Love simply.

“We must love the things we love for what they are.” ~ Robert Frost

Nothing is more complex and more simple than love.

We must choose simplicity.

When we start out love is uncomplicated, uncensored, unlimited, engaging and inspiring of all possibilities.

“Falling in love.” A wondrous time when you idealize your parents, your siblings, your lover, your work and your passions. You and they walk on water, invincible against life’s challenges.

But then things and feelings happen. You face obstacles, surprises, contradictions, hurts and disappointments. One day, one act, one event at a time, little pieces of love erode. Sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes suddenly.

“When we fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.” ~ Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

The reasons are as unlimited as love once was. Because it gets hard. Because we get hurt. Because people are real and not enough. Not enough to satisfy all our needs and dreams. Not enough to remove what hurts and fill us with what we believe would make us feel complete.

It’s also because we are not enough. Sometimes not strong enough to accept people for who and what they are. We struggle to accept that people, our work, and our passions are imperfect if they are real. We are imperfect and nothing will change that. We can change our minds and maybe our feelings about it, but not that humankind includes imperfection.

We long for those early days, either wishing for our idealized love or doubting whether the love was ever present.

The good news is that real love is resilient where ideal love can never be.

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them” ~ Thomas Merton

If we want more authentic love in our lives we need to bring it back its essence, to peel back the complexities and complications and find the love we once felt underneath it all. THEN communicate and tackle the day to day, the disagreements, the style differences, the practical wants and needs from that place of love. Start with the love, not with the reasons love is not enough, the person is not enough.

If you want to reconnect with the deeper love that lies below, here are a few suggestions:

Start with yourself. Start by accepting your imperfections. The more you accept your own the more you can accept others’ imperfections and their imperfect love. Start believing that you are enough. People who believe they are worthy communicate this to others and invite others into loving relationship.

Travel back in time. Reconnect with what you truly love or loved. Before you or they fell off the pedestal what was it that sparked you? Don’t let the imperfections cloud out what attracted you. Let those sparks fly in their purest, simplest form. Love what you loved. When you successfully communicate love and valuing, the focus can be on the adjustments you are requesting in a non-threatening way. When love is conditional (I would love you if, when, but) the person you love is distracted by doubts of their own worth and security and can’t be as available as we would like them to be. Once they feel secure, convey what could make the ride with them smoother, more enjoyable from your point of view.

Work on what is getting in the way. Let go of excuses. We hold love (and people) hostage to our list of needs and demands rather than owning them, working on them personally and responsibly. We can all find a long list of reasons of rationalizations why someone or something else should change or do something different and something first. We could just as readily focus on what we need to do, how we contribute to the way things are, how we need to act if change. Only when we have truly communicated and acted fully and responsibly, “done the hard work” without excuses do we have a real sense of what our love relationships can be.

Create a sense of urgency. Too often we hold back, sit with our rationalizations, waiting for circumstances to stimulate change. Imagine, instead that you are before an urgent situation, that someone or something you care for deeply is in peril. Urgent situations can both intensify and clarify our feelings. Allow your imagination to clarify. Cut away ego and history and act upon the power of the feelings you discover. Why wait? (hint: it’s probably ego).

Benefit from risk and bravery. When we choose to take love into our own hands we feel powerful (“enough”) to create the relationships we long for. We can trust these real relationships because they are founded on real people taking risks, expressing feelings, wishes and needs, getting hurt and persisting because it’s worth it. When we take risks we create a space that invites others into a deeper level of authentic relationship far more powerful than the ideal love we may have started with. We can also feel good about our own commitment to it.

So check your ego at the door, take love in your hands and invite others into real relationships, including their imperfections.

One loving relationship at a time we will all reap the benefits.

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ~Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ~ John Lennon