| Love |
The falling out of lovers
is the renewing of love. |
Robert Burton
|
Surround yourself with love. Though this may seem to you the most impossible emotion
to experience in the first stages following a separation, it is to become your course
of action when you realize that love is the key to your control of self and to the
door that is opening toward your new reality. Love is what brought you into your
relationship and love is the power that will lead you to the meaningful resolution
of your situation.
This decision to love must first take effect with reference to yourself and to
the person from whom you are separating. You must love yourself for those qualities
which brought you into the realm of that other person: your willingness to give of
yourself and to take the risk of being hurt. And to love the other person in spite
of the pain you are feeling is to allow that person the same freedom you will both
need in order to move on. Love is a force that renews us and prepares us for tomorrow.
Hatred is a shackle that keeps us tied to the past. Drop the shackles!
The one from whom you have separated will not soon be forgotten, though great
distances may separate the two of you. Give the memory of that person the chance
to help you by insisting on remembering the beautiful experiences that united you.
The painful ones which separated you will need no coaxing from the memory. Turn your
anger into love. Take the qualities you found in the other person and develop them
in yourself, use them as a way of better experiencing your love for all the others
who are important in your life. After all, those were qualities which brought you
into love and they are no less worthy today.
Love has no guilt and no boundaries. In fact, it has no definition. Yes, it is
the force which takes us out of ourselves so that we may share ourselves with others.
Yet it is also the force that leads us into ourselves, so that we may understand
and prepare ourselves for the act of giving. You cannot resolve the bitterness and
pain of the separation you are experiencing by continuing to dwell on these feelings.
Come alive with the force which is the essence of life itself. You are leaving one
relationship, one stop in your journey. There is still a path before you. Walk in
love.
