What is love?

One of the most common answers I get when I ask the question “why do you love this person?” is that they feel like they understand one another’s pasts and have had common challenges in their lives; they share — or at the very least, understand — one another’s struggles.

Another way of saying this is that they feel safe. But not safe in the way that brings true internally oriented security through a path of spiritual evolution and liberation. Safe in fixed identities that keep us stuck. Identities based on unhealed wounds. Safe in the sense that that person “understands” their triggers and will consent to walking around them so that there is no risk of experiencing the pain…of intimacy.

Another way of calling this is trauma bonding.

And of course (spoiler alert) it never ends well because try as we might, you can’t sidestep triggers long term. Intimate partners are especially bound to snag on something.

What is often confused for compassion in “understanding” here is actually codependency.

You need to know that it is not necessary to “understand” or have lived someone else’s pain in order to bond. It’s simply not required. To not have lived someone else’s pain is not reason enough for them to stay closed off to you or to be unnecessarily attached. Other people don’t need to know your pain in order for you to be open and vulnerable with them.

You don’t have to be broken to receive love (you don’t have to be perfect either).

To be compassionate is to be intimate with the energetic essence of an experience of another _from within_ and also to trust in another’s ability to embrace their own life’s challenges and transmute them into gold, without walking on eggshells. You get to hold the deep truth that we each have everything we need and that no one needs rescuing from their suffering.

I haven’t talked about personal responsibility in a while but that’s at the core here.

You manage your nervous system; I’ll manage mine.

Tough pill to swallow: You can love all of a person, including their tender parts, but if the tender [unhealed] parts that you share are the reason you love them then that’s not really love. It doesn’t mean love is unavailable. It just means it hasn’t been tapped yet.