The other part of the love equation

© Jenn Shallvey

(This post complements the previous post, The Love Equation. You may wish to read that first.)

The topic of love is never ending because true love never ends. It changes in its form, object and nature, yet true love never goes away. Each of us is capable of love. Each of us is capable of sharing love. It is part of who we are. Yet love comes in so many forms. It is not as portrayed in a movie. Love is a gesture, an act, a noble way. It is not simply thinking about it. 

It is one thing to think about love. It is another thing to act from a place of love.  This is where we come to with the idea of others and love. In part one of this writing, “The Love Equation”, the focus was about self-love, self-care and that if you do not have that, then you reduce your capacity to love others. This does not mean that you cannot love others. It means you may be limited in how you take that love outward through acts of love. It becomes a real challenge for many when not having self love means there is less to give, less to offer, less to show and less to provide. In this outward love there is the assumption that you have already worked on and are working on continuously, the sacred work of self-love.

For now think about other love in the breadth of all its forms.  There are many ways you can ‘other-love’ – people, things, the planet, animals. It is not just people. Our expression of love is in all forms. It is through every aspect of living on this earth. For one person to show love is through their care of the planet – ie, in their gardening or nurturing of the earth. Another may choose to look after animals and bring them out of harm's way into safety. Someone else might love people in different situations and show their love through the way they care for them. It could be any age, state of mind or state of physical wellbeing. For, to care for another human being is really truly the ultimate act of love. Again the assumption is that you are self-loving as a starting point.  When you other love, you are choosing to put yourself out there and offer yourself to help others.

Now other love is not martyrdom. There are glorious, romantic notions around martyrdom that it is a sign of love to sacrifice yourself for somebody. This is twisting the story. For yes, it is an act of love to put yourself forward without any consideration of yourself. But it’s relevant to a level of knowing why you are there. The selflessness of love is when you act consciously for that person unconditionally in an effort, in an action that truly genuinely is for that person with no gain, no consideration for yourself. It is therefore love. 

You or others might say, but wait a minute, that means that work is not love. Of course it is love. It just happens that you then are entering into an exchange of love. You might call it a contract of work, but it really is more than that. The love that you are showing through your work in service to others is in exchange for the love that that place or person or organisation is showing back to you in respect and recognition for your service. 

There is an exchange of love when we work, but no one will say the word love when you think of work, will you? In fact, how many people do you even know that say they love their work? Not very many I'm sure. Let’s even start there. Let's go to that level. If you can not love your work, then how can you love through your work? How can you even begin to serve others with a hundred percent unconditional regard for that person if you do not love your work.  Well, you can love your work and like it at the same time or you can love your work, but not like it.

Sometimes people do jobs that just are not likeable or really challenging.  How do they do it? Because of their attitude, their intention, their choice. Think of the person who is doing the most challenging jobs right now in the world, ones that you are so thankful for that you are grateful for their service. Think of those people. You may not even know them or even hear of them, but you know of the jobs. Think of those people right now. Are they doing it because they love you or love the others that they're serving? No, probably not. 

But at some level they are doing that job because they know it needs to get done. So even at another level, we could say that they are showing love. For example think of a person that cleans up another who makes the mess. No need to go into details. Just accept that there are some pretty big messes out there that some people clean up for the sake of helping others.  These ones are doing a service. They are doing a service for others and they are doing it because they want to put food on the table or something like that. There is a reason why they took that opportunity, or they feel like they had to take that opportunity. A person could say, ‘I will not get out of bed and I will not go to work today and I will not do this.’ Or this same person could say, ‘my day has a reason, I am here, I can be of service and go do this.’ 

It comes back to this type of basic, simple rule - that love is an act and it comes from a place of intention. No matter what you do, your action, if it comes from that place of love, however you define love, is helping and doing well for others. That is other love. When you carry the energy of frustration, hate begrudgment, anything of that nature, where you feel under your breath, that you do not want to be doing it well, then that will come through. That will come through everything you do. 

There was a movie many years ago, about a lady in Mexico who put her emotions into the food that she cooked.  If she was crying, the tears filled the food. Then everybody who ate the food cried. If she was happy, then everybody who ate that food was happy. When she felt love everybody who ate that food felt love. Now take this as an example of what is really possible with other love. Yes, that was a fictional movie, but there is an element of truth to it. Just ponder that for a moment. 

Let's say you have to go visit somebody or attend a function that you do not really care for, but somebody else is expecting you to go. You go along and you do your duty or fulfil your obligation. You go, sit and have drinks, tick off the time, look at your watch and can not wait to go. As you do that, you are not loving of that situation. Are you? You are begrudging. You are obligating. You are doing it because someone said you should. 

Now rewind that clock or start over again. Instead you sit before you go and you say, ‘I may not like this person or place I am going to visit, but it means a lot for us all to go visit’ for the sake of this person or that person, whatever the dynamics. Then you may ask ‘how can I move past my dislike of some of their behaviour and find a way to be present in that situation from a place of love? How can I move away from the personality differences that we have in our relationship and find a place where I can be with that person?’  Now that is other love. 

Yet sometimes you just can not get past the differences. There could be a person that you have in your life who is harmful – whether emotional, mental or physical.  There is no way in the world that other love is going to protect you from a person who has it in them to harm you. Therefore it is actually okay to say, ‘I'm going to create a safe boundary. I'm going to step away from that person physically.’ But that does not mean you do not love that person. You can still hold love for that person. Imagine that. Yes, you create a boundary. Yes. You step away physically. Yes. You step away emotionally. You hold a barrier between you so that you are safe. 

