Is there a higher love?

That’s a great question.

 

I’ve often imagined the perfect love life with everything working out beautifully just like in the movies. But reality is quite different from the movies. A higher love has elements that must be met before we can reach the highest level of love bliss. Does it really exist if our only reference of it is in the world of make belief? Or is there really a higher love? What does that even mean?

 

I’m not talking about this version:

 

The love of a higher power. The idolization of a man-made mythical (or real) person that we have given our power over to. The organized doctrine that keeps us in fear of knowing our true power. Call it whatever you like, there is no higher power telling us what to do and testing us unless you believe it to be so. The universe just doesn’t work that way.  This is not the higher love that I speak of.

 

I’m speaking about the higher love that comes to us after the realization that we have all the power. We make our own fear, our unhappiness, our misery, our unworthiness and our shame. We are all powerful because we control EVERYTHING in our lives.

 

We have this power.

 

And once we realize and accept this, then there is a letting go, a resolution, a completeness. Only we can complete ourselves because that is our job in this life. No one else’s. Not our parents, not our family, not our spouses, not our lovers or friends. Just ours.

 

This may not make sense if you’ve been living in a world where you still think your survival is dependent on another person’s approval or happiness.

 

Here’s what I mean exactly:

 

As children, we have no choice but to submit to our parents or caregiver’s authority. It is the only way we can survive. There’s no option. But as adults, this all changes.

 

Getting to the adult stage in our culture has become a hazy process and in some cultures, it doesn’t exist at all. That’s where you see adults still relying on their parent’s opinions to direct their lives.  Sometimes it’s cultural and sometimes it’s just bad parenting. And there’s an opportunity here.

 

To break out of this entanglement and become responsible for our lives is a scary thing for some. Our system doesn’t want us to grow up and have your own opinion and power. It keeps us buying stuff and submitting to jobs we loath and leaders we despise and picking partners who compromise our values. On some level, our culture keeps us in the addiction of love but doesn’t help us find true love like they promised in the movies.

 

Love addiction vs. True Love

 

Just look at the porn industry as an example. Here are some statistics:

 

 

This says it all:

 

 

Why am I showing you this stuff? Because it reveals why we aren’t able to find the happily ever after we see in the movies. Stay with me.

 

We are told that we’re supposed to be happier and live longer if we are with a loving partner. Right? Lots of studies on this one.

 

So, we proceed on the basis that our partner is responsible for making us happy so we can live longer. We then believe that we are incomplete without a partner. When we don’t have a partner (breakup or divorce), we are devastated and we feel incomplete.

 

On some level, we become outcasts of society. We aren’t part of the couple’s club. We develop a Loneliness Epidemic worldwide  (this is before Covid). This gets reinforced by our “concerned” friends and family. There’s no way out.

 

We turn to online dating sites in desperation to complete ourselves. We end up picking our energetic match which at that time is also someone who is desperate to be completed. The result is that we never feel complete or happy.

 

 

The quick fix. Not Higher Love.

 

How do we then become happy? We turn to anything that will make us feel better instantly.

Enter online porn.

 

Porn has become the quick fix for anxiety and unhappiness. It has become the new addiction. Remember the statistics above – 70% of men are on porn sites. So, guess who they are watching? Women of course (and men too but mostly women).

 

The result is, if we believe that the only reason we must have a partner is so they can make us feel happy and we easily feel this with porn, then why bother with deep connection and commitment to a higher love?

 

And why (Rant Warning!), are we as women, listening to men to teach us how to Get The Guy… to once again change ourselves to meet their expectations. Ugh! It’s maddening.

 

HIGHER LOVE COMES FROM WITHIN.

 

Again, I’m asked, is there a higher love?

 

The answer: Absolutely.

 

But it’s not out there. It’s not in our parents, our family, or partners. And it’s definitely not in the porn industry.

 

According to David Deida, there are 3 stages of intimacy.

1. First Stage – when you are focussed on your needs and desires. This stage is about taking care of ourselves and learning how to ask for what we want.

2. Second Stage – when the focus is on the we. This is when you are both creating something together through shared values. A couple is together but still focussed on their needs as separate beings.

3. Third Stage – when we grow beyond the partnership and realize that fulfillment comes from living for something larger than us as a couple. When the trust in your partner is so solid that you can let go of the need for control and surrender to the bliss.

 

It happens when we realize our power to love ourselves unconditionally. It happens when we accept ourselves for the perfectly flawed individuals that we are. And it happens when we believe that we are in school to learn this way of higher love.

 

It happens when we choose a partner, not for the sake of “completing”  us but for the sake of sharing this experience and holding each others hand through it all.

 

It happens when you find the partner who is willing to study with you. To experiment and play and fail and get that you both succeed in the failure. Like Jada and Will Smith kinda higher love.

 

It happens when after all the failing and recalibrating, you realize that you haven’t finished but have simply made it to the next level. A higher love level.

 

Reaching Higher Love within is a journey and not a destination… I know that’s a cliché, but it’s an accurate one.

 

All love,

Diana