Let’s talk about love. For me, this quote by Krishnamurti (philosopher) picks out one of the most true aspects I see in relationships. I’ve thought a lot about love, and what it is. Because for me I always truly believed real love was possible, but I felt that for love to be real, it didn’t make sense that it would just start to go away after you break up with someone. That would mean the love you felt was based on something temporary. Like some kind of conditions or desires they were fulfilling for you. And could we truly call that love?

Being “in love” on the other hand is a bit different because those feelings do fade at some point. Which does not mean they are not meaningful, but shows that you feel something for another that eventually will lose its “newness.” The fact of the matter is that I rarely see true love in relationships, and I believe it reflects the general awareness state of ourselves as humans in this period of time.

Truly loving someone means that it doesn’t come from a place where you only love them if they fit into some mental model you have either of who they are or what they’re doing (or not doing). You’re able to truly let go of those things and appreciate them, exactly as they are!

Truly loving someone does not mean that you need to be bound to them in any way. You need the right timing and compatibility to be committed to someone in a partnership. But you can truly love someone whether those things are in place or not.
It’s also okay if we aren’t sure if we have truly loved yet. I don’t think every relationship necessarily will contain real love.

Sometimes you have to be in a place where you are ready to actively love in that way. This happens naturally when you have come to a place where your ego doesn’t have such a firm hold on you. Where your inner world has expanded beyond yourself to a certain degree to make room for a true appreciation and compassion for others. This takes time. You learn through experience to see how often our ideas of who someone is can taint this as well, so you learn to slowly let go of those to really be able to SEE someone for what they are.I also believe that love is the most fundamental thing between two people even if the relationship doesn’t last.

Too many humans are operating in the world with themselves as the center — so the filter for their entire experience of life (not just relationships) is very much solely about fulfilling their needs, though this is invisible to them at the time. We are used to operating from within ourselves because that’s all we’ve known. But once you get to a certain point in self-realization and awareness, an inner shift will start to happen that will expand your life’s filter to be truly more inclusive of others. This is really a prerequisite to being able to come from a place where we’re not always evaluating something’s value to us based on our mental models but truly appreciating it as it is.

It is normal during our growth phases in life that we NEED to focus on ourselves. But I feel too many stay stuck in that for many reasons. It all comes from within. We must come to know and understand ourselves to begin to make that inner shift.

I’ll tell you many people are very surprised and often confused when I explain that I have been in relationships with people whom even if I’m not with them now, still truly love and care for them just the same. If the love is true and based on the right things, why shouldn’t you?

Two people truly caring for each other and supporting each other on their life journeys regardless of the status between them is a beautiful thing that should always be treasured, because it doesn’t happen often enough.