Love Walks In

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder"...(Charles Morgan). How do you know that you are in love or someone loves you. You just know, you feel it. Love gets confused and convoluted in arguments, complaints, blame and negotiations. There are certainly different types of love. You can love someone but not be "in love" with them and vice versa. Being "in love" however is unmistakable and it requires no analysis. The problem with love is that often people already know how they feel, they just talk themselves out of it or don't feel deserving of something so simple and pure, love. I see it all the time in counseling individuals and couples. People tell me stories of walking away from the loves of their lives because they were scared or thought all relationships would be as easy. They are not. Relationships based on a real heart connections are easier. Without the heart connection, you end up battling to feel understood, never feeling like they really know you or love you for who you are. Couples battle all the time because they picked each other based on what they wanted the other to be, not for who they really are. Often people don't truly accept themselves for who they are. It's difficult to attract or sustain a true love connection if you struggle with your own self acceptance. Until your internal battle is settled, you will attract people who treat you the way you feel you deserve to be treated. True love is a gift. It needs no defining. Movies and stories depict the beauty of true love. It is a deep soul connection. Time does not matter. You can live with someone for 25 years and not know or truly love one another and yet with true love, you can be together for months and feel like you've been together forever. Here are some inspiring quotes about true love. "Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving"...(Kahlil Gibran). "The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread"...(Mother Teresa). "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love"...(Albert Einstein). "Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit"...(Peter Ustinov). I have witnessed some heart warming love stories recently in counseling. One divorced client told me that she had never been in love with her spouse. Now that she is "in love," she is experiencing real love for the first time in her life. Another client had experienced a separation from the person he loved for a year. During that time, he realized how he pushed away the one person he truly loved by hiding his feelings. Now that they are reunited, he is much more willing to be vulnerable. He says that life is much "more fun and exciting" by having her in it. He knows that she brought him back to life. Love brings out the best in you and needs no analysis. Defenses however need to be looked at but love....it's so simple that if you just allow yourself to feel it, it's unmistakable and divine.