News Flash…Keeping Love Alive: It’s Easier Said than Done!

Love is within us. It cannot be
destroyed. It can be ignored. To the extent that we abandon love we will feel
it has abandoned us. 

Denying love is our only problem, and embracing it is the only answer.
Through the power of love, we can let go of past history and begin again.
Love heals, forgives, and makes whole.

Ernest Holmes

Dr. Reverend Heather Dawn Clark gave
an extremely poignant and heart-thought provoking talk at The Center For
Spiritual Living, Capistrano Valley (CSLCV) this past Sunday.  Her word reflected the Truth of Love…that essential
element of the Unconditional defining what, indeed, True Love is…as well as the
absolute element of forgiveness within any relationship called a “Love
Relationship”…(romantic & intimate or otherwise).

Keeping love alive, when so much of the outside world
threatens to overwhelm it, quickly becomes one of the most difficult challenges
we will ever face in our relationships.

You might be thinking, “How in the world can that be? If
you’re really in love with each other, keeping love alive between you shouldn’t
be a hard thing to do at all.”

I wish I could say this is true, but unfortunately – at
least in terms of the

number of years I have spent…both personally, as well as
professionally, perceiving romantic relationships in my life and Counseling
Psychotherapy…now Empowerment Coaching practice… falling in love is relatively
easy. And…Keeping love alive is,

realistically, one of the most difficult things we will ever
do.

Consider for a moment those beautiful, wondrous first days
of being “in love.” Everything about
the experience seems practically perfect.

You find yourselves meshing in ways you never thought
possible. Your hopes and dreams seem so compatible… it’s as if you were born to
be together. You feel such ecstasy and find such completeness in that loving,
passionate embrace, you’re convinced you have finally found The One. Trust and
believe…I know!

But will that “in love”
feeling last?

Sadly, the answer is no …not unless we are willing to put a
tremendous amount of time and energy into it.

Remember…Being “in Love” is
that magical first step involved in Truly loving. It’s… basically, an
overwhelming desire between two people to simply be together and share
pleasurable life experiences.

But love – Real Love
– changes and grows as we ourselves do all the time. Every single day… that
love requires tending and nurturing, and only with time does it become strong
and resilient.

This is the love that develops into a bond between two
people and has the power to carry them into the future together, at times,
surviving what may seem to be nearly insurmountable odds.

When we are in love, what we feel is often characterized as
if it were a young, innocent child. That “in love-ness”
needs a tremendous amount of protection and guidance as it matures and moves
toward the future.

Without that protection and guidance, this “child” – this love -simply

flounders, having no idea where it should go.

In reality, far too many of us are so “in
love” with the love we feel for each other in the present that
we rarely, if ever, stop to consider the hardships we may inevitably face as
couples in the future.

For instance, financial problems. The stress of raising
children. Then there are conflicts with relatives, career changes, illness or
addiction issues. Not to mention…but, I will… outside temptations.

What we fail to realize is that the experience of falling “in love” is only a first step
toward truly loving.  That’s right…YOU
heard me!

It’s what comes after, in the form of hardships and
challenges the future brings… and how we successfully overcome them, that

actually gives depth and substance to the love we feel.

Unfortunately, many are so in love with
“being in love” that we never give ourSelves the chance to
advance beyond that first step.

Take a good, hard look at the divorce rate among us these
days.

More than 50 plus percent of all marriages today end in
divorce.

Why? Simply because couples can’t keep their love alive.

One thing or another manages somehow to draw these couples
apart.

Too many problems are often cited. Or there is simply too
much boredom poisoning the relationship.

Sometimes even too much personal growth on the part of one
spouse …and not enough on the part of the other can be that pesky culprit.

And yet, I can’t imagine that a single person in this world
ever marries

expecting at some future time to get divorced.  However, now reflecting on that statement…I
could BE wrong!

Divorce is perceived in the Divine as an unnatural breakdown
in the process of loving. Essentially…It
means one, or both, partners involved has somehow allowed him/herself to lose
focus in the relationship: they’ve lost faith, and they’re essentially looking
beyond the commitment in that relationship in order to achieve personal

happiness for themselves. 
Of this…I AM certain…I AM!

On the Divine
level, commitment is perceived as a Conscious (Christ
Consciousness) Agreement between partners to be together. But
the bond that exists between them is something that runs far deeper.

When two people are not truly “bonded” to each other, which
takes a considerable amount of time and effort by both

partners to achieve, it doesn’t matter how “committed” they
may outwardly profess to be.

Frankly speaking, their relationship is essentially doomed
practically from its beginning. Without that strong, solid emotional bond
between them, keeping love alive
will be literally quite challenging…perhaps, impossible…and that’s coming from
a person who, literally awakens each and every Glorious day, thanking GOD for
all the great news and miracles she is going to receive in every area of her
Life!

So…How do we achieve such a bond…those of us who desire to
BE Coupled…to share all that we have been so Divinely blessed with in the
experience and expression of a Divine Right intimate, loving, and committed
Life Partnership… Marriage?

We start by waking up every morning and seeing our
relationships as genuinely living… growing things… and we care for them
accordingly.

We realize that being “in love”
is mainly an initial experience of passion and attraction, and we strive to
build a much more meaningful foundation of hope and trust on both with the
passing of time.

We exercise a tremendous amount of understanding and forgiveness
in our relationships, because we are aware that Today is not Yesterday in terms
of those relationships. But, with the right care and handling, Today will
certainly become a more enriched, far more fulfilling Tomorrow because we have
been able to love unconditionally.

We do everything we can to stay “in
love” by continuing to be the individuals we were at the start
of these relationships.

In other words, she still makes an effort to dress “for him”
when they go out to dinner. He still serves breakfast in bed “for her” the way
he used to do when they were engaged.

They continue to romance each other and be attentive to each
other’s needs, even when the dishes aren’t done or the lawn hasn’t been mowed.
They essentially look for ways in the midst of everyday living to celebrate
their love for one another …to literally keep their love for one another alive.

This may not be possible all the time, but enough of the
time. Often enough, to let partners know that even when times are troubled or
if circumstances aren’t quite what we’d like them to be, we are still very much
“in love” in Spirit.

You can keep love alive in your relationships, but it’s up
to you and your partner to make it happen.

Divinely speaking…there is nothing effortless about love. In
fact, genuinely loving our Life Partners can be one of the toughest commitments we
ever make in Life. But the rewards to be reaped are enormous when we are
sincerely committed to investing enough time and effort …enough of ourSelves –
into developing a loving bond that can truly last a Lifetime.

 Speak Up, The World Is Listening