The notion that love is
primarily a feeling or an emotion is most troublesome in being
able to comprehend the nature of true love and thereby be
empowered to build lasting, loving relationships. Faced
with the challenge of nurturing lasting relationships, human
beings in general do not have a healthy understanding of the
role of our feelings and emotions in determining our priorities.
People often confuse their very identity with the terribly
unreliable signals they receive through their thoughts, feelings
and emotions. Most people mistakenly think that they
are their thoughts, feelings and emotions versus reaching an
awareness that they have thoughts, feelings and emotions. This is
not to diminish the value or importance of one's thoughts,
feelings and emotions. Eternal love is something of
greater value than life itself. Therefore,
a phenomena as precious as true love should be relegated to the random and capricious
nature of our thoughts, feelings and emotions which are easily influenced by the unpredictable and chaotic
nature of life itself.
While our emotions, feelings
and thoughts are an integral part of the system of
interpretations through which we deliberate to make choices and
decisions, nothing extraordinary occurs in life without
commitment. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions can largely
be considered as psychological phenomena while love is
essentially an ontological phenomena, essentially existing as being. When someone is loving, they are
being
loving. When someone experiences love from another, they
experience being loved. When a couple exchanges marriage
vows, for example, they are embarking on a journey of true love
beyond the psychological limitations of their thoughts and feelings as
individuals. Centered on the love of God, human beings are
meant to have true dominion over our thoughts, feelings and emotions
as opposed to being dominated by them. The magnificence of a human being
can be appreciated through realizing that we are greater than
the sum total of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
That is to say, fundamentally, human beings are spiritual
beings created in the image and likeness of God.
Access to being is
possible when a human being recognizes that God who is the source of their
life created the universe through the Word. When a human
being recognizes that their ability to translate their dreams
into reality is a function of commitment or "being one's word in
action" it becomes possible to gain access to being. Integrity, which is the practice of honoring
one's word as oneself, provides a foundation for making all of
the promises and declarations necessary for substantiating and
maintaining loving committed relationships. With
discipline and practice which includes trial-and-error, it is possible
to develop and strengthen one's integrity in the same way that
lifting weights can develop and strengthen muscles.
The foundation
for establishing one's identity in an ontological fashion begins
with making the solemn declaration "I am my word."
New possibilities of being are a function of declaration
once a person constitutes themselves as their word.
When a man and a woman give their word to honor and be
faithful to each other as man and wife no matter what trials or
tribulations may come to test their character, commitment and
integrity, they enter into a new realm of being, called
being married. Beyond whatever feelings or
thoughts a person may have in the moment of making the declaration "I
do", a powerful commitment has been made transcending
psychology while at the same time giving rise
to a new world of loving thoughts, feelings, and emotions toward
their spouse.
Being in love or being loving
are but two examples of possibilities of being.
Other examples are being happy, being courageous,
being
satisfied, being patient, being humble, and being generous.
In reality, possibilities of being are infinite. Again, direct access to
being is possible through honoring one's commitment
(declaration) as oneself. A new possibility of being
unselfish, for example, can be invented simply by authentically
declaring: "the new possibility of being that I am
inventing for myself and my life is the possibility of being
unselfish." In order to identify an area of
one's life where a new possibility of being would create new
openings for action, one can ask oneself the question: what's
missing in a particular area of my life, the presence of which
(way of being) would make a difference. By identifying a
way of being that is missing, one can substitute that way of
being for the word "unselfish" in the example above.
Our day-to-day effectiveness can
be measured by honestly evaluating how closely our actions are
aligned with our commitments. When a person achieves
greater mind-body unity, eventually our thoughts, feelings and
emotions follow the dictates of our original mind which
naturally yearns for
truth, beauty and goodness in accordance with the will of God.
As children of God, true freedom comes when human beings gain
the awareness and take responsibility for the fact that we have
something to say (declaration) about who we are being in
every situation and circumstance. As emphatically taught
in the book, Think and Grow Rich, whatever you can
imagine that you can do, you can do (as long as it is within the
will of God.) Likewise, whatever you can imagine that you
can be, you can be (as long as it is within the will of God.)
