I Trade You

Disclaimer: This piece of writing is inspired by +Neale Donald Walsch's Joy of Relationships and paragraphs in bold are exact excerpts.

For many people love is about finding something they need in another person. This is a form of trade, where people say 'I love you' where they should really say 'I trade you'.

P.S. I write 'Love' with a captial 'L' throughout for a reason I mentioned in a past article: The difference between "love" and Love.

Now, you sitting there might be wondering what I mean exactly by this 'trading' business. Well, just think of the little times when you must have said things like: "I won't eat like this, if you don't forget to put the toothpaste cap on the tube.", "Would you stop laughing so hard, it ain't even funny."

Basically, we think that Love is an arrangement, a business transaction. You give me this, and I'll give you that. And then, when I stop receving what I was supposed to receive, I feel like it is the end, or I start to fake the relationship right off. And I'm here also talking about the relationship we have with our parents.

And on the 14th of February, Neale says that he searched and searched for a card; but couldn't find one that said, "I trade you very much. Gosh do I trade you. And I'll trade you forever."

You must have probably realised that actually, we have been getting into relationships (with anyone: teachers, siblings..) for all the wrong reasons.

We are all in a relationship with our parents, with our partners for what we can get out of it. And we are even willing to trade all of our rights, make sacrifices and compromises. And ghastly enough, we do not understand the purpose of relationships.

A relationship is the most important single experience we can all possibly create for ourselves.

How to make relationships work? What Love is then, you ask?

As a science student, it would often dawn on me that in order to understand what something is, we need to understand what it is not. After all, that is why definitions tend to rely on what limits something instead of what its full potential is. Thus, I have also learnt that we have the duty of not to look at what Love IS, but to look at what it's Not in order to fully understand it.

So that's what I'm going to do today. Let's begin our examination of this wonderful topic by looking at what Love is Not.

And the first thing it's not a feeling. Nor is it a reaction to a feeling. Nor is Love to be confused with need. Nor is Love based on conditions. Nor does Love ever forgive.

Anything.

Nothing at all.

I think that we are so much exposed to junk popular interpretations of what Love means that we end up having a hollow idea of what it really is.

So if you think you are being loving when you are being forgiving, think again.

Yes, there is much to explore, much to discuss about this.

Love is a Decision. It is a Choice. It is an Action. It is what we decide to do and the direction we choose to take whenever we reach the Critical Crossroads in our life --- which we do nearly once a day throughout our lives. These are the moments in which we decide Who We Are and Who We Choose to Be.

When we decide that Who We Are is Love, that choice - made in advance of moments, events, situations, and circumstances in our life - dramatically affects, shapes, and creates the decisions we make about the thoughts, words, and actions we embrace as we move through our lives.

So Love is not a feeling, nor is it a reaction to a feeling...it is an action.

Now, in romantic relationships there almost always --- not always, but almost always, has to be a certain feeling that gets things started.

We sometimes call this feeling "attraction," or "chemistry." But chemistry should never be confused with love. "Attraction" or "Chemistry" is not the meal that is cooked over the fire. It is the fire, but not the meal. People who confuse the two often trade being nourished for being burned.

Love is not to retain the best of the other – but the best of your Self.

Relationships are not for obligation but for opportunities. Relationships to all things in life are tools in the work of the soul. Becoming Who We Are sets an example to other to be Who They Are.

So we know now that Love is not a feeling, but a decision. Yet what is that decision based on? It had better not be based on NEED, or you will also get burned.

Conversations with God warned me in no uncertain terms against what it calls Need-Based Relationships.

True love chooses to share all that we HAVE and all that we ARE with another. False love chooses to get all that we LACK and all that we are NOT from another.

This is what happens when we enter into Need-Based relationships. We wind up forming Trade Relationships with our partners.

Nations form trade relationships "You give me this and I'll give you that." When people form such relationships we start thinking in terms of whether what we're getting is sufficient to balance what we're giving.

That is unless YOU stop trading ME. Then the deal is off. The relationship is over. Because it was based on what we are TRADING.

We can shift the focus of our relationships from what we need to what we share. This is when we make the movement from False Love to True Love; from Imperfect Love to Perfect Love.

Perfect Love is the kind of Love 'God' (our own self) has for us. This is a love that is not based on conditions.

Love that is conditional is a love that says, "I love you IF..." But there is no IF in 'God' 's love...and there is no 'if' in our love when we offer to others the kind of Love 'God' offers to us.

There is no conditionality in the best of relationships. There is no limitations, they are completely free. Therefore when we Love another, we never seek to limit or restrict them in any way. Love says, "My will for you is your will for you." When I say, "I choose for you what I choose for you," then I'm not loving you, I'm loving me through you.

And here is the supreme irony of it all, the moment we shall be able to say "I choose for you what you choose for you," nobody will ever 'leave' us. Because, let us be honest, we are all searching for a person, for parents, for people in our lives who will let us have and be what we want out of life.

Can you imagine a husband saying to his wife, "No, I do not want you to take quilting classes on Tuesday nights."? Yet, it happens.

In a relationship that is constructed around a genuine expression of real love, not only is it okay if the wife comes to the husband and says "Can I take quilting classes?", it is also okay if she comes to the husband and says "Can I have lunch with my new friend Harry?" And the husband, Mike, will say "My will for you is your will for you. Have lunch with Harry. I love you enough to want for you what you want for you."

(Shout Out to Tushit here, because he says I never mention him in my articles. Well, here I did! Remember how you told me that you can only know that someone loves you if he gets jealous? And I firmly pronounced that you are wrong. Now you know why, ;))

If Harry has any thought of somehow stealing the wife from Mike, he would forget it, because the number of people who are going to leave Mikes, who give them that kind of freedom to express themselves, is minuscule.

And I want to be part of that minuscule community. I want to get to a place where I love everybody without limitation. I'm convinced that it is possible for us to rise to this level of loving expression much more often. Perhaps, one day, always, and with everyone.

Until next time,

Be Light,

Much Love!