Finding the Gifts in Letting Go
Finding Joy in the Journey to Love
Illuminating Our Fears
Looking for Love
Preparing Yourself for Love—for Beginning Soul Sailors
A Soft Place to Fall
Soul Sailing Your Way to Perfect Love
Speak Spirit with Us!
Tapping into the Vibration of Love
Weathering the Storm Together

Looking for Love

By Brad and Jan Lundy

"The face of love is variable. I am able to love without demanding that my relationships assume the structures and forms I might choose for them. My love is fluid, flexible, committed, creative. My love allows people and events to unfold as they need. My love is not controlling. It does not dictate or demand. My love allows those I love the freedom to assume the forms most true to them. I release all those I love from my preconceptions of their path. I allow them the dignity of self-definition while I offer them a constant love that is every variable in shape."

- Julia Cameron

Jan: The other night at a workshop I became acutely aware of how badly many of us want true love to be present in our lives. I was speaking with a widowed woman who was now "ready" to begin the process of looking for love once again. She had created a list of all the things her perfect mate would be and not be. "I know exactly what I want now and I'm ready for love to be in my life." The longing in her for a partner who could love her the way she wanted to be loved was so great that I ached for her. I could feel her sense of emptiness, incompleteness.

I proceeded to share with her the idea that maybe she would "find" the right partner, not when she was actively looking, but when she was actively engaged in her own life, moving toward her own sense of wholeness. She looked at me quite quizzically, doubting that what I said could possibly apply to her. I felt as if I was speaking a foreign language to her.

Brad: That is actually what we are doing here, Jan, speaking what some might perceive to be a foreign language -- the language of Spirit. It is not a way of being that we are familiar with as humans. Why? Because it challenges us to move away from our traditional way of relating to ourselves and others as our ego selves, and engage, instead, with others through our divinity.

The longing that this woman felt was genuine. The longing, however, if we look deeply at its origins, is not a longing to be in relationship with the perfect partner, but a holy longing to be perfectly united with Love -- with God -- with our Godself. We long to return to our true identity, Love, because of how much love we innately are. I believe that at one time we were, absolutely and completely Love. We were intimately united with our Source, and "something" changed to cause a separation. Deep within us, we still remember what it felt like to be deeply rooted in Love, with no sense of separation. So we search and search, hoping to return to this feeling of wholeness we once knew. Many of us seek this through intimate relationship, certain that we will find the perfect partner who can help us recreate this awesome feeling of Oneness.

Jan: And because we are divine expressions of Love, we have a natural inclination to outpour love to others. To give ourselves to love, to be in love, to share ourselves and the love we carry inside with others. Difficulties arise, however, when we forget that we are Love itself, and,instead, focus on re-creating love in the world outside of ourselves with another. We forget that the ultimate source of Love is us. If we are whole enough (in ourselves and in our relationship with the Divine), we have no need to search for love elsewhere. As long as we fail to have the awareness of our true identity as Spirit beings, we will go through life needy, always trying to relive an old memory through external things. We ARE the love we are looking for. Love is always present and available to us because we are Love!

Jan: Because we have this strong, innate desire to return to Love (to our Divine Source), we might actually look for love, as the song says, "in all the wrong places." We try to fill the vast void we feel with things outside of ourselves: work, money, material things, achievements, even relationships. Fill it with anything to take away this sense of emptiness, loss, or disconnection.

Brad: To break this cycle (which can become more and more painful over the years), we need to simply acknowledge that our desire for Love. Then we make choices. We choose how we focus our energy. We choose how we spend our time and who with. We make choices rooted in love that promotes love and a higher way of living. And we listen and watch.

You see, when we send the very clear signal to the Universe that we long to experience Love, It responds to us. Remember, we are not talking here about longing for the perfect mate. We are talking about remembering our divine nature by acknowledging that we are ready to live in a new way, with our divine connection in tact, "in love with ourselves." Some people take this to be a narcissistic approach to life, but that is only an illusion. When we are truly love-filled for ourselves, our wholeness shines through, and we literally become a magnet to others. People are drawn to us, want to be near us because we are operating from our fullness rather than from lack. We have no need. And in that space of no need, love is ever present, ever showing up. We have All That We Are.

Jan: As we've experienced in finding each other as life partners, when you begin to move in the direction of Love/God, wonderful loving others show up to be in our lives. This is a natural outpouring of love from Spirit to give us assistance along the way. Love in human form comes our way because we are aligning ourselves more and more with the Love that we naturally are.

Brad: Yes, the Universe desires only our wholeness and happiness. God/Love desires us to live in joy, in communion with It, to be "naturally" in Love all the time. We just need to tap into our wellspring of Divine Love, surrender our human ego attachments to how it will show up, and say, "I am ready for Love..."

Copyright Heart to Heart Press © 2006