Dream a little dream with me ...
Just as your body is made by cells, your dreams are made by emotions. There are two main sources of those emotions; One is fear, and all the emotions that come from fear, and the other is love, and all the emotions that come from love. In order to understand those emotions ... let's look at some of the characteristics of love and fear ...
Love has no obligations. Fear is full of obligations. In the track of fear, whatever we do is because we have to do it, and we expect other people to do something because they have to do it. We have the obligation, and as soon as we have to, we resist it. The more resistance we have, the more we suffer. Sooner or later, we try to escape our obligations. On the other hand, love has no resistance. Whatever we do is because we want to do it. It becomes a pleasure; it's like a game, and we have fun with it.
Love has no expectations. Fear is full of expectations. With fear we do things because we expect that we have to, and we expect that others are going to do the same. That is why fear hurts and love doesn't hurt. We expect something and if it doesn't happen, we feel hurt - it isn't fair. We blame others for not fulfilling our expectations. When we love, we don't have expectations; we do it because we want to, and if other people do it or not, it's because they want to and it's nothing personal. When we don't expect something to happen, if nothing happens, it's not important. We don't feel hurt, because whatever happens is okay. That is hardly anything hurts when we love.
Love doesn't feel sorry for anyone, but it does have compassion. Fear is full of pity; it feels sorry for everyone. You feel sorry for me when you don't respect me, when you don't thinkI am strong enough to make it. On the other hand, love respects. I love you; I know you can make it. I know you are strong enough, intelligent enough, good enough that you can make your own choices for you. You can make it. If you fall, I can give you my hand, I can help you to stand up, I can say, "You can do it. Go ahead." That is compassion, but it is not the same as feeling sorry. Compassion comes from respect and from love; feeling sorry comes from a lack of respect and from fear.
Love is completely responsible. Fear avoids responsibility. Trying to avoid responsibility is one of the biggest mistakes we make because every action has a consequence. Everything we think, everything we do, has a consequence. If we make a choice, we have an outcome or a reaction. If we don't make a choice, we have an outcome or a reaction. We are going to experience the consequence of our actions in one way or another.
Love is always kind. Fear is always unkind. With fear, we are full of obligations, full of expectations, with no respect, avoiding responsibility, and feeling sorry. How can we feel good when we are suffering from so much fear? We feel victimized by everything; we feel angry or sad or jealous or betrayed.
Anger is nothing but fear with a mask.
Sadness is fear with a mask.
Jealousy is fear with a mask.
With all those emotions that come from fear and create suffering, we can only pretend to be kind. We are not kind because we don't feel good, we are not happy. If you are in the track of love, you have no obligations, no expectations. You don't feel sorry for yourself or for anyone else. Everything is going well for you, and that is why that smile is always on your face. You are feeling good about yourself, and because you are happy, you are kind. Love is always kind, and that kindness makes you generous and opens all the doors. Love is generous. Fear is selfish; it is only about me. Selfishness closes all doors.
Love is unconditional. Fear is full of conditions. In the track of fear, I love you if you let me control you. If you are good to me, if you fit into the image I make for you. I create an image of the way you should be, and because you are not and never will be the image, I judge you and find you guilty. Many times, I even feel ashamed of you because you are not what I want you to be. If you do not fit that image I create, you embarrass me, you annoy me, I have no patience at all with you. I am just pretending kindness. In the track of love, there is no IF; there are no conditions. I love you for no reason, with no justification, I love you the way you are, and you are free to be the way you are. In the track of fear we have so many conditions, expectations, and obligations that we create a lot of rules just to protect us from emotional pain, when the truth is there shouldn't be any rules.
In the track of love, there is justice. If you make a mistake, you pay only once for that mistake, and if you truly love yourself, you learn from that mistake. In the track of fear, there is no justice. You make yourself, your partner or your friend pay a thousand times for the same mistake. This creates a sense of injustice and opens many emotional wounds. Then, of course, you are just setting yourself up to fail.
In every relationship, there are two halves of that relationship ... You are responsible for your half; you are not responsible for the other half. It doesn't matter how close you think you are, or how strongly you think you love, there is no way you can be responsible for what is inside another person's head. You can never know what the other person feels, what that other person believes, all the assumptions he makes. You don't know anything about that person. That is the truth, but what do we do? We try to be responsible for the other half, and that is why relationships in "hell" are based on fear, drama, and the war of control. If I take control of our whole relationship, where is your part? It does not work.
If you have a partner who wants to control your game ... You are not going to have any fun! Eventually, you won't want to play with that partner anymore!
In the track of love, you are giving more than taking. And of course, you love yourself so much that you don't allow selfish people to take advantage of you. You are not going for revenge, but you are clear in your communication. You can say, "I don't like it when you try to take advantage of me, when you disrespect me, when you are unkind to me. I don't need someone to abuse me verbally, emotionally and physically. I don't need to hear you cursing all the time.
It's not that I am better than you; it's because I love to laugh; I love to have fun; I love to love. It doesn't mean that I don't love you, but I cannot take responsibility for your dream. If you are in a relationship with me, it will be so hard for you, because I will not react to your garbage at all." This is not selfishness; this is self-love. Selfishness, control, and fear will break almost any relationship. Generosity, freedom, and love will create the most beautiful relationships ...
If you are aware that no one else can make you happy, and that happiness is the result of love coming out of you ... Love in action can only produce happiness. Fear in action can only produce suffering.
You cannot change other people. You love them the way they are or you don't. You accept them the way they are or you don't ... That is a fact. They are what they are; You are what you are. You dance or you don't dance.
I quoted most from the part of the book that talks about the difference between love and fear, because sometimes, it isn't always easy to see love and fear for what they are.
Don't be discouraged and don't ever give up!
Some days are full of fear and nothing seems to go right. Other days are full of love and nothing can go wrong! The more we love ourselves, the more love we have for the world around us. We have more good days than bad days, but it takes making the most out of each day, always remembering to:
1. KEEP YOUR SPEECH IMPECCABLE.
Your words have power ... the power to bless or curse so why not use them to bless yourself and others? It's easy to give in to random negative thoughts, to judge, to criticize, to doubt, to worry, to fret, but what if all those negative words had gone unsaid? What would happen if we were committed to making our speech more authentic and infused our words with more wisdom and integrity? What if we always meant what we said and said what we meant?
2. DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY.
What people say to you says more about them than it does about you ... good or bad. People can only see the world the way the world has treated them. If the world has been kind to them, they are kind to you and expect you to be kind. If the world has been cruel to them, they will be cruel to you and expect you to be cruel. Maybe it isn't even about being kind or cruel ... Maybe, we just crossed their path at the end of a really bad day?
3. DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING.
Things are the way they are. Good or bad, this is where we are ... to learn from THIS moment. We are cheating ourselves when we assume we know why people, places and things are the way they are. Assuming only creates emotional poison and unnecessary drama. We will all know what we need to know when it is the right time to know it. Think of the trouble in our lives we could have avoided by just stopping ourselves from making assumptions!
4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST.
We can practice the FOUR AGREEMENTS every day. Some days will be good. Some days will be not so good. Our circumstances may change. Our energy level and insights might fluctuate but we can still ALWAYS DO OUR BEST.
( THE MASTERY OF LOVE - A Practical Guide To The Art Of Relationships by Don Miguel Ruiz )
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