Love, redefined
Barbara Fredrickson, psychologist and author, says in her book “Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become” that love is not the end-all-be-all of emotions. Contrary to what most people think, it’s not a magic force that will always keep relationships and marriages together.
That might sound grim and dark, but by the end of this article, you might be smiling and enjoying a feeling of excitement and hope.
So lonely, it’s (literally) sickening
In 1985, a poll asked how many trusted confidants people had in their lives. The most common response was three people. In 2004, they retried the survey, and the number was zero. People have nobody to talk to! I believe that a “Tribe” is essential for any happiness to be had in life, as you need to share your thoughts, dreams, and challenges with people. But what happens if we don’t have any to share with?
In the US, about 60 million people feel sufficiently lonely for it to negatively impact their existence. That’s 20% of the country! For the elderly, this number is about 35%… And this was over a decade ago!
Meanwhile, depression is at an all-time high. It was 10 times more prevalent in the early 2000’s than it was 50 years prior, and it was affecting 10% of the American population at the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
And that was back then. Due to the internet and our standardized way of looking at relationships, I believe it’s even worse today.
Searching for “The One”
Most married people – or those with a significant other – list their romantic partner as the greatest source of happiness in their lives, according to the global poll. Meanwhile, nearly half of the single people in the same poll, said that finding a special person to love would contribute greatly to their happiness.
Fredrickson wrote that these numbers reveal a “worldwide collapse of imagination”.
“Thinking of love purely as romance or commitment that you share with one special person – as it appears most on earth do – surely limits the health and happiness you derive from love”.
Micro-Moments of Love
As the feeling of love, like all other emotions, has a biochemical and a physiological component, we’re not really “in love” when we’re not physically with our partner, Fredrickson says.
We might feel connected or bonded with them, and we might long for them, but until we’re actually with them, our body is without love.
I think this can be linked to how our minds work. When we have a thought, we create an image in our minds or remember an experience from our past. When we go back to these stored images in our minds, we create emotions based on that experience. We can do this by using the past, present, and future, which is pretty cool. So when we’re not with our partner, we’re just reliving something from the past or dreaming something for the future. In the present, you’re reading this article.
Micro-moments can be had throughout every single day. You may experience a micro-moment of love with a complete stranger in line to pick up your coffee.
You might lock eyes with someone on the subway and share a glimpse of each other’s soul.
You might come across a biochemical match while sitting in a meeting, as your pheromones match with someone next to you.
Micro-moments are everywhere. And the way I see it, most of us will deny ourselves the full experience of them because we either want that person to be our partner for life, or we don’t want to hurt the person we’re already with.
If a person finds themselves drawn towards a micro-moment, acts on it, and then lacks the courage to share this with their partner, they might end up having an affair or seeking excitement outside the relationship.
That will lead to pain for all involved parties in the majority of such events.
Happily ever after… Next up; The 6pm News
I’ve come to see that relationships have changed in my eyes. The whole concept of a “relationship” – the concept of two people sharing the rest of their lives together – is actually a relatively new thing in human history.
Back in the day, and we’re talking 200+ years ago, the concept of marriage was to preserve the family and their survival. Families agreed to marry, not individuals. It was a means of making their farms and lineage stronger, not for the sake of love.
In the early 1900s, as the industrial revolution emerged, families were supported through labor and more income. Then Hollywood and advertising saw the light of day, and “Forever After” became a cultural wet dream that everyone wanted a piece of.
Seeing Jack and Rose at the bow of the Titanic, watching movies from the golden era where romance was captured in a new light, and seeing products being marketed as the solution to a loveless life… Well, it screwed with our minds!
Sex and Romance is an easy sell. And we rarely (up until recently) question what the media tells us.
When we see a romantic movie, we don’t get to see the unsexy parts of that relationship. Or the parts that truly hurt, because love can be a truly painful experience. We see the highlight reel, the headlines, and the sexy bullet points.
We can’t see their faults and failures, all we see is their limitless potential and possibility. That is not love. It’s a delusion. And like most delusions, things usually don’t end well.
It’s possible to fall in love with somebody who doesn’t treat us well, who makes us feel worse about ourselves, who doesn’t hold the same respect for us as we do for them, or who has such a dysfunctional life themselves that they threaten to pull us underwater until we drown in their loving arms.
So just because we love someone, doesn’t mean that we should be with them.
The Journey of Life
We all have our journey. Some won’t embark on it at all, and someone will set out on it early on in life.
Some might, at age 58, sit at the local pub every single Friday and complain about what they don’t have – sharing the same story of the most exciting part of their life for the 839th time.
Others (like yours truly) will create an adventure every day.
Depending on our sense of adventure or threshold for pain and the unknown, we learn what life has to offer through experiences outside of our comfort zone.
We shouldn’t settle for a relationship if it limits who we are. At least, that’s what I think. At the same time, we shouldn’t hurt others with our adventure through life. I like to call this perspective “The Lens of Love”, where I always try to make decisions that are fundamentally positive or has a constructive effect on all involved parties.
