I talk a lot about socialization and conditioning as the biggest challenge we have to having joy, ease and pleasure in our sex and relationships. One way that this shows up is in the lenses and filters through which we view our lovers and partners. From our earliest post-natal perceptions, our image of what our paramours should be is being modeled and shaped through a variety of inputs. From the way our family and community talk about (or don't talk about) one another, love, sex, partnership, bodies, courting, dating, etc. to the way entertainment media uses these aspects of human relations to carry out formulaic and impressive narrative arcs to the way corporations have operationalized the human need for companionship in its myriad manifestations as a way to first create a problem, then offer a solution to it, by the time we start to sexualize in our early teens, our idea of what our partners and paramours should "be" is narrowed down to a stripped caricature of what human "being" entails.
This is great! It is wonderful. It is fun to role play and fantasize and act out all of the stories and live them out a little, too. This is the stuff that "play" is made of no matter how old we are. The problem arises when we don't realize the opportunity to add more possibilities to our idea of partners and lovers. Fact : All human beings grow and learn through failure. This process does not stop until we cease to breathe life. (And who knows? Maybe not even then.)
"When confronted by a human being who impresses us as truly great, should we not be moved rather than chilled by the knowledge that [they] might have attained [their] greatness only through [their] frailties?"
-Lou Andreas-Salomé
And here is the point...loving some one and experiencing the full joy, ease and pleasure of love requires that we allow our partners to be fully human, simply because they are. That includes the dirty laundry left strewn about the house by the partner who is both impressive and frail. It includes the lover who hits the mark precisely and blissfully in one moment, and in the next just can't quite find the edge. The people we gravitate toward are impressive! and they are also everything else than humans are. They are not separate, elite, perfect, or only sexy and kind. They are not only what we "want" them to be. They are also frustrating, triggering, and at times perhaps exactly the opposite of what we think lights us up. They do things that confuse/embarrass/piss us off and probably confuse/embarrass/piss them off, too. The spectrum of humanness is gloriously, painfully, inextricably linked.
And the deliciously selfish bit is this : you get to have this, too. You get to unfurl your full wild octopus tentacles in all of their juicy badness, too. You don't have to hide the scary bits in fear that with them, you won't be loved. In this leveled up kind of love we can offer one another, where we have the capacity to climb the mountain and take a good, gorgeous, sensual look at WHAT IS, we are free to love whole heartedly...for a moment, for a week, for a lifetime, whatever.
I love quotes...here are couple more to ponder.
"In a compassionate heart our love for sentient beings is fulfilled."
- Jack Kornfield
"When a dog is chasing after you, whistle for him."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love you,
J
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