In this context, now refer back to the previous post on self-love. In the spirit of self-love you may need to make sure you are ok first. If you do not self-love, then it will be harder to other love. Also if you are threatened in other love, then it is a reminder to go back to your self-love to make sure you are good. You reinforce it, make sure it is strong and anchored. Make sure you have all your capabilities, resources and abilities. Gain a sense of these abilities through your intuition. Know all of the things that really give you inner fortitude, inner strength, inner wisdom, inner ability so that the innerness of you is expanded and reinforced. 

Now consider the person that you have love for yet, physically or emotionally cannot be with at this time, because they are harmful back to you.  Perhaps this person has not found a place of self-love. Instead this person may be in a place of non-love and therefore can not at all, even begin to consciously fathom even for a moment any other love for you. You do not need, nor have to, nor should accept that in your world. It is also not your role to fix that situation.  You have a choice. 

Other love is also a choice. Other love is a dynamic, a relationship, a give and take and a balancing act. It is not a one way or another way. You do not just switch back and forth. It certainly is not, as noted above, martyrdom of yourself for the sake of others. That is not the way to be in other love. 

But this does not mean that you dismiss people forever because they may come back to you with other love. They may find in themselves at some point in their life, self-love again. Maybe they have an epiphany. Maybe they do some work on themselves and they heal themselves and they are then able to come back to you from a place of acceptance and love. Their behaviour actually changes to one of kindness, support, acceptance, respect. In this place you can meet that person again and your other love can be matched.  

This is the beauty of the human dynamic, the human relationship. It is not static. Take, for example, an animal. Do you think they sit there and think about other love? No, there is more an instinctive unconscious attraction for the sake of preserving the species. A human being goes way beyond that. We can think about why we are with a person.

Then you have attraction. You have other biological needs and biological desires, which depending on your belief system will be played out in a variety of ways. This is not a place to judge nor compare, contrast, nor comment on the way people express physical desire in love or romantic relationships.  In love, and how you choose to live that in your life, love is different for everybody. What one person says is a loving relationship will be very boring for another. What another says is very exciting may not be for others. 

Let’s bring this back to yourself again and think about love in your life and what it means for you to experience that.  What matters for you in terms of other love – from different perspectives – Romantically? Friends and family? Colleagues? Community? Globally? Consider these five dynamic aspects of love as if they were points on your hand.  Hold out your hand and look at it and say ‘can I actually see myself living fully and wholly as myself with my self-love coming through each of those points to the other?’ As you imagine yourself reaching out your hand, do all of your five fingers, actually point forward with love, or do some of them pull back? Do you feel that maybe you actually can not connect in love in all of those areas? There is nothing wrong with that. There is simply an assessment of where you are at right now, and there may be years and years of history in your life that may be a reason why this is the case.

Consider other love and assessment and ask yourself where am I at? Am I okay with this one, but maybe not so good with that one. If you hold your hand out, you might pull one of your fingers back. You might pull another one back, but I'm really good in this place. So you have some strong love and you have some developing love. You might even have some absent love. 

Then you come back to it again and you say, ‘what do I want to do about this? Does it matter to me?’ And if you say yes, then you say what matters to you most right now? There is an idea that you have been working on the self-love. So maybe you only have enough capacity to do other love in one of those areas.

For example, maybe you are loving of your partner or a family member, but you are not ready to do work that shows love to the planet because it is too much in your capacity right now. Or maybe you are well and truly set in your ways and you think to yourself, ‘I'm not really in a romantic relationship mode right now. I'm perfectly happy with myself and on my own. I don't need that in my life. I don't want that in my life.’ You don't have to have that. Maybe that is not for you. Maybe an intimate exchange once in a while is all you want or need. There is no judgement nor telling you what is right or wrong in that sense. So you may have more capacity in your love to show that for your local community, or eveb broader, through something that you're doing. Or maybe it is your work.  Maybe you love your work so much that you are passionate about it. And that is where you want to be. 

Imagine that you do not use all five fingers when you are doing things in your life. What would that be like? Well, that is the same with love. Imagine you do not use all five aspects of love. Then you are missing out on the fullness of being who you are. Yes your romantic relationship love does not have to be the same as the person next door who has been married for 50 years. And it does not have to be the same as the person who meets different people each weekend. You have to define what is your form of romantic love. 

Expanding this example consider what is your form of other love in all these categories.  Then measure where you are at for each of these. And if you can put your hand fully up in front of you, then you know, you can offer that to others.

Lastly consider an activity or exercise you can do if you like.  Hold your arm out and actually look at your outstretched hand for a second. See that love symbolised in front of you and know where it comes from according to your personal definitions. Then place that hand over your heart. As you do remember that whenever you put your hand over your heart with all five fingers stretched out that you are reminding yourself that the other love you offer always comes from your own self-love. By deduction then the more you love yourself, the more you put your hand on your heart and say, I love me, then the more you can love others. Feel this energy. Do this simple act. This gesture may make a lot of difference to you and others.

This writing and sharing may be a lot to take in or seem overly simplified. It is another perspective on love.  It is one that is open for contemplation, reflection and experimentation. Have some fun with it, go out and play with your love. How are you acting and showing other love? Study and observe yourself, others. 

Most of all, remember, love is there all the time. It comes from you to others, no matter whether you think you are doing it or not. The more you consciously love, the more it spreads, the more it grows, the more it makes a difference in this world. This sharing is what other love is really all about. So go be loving to others as much as you can possibly be every day from that place within you, that is all love and watch what happens. It is pretty amazing.