must first work on yourself. You must lead yourself. You must love yourself, then others can love you. Or if you are a leader, then others will follow you. All of you who read my daily blog are on the same journey with me toward life fulfillment, enrichment, happiness, and peace. I am honored that you can work with me on our personal journey toward self love and away from selfishness.
The Mastery of Love Part 6 of 10: The Magical Kitchen
March 23, 2009 by dr. lam · 24 Comments
Imagine for a moment that you possess a magical kitchen. You can produce any food that you want any time in any amount without concern for cost or any other constraints. If you want a pizza of the finest quality, you can have one. If you want veal sweetbreads, then your wish is my command. Let’s say one day a stranger comes to your door and says to you, “I can make a pizza for you every day without your thinking. Just allow me to control you.” You would laugh and laugh very heartily, responding, “Sir, I can have anything I want in my kitchen including pizza so why should I assent to being controlled just for having your pizza every day?”
Let’s now imagine that you are starving for a few weeks with no food around you anywhere, and a stranger comes up to you with the same proposition. Perhaps you would respond with a more dire urgency to eat the pizza and be controlled since the choice at this point is rather obvious. Well, the moral of this story is that the kitchen is love and we can either have an abundance of it or a scarcity depending on how we perceive it. The love though is self-love. Once we begin to see that we have all the love in the world without regard to another individual then we can feel comfortable that we do not need to be in a serious state of starvation but that we can be free of a perception of starvation. Tomorrow we will talk more about what self love means.
The Mastery of Love Part 5 of 10: The Perfect Relationship
March 20, 2009 by dr. lam · 13 Comments
We truly want in life the perfect relationship but what does that mean? Let’s use the idea of our relationship with a pet dog. When we come home, the dog is happy to see us. We feed the dog, pet the dog, and treat the dog as a dog because it is a dog. We don’t ask the dog to meow because it is not a cat. If we wanted a horse, we would have gotten a horse. The dog for his part plays the part well. He knows how to bark, wag his tail, eat food, and be happy. Do we accept the dog as a dog or do we ask more of that animal?
Sometimes we just have to know what we want. Too often we don’t accept the other individual the way he or she is but demand certain changes or conditions before we want to offer that love. However, with our animals, we simply see that animal as a being in front of us that need not have certain conditions that we apply. If we don’t know what we want in a mate, then we won’t know how to find it or how to recognize it when we find it.
The simple truth is that when we encounter a love in front of us without preconditions, i.e., when we find someone who we feel is right for us from a spiritual, mental, physical, and at all levels without the need to change the other person then we have found the right love. When we start appending notions like, “Well, I really love this person BUT…” then perhaps we have not arrived there yet. Do we want a dog or a cat? If we know, then we can choose. If we don’t, then we cannot. If we want to change a dog into a cat, we can’t and we won’t.
What if you are with a cat and you want a dog? Well, that is a hard one. Only you will know the truth if you have made a mistake in your choice. I’m not advocating just throwing in the towel, but we need to be honest with ourselves and what we want so that we can make our choices during this short life and be happy.
The Mastery of Love Part 4 of 10: The Man Who Did not Believe in Love
March 19, 2009 by dr. lam · 11 Comments
There was a man who did not believe in love. He simply said, “Love does not exist. It is an illusion.” He likened most relationships to what goes on between a drug dealer and an addict. The drug dealer gives the addict what he/she needs, and the addict craves that addiction. Similarly, in many relationships, there is one member who is needy for love and the other one who really does not need love but gives love out and thereby controls the relationship. This unhealthy relationship is very prevalent and leads to mutual destruction or lingering dependency.
One day this man encountered a woman sitting on a park bench. He saw that she was visibly distraught. He asked her what was the matter. She said, “I have been married for many years to a man who no longer loves or respects me. I do not believe in love.” The man who did not believe in love responded, “Yes, love does not exist.” Then, the man and woman who did not believe in love became steadfast friends, and that friendship blossomed into a burgeoning romance. They both could not believe in fact that this time what seemed to be love was founded on respect and mutual admiration. There was no petty jealousy or negativity like from the past.
One night a shooting star came from the heavens, and the man gave that star to the woman. The woman became afraid of the overwhelming love and dropped the star, which then broke into a million pieces. Whose fault was it that broke the star? It was the man’s. He thought he could give another person happiness. However, in any relationship, we are only responsible for our own happiness not the other person’s. We cannot make that person truly happy but we can simply exude our own happiness every day. When we start to become responsible for another’s happiness, we can lose our own. As my mentor always said, “Happiness comes from within.” We cannot live in the shadow of another’s happiness. We can only be responsible for living our own happiness.
When we have the responsibility to make someone else happy, we create internal anxiety within us for that responsibility, which ultimately leads to failure. Our fear that we will lose that love and our anxiety to please our significant other can ultimately ruin that relationship. Focusing on our own happiness, peace, and contentment will radiate to our partner without necessarily being explicit in our desire to make that other person intentionally happy. Just be responsible for your half of the equation.
Ruiz divides relationships into two distinct categories: fear and love. Too often 95% of the relationship is based out of fear with only 5% given to love. Fear is conditional: I only love you if…; whereas love is unconditional. Fear is selfish and controlling; whereas love is generous and filled with respect. When we start to let go of fear and focus on our own half of the relationship and the success of that half, our relationship can flourish. When we are gripped by fear of how to make the other person happy or we feel that we must be in charge of that person’s happiness, we allow fear to dominate that relationship and move it toward a lower state and possible disintegration.
The Mastery of Love Part 3 of 10: Self-Abuse
March 18, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
We are always punishing ourselves. We play the Victim because that is the role that has been assigned to us during our period of domestication. We always feel that we should be punished because we see ourselves as imperfect: ”I am not good enough. I am deserving of this abuse” so I will abuse myself. Ruiz perceives us as domesticated animals. We respond in ways that reflect our domestication. The only difference with an animal is that we will punish ourselves a thousand times for the same mistake. We are convinced that we are imperfect and must therefore be subjected to punishment.
As I have said in a past blog, I have tried to stop saying that “I am imperfect.” It brings to light our own self abusive tendencies to play judge and jury so that we can become Victims again. Ruiz calls the indoctrinated belief system that society (aka, the Dream) has imposed on us as the Parasite that sucks on our emotional wounds. The language that the Parasite uses is fear. Fear grips us and paralyzes us and distorts our relationships.
Many times we wonder when we see others, “How does she live with that abuse?” The answer is simple: she already is abusing herself (I’m not good enough or worthy. I deserve this.) and therefore accepts as only natural abuse from another. With the emotional poison that is there, she gives it back to them, and he accepts it because he is used to thinking of himself with that same level of self abuse. Ruiz’s insight (that I have mentioned in a previous blog and is worth repeating here) is that we will only tolerate an abusive relationship as much as we tolerate our own abuse. When that relationship exceeds our own level of self abuse, we will flee. However, many individuals live in such a sustained level of self abuse that they can tolerate many levels of abuse and will remain in that relationship.
When we can begin to clear the storing house of false thoughts that the Parasite has made us believe, think, and really fear, we can then escape those abusive relationships because we will stop abusing ourselves. When we begin to love ourselves without self condemnation and without judgment, we can then have the prospect of entering a healthy, loving relationship.