I love the mother of my daughter. She has a part of my soul and it will always be like that, but when we were together, we were both in pain. Expectations, assumptions, feelings of jealousy, and the like, limited us both in how we could grow through the journey of life.
At the same time, we are connected by erotic energy. Our souls merge when we’re together. Due to this, I feel no desire to seek sexual comfort with another human.
But I can’t help but feel guilty when I share a good conversation with another human.
This is where things become interesting.
Micro-moments of love, as previously mentioned, can be experienced throughout the day, with anyone. I love deep conversations. The reason for this is due to the emotions of the experience. To talk to someone and see them get lifted to new perspectives is like a drug to me.
I connect on such a deep level, that we “merge”. And in my eyes, from what I’ve learned about relationships throughout my life – it’s wrong. It’s almost like cheating, yet it’s not seen as such.
Ehsalese – The Embodiment
I and the mother of my daughter parted ways due to friction in our connection. As previously stated, the physical connection had no issues. As a matter of fact, I often referred to it as “Spiritual Sex”, because we literally became “one”.
But if a relationship needs several “flow points”, and sex is merely one of them, one has to eventually ask themselves what one truly needs in life in order to grow.
I decided to trust my energy and have that difficult conversation. I didn’t want to put any labels on what it was or try to justify it with how things should be, because that was probably the whole issue; trying to force something into a construct that didn’t resonate.
This is what we have dubbed “Ehsalese”.Â
In Hindi, the word feeling is translated to Ehasaas.
In Norwegian, it’s Følelse.
Together, we get “Ehsalese”, an individual sense of being in the moment – authentically – in the pure flow toward our own ultimate truth, radiating in limitless love and gratitude.
It’s that feeling you get when a string of your soul is struck. When you feel “high” as you’ve done or experienced something that was the absolute best thing that could happen at that moment.
When you get short of breath because you’re so excited and happy about your love for life.
When you resonate fully with your being, and you follow the flow of the universe without judging it.
The realization of this concept changed my entire existence. And because of this, I had to face the consequences and have “the talk” with my partner. I decided to fully follow my energetic flow, without filtering it through what “should be” said in that context.
Despite the pain from both sides, we remain in love. And through “The Lens of Love” and Ehsalese, I have no doubt it will remain so because there is no anger or low-vibrating emotions present. It’s based on respect and high-vibrating emotions, with the knowledge that whatever comes, comes.
Ehsalese is following truth and resonance. It’s trusting yourself and the situation, even if you’re currently in a storm at sea, and the dingy you’re in is sinking.
It’s finding your power through the stillness of a strong current.
It’s unleashing what you truly are, to see how you can raise the vibration and share the light.
It’s limitless.
So… Relationships, then
I think that we have to look at what relationships truly are, and redefine a lot of what we’ve been taught. Today, jealousy and mistrust are huge parts of many relationships, but why?
Jealousy is based on lack and pain from loss from what I’ve experienced. So we’re jealous because we don’t want to lose someone. That’s great and all, but that same emotion is the core reason why many relationships fail, so it’s a paradox.
At the same time, one can’t own another human, despite how much some would want it to be true.
So in my eyes, trust is needed. Pure, genuine, real trust. If you truly love someone, give them the freedom to do what they want, and if your bond is real, they’ll come back to you, because they choose you.
What do I mean by that? If they want to go out and explore, let them. “If you love something, let it go. If it’s real, it will come back to you.”
I know, that one might hurt…
If you allow yourself to be okay with such an arrangement, there are many things that have to happen in your Being for it to really feel okay. It’s a process of pain, acknowledgment, growth, acceptance, and most of all – love.
Its flow and free-flowing nature will attract new and paradigm-shifting perspectives. In physics, we know that energy attracts more of the same, and even though mainstream Law of Attraction teachings will put spins on it relative to the marketing message of the guru who shares it, one can honestly attract and design the dream reality in one’s life.
Because of this, I think relationships should be seen as a composition of energetic connections. When we go through life, we can either choose to stay with one person, forcing ourselves to shape into the context of that box and/or label, or we can be open to living through micro-moments of love, which ultimately fuels the overall sense of Ehsalese and ultimate freedom for all involved parties.
A deeper look at energy
If you want to learn a little more about how I see this whole thing, I suggest you take a look at this video about how thoughts become emotions, then actions, and finally – results. It paints the fundamental picture of how I see the world through this perspective, and it has helped a lot of people make sense of what they are in this Universe.
Conclusion
In order to be truly happy in life, I think we should stop trying to put old ideas and thoughts on how we feel. Learning how to truly feel and resonate with all parts of life will allow us to see the experience as much more than what we’ve been taught life should be.
If we stop over-analyzing what we experience, and instead, go with the energetic flow toward fear and the unknown with an open mind and a curious attitude, we raise our overall vibration, and as a consequence – what we attract in life.
Don’t search for love. Don’t search for happiness. Don’t think that “once I have this, I’ll be happy”.
It all comes from within, and your perspective on how life should be lived, along with all of the “rules” and norms of what that looks like, is all decided by one person…
You…
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