Emotional Dependence vs. Love

In fleeting happiness we get pleasure from feeling that others belong to us. We see people as ‘my’ partner ‘my friend’; we expect them to treat us in a certain way. Real love does not expect from others, but only gives without demand; this enables a real abiding happiness. When we inwardly demand people treat us in a certain way, we will always be disappointed. But, if we love unconditionally, we are buffeted from the expectations of the mind.

 

How to distinguish between love and emotional dependence

The word ‘love’ is perhaps one of the most casually used terms in the English language – so much so that it has become an umbrella term for a whole variety of very different emotions! There is one thing we all agree on – that love is what makes the world go round, and that without it, the world is but a dry empty shell of a place. On the other hand, it is a word we very easily twist around to our own purposes to justify our emotional dependence on a person. If we can learn to distinguish love from emotional dependence and put this distinction into practice, then we make life more beautiful not only for us, but for everyone we come into contact with.

 

Learn to love yourself first

Often when we are emotionally dependent on someone, we are looking to them as a ‘filler’ to cover over and distract us from unresolved emotional issues in ourselves. In order to truly love someone, we first have to discover and explore what love is, and that means starting with the person you spend the most time with – yourself! We can often name our shortcomings far quicker than our positive qualities, and we are very quick to beat ourselves up for anything we didn’t do to our satisfaction. This all has to change. Try every day to identify your positive qualities and bring them more to the fore and increase them, and when you do make a mistake, try and see it as a ‘work-in-progress’ rather than an absolute failure. When your own self-love and self-respect increases, you are then able to approach relationships with others with much more equanimity.

Use the Heart
Along with the word ‘love’, the word ‘heart’ is often dragged in to many conversations and used to describe all manner of behaviour good and bad. When we talk about the heart we mean the space in the middle of the chest we point to when we say ‘this is me’ – the place we feel the essence of our being more than anywhere else. It is also where most of our higher and nobler qualities emanate from – empathy, kindness and love.

Emotional attachment, on the other hand, is a tangled up array of feelings from the mind and also from the emotional part of our being located closer to the navel. Because the sources of love and emotional attachment are located so lose together, they can and are often confused by the undiscerning person. However, setting aside some time each day for a practice of self-discovery and self-enquiry (e.g. meditation) will very quickly enable you to distinguish one from the other.

 

Don’t expect

“When your love is pure or spiritual, there is no demand, no expectation. There is only the sweetest feeling of spontaneous oneness with the human being or beings concerned.”

Social anthropologists often describe many human relationships like a contract – we give our love to a person and at the same time we subconsciously place all kinds of expectations on that person which we want them to fulfil. And then when the other person fails to sufficiently satisfy our demands (which will definitely happen from time to time – we’re all imperfect) we feel let down and angry with the person, our insecurity and fear of not being loved come to the fore, and we often resort to some kind of emotional manipulation to try and get them to fulfil our demands.

True love, on the other hand is like the sun. The sun shines its rays and gives its warmth to all and sundry, without anything in return. This may sound like naivety to the calculating mind, but when we live in the heart we feel exactly like the sun does – we just want spread our love and goodwill anywhere we can. With this kind of love we have detachment – we have no fixed ideas about what way this love should be taken by others, the mere act of giving love satisfies our heart immensely.

 

Learn to let go

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. - Hermann Hesse

Often we place mental restrictions on people we love, whether it be parents ‘living their dreams’ through their children, or someone ‘trapped’ in a relationship. True love means loving people for who they are, not trying to channel them into who you want them to be. The greatest service you can do to one whom you love is allow them to grow in to their soul’s highest potential – sometimes this will mean actively helping them, but other times this will mean recognising when you are standing in the way of that happening and getting out of the way!

 

The inner strength: patience and forgiveness

“Patience serves as a protection against wrong as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you.” - Leonardo Da Vinci

To develop love, we also have develop forgiveness and patience. To forgive someone, it helps to see beyond their surface imperfections and appreciate the beauty that lies deep within. Love always goes hand in hand with this recognition of inner beauty inside a person, and when we can see this inner beauty in a person and appreciate it, we help bring that beauty to the fore and perhaps prevent whatever unfortunate thing that person might have done from occurring again.

This world of ours can seem like a downright unfair place at times, but developing this quality of love for everyone you meet allows you to rise above ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that people might throw at you and still keep your faith in humanity intact.

Peace and Happiness

Real happiness brings inner peace. When we are sincerely happy we are at peace with the world and with our self.

A false happiness will be accompanied by insecurities, doubts and worries. We think our happiness could easily be spoilt by external events. To cultivate happiness based on an inner peace it is necessary to be detached from the worries of the mind. We should not have a feeling of indispensability, but a calm acceptance of external events.

 

Pride

A false happiness comes from a feeling of superiority. We feel that happiness depends on proving to the world that we are better or more indispensable than other people. A close relative of pride is jealousy of others whom we can not surpass. Real happiness takes joy in the achievement of others; in real happiness there is no feeling of inferiority and superiority, but only a sense of oneness. If you are constantly judging yourself against others, real happiness will remain elusive. If you can gain joy from others success, you have discovered a secret of real happiness.

Praise vs. Detachment

If we are praised to the sky we are in the seventh heaven of delight; when we are mercilessly criticised we feel in the depths of hell. Relying on the praise of others can, at best, only give a fleeting happiness. Permanent happiness comes only when we maintain a sense of self esteem which is detached from the volatile opinions of the world.

“The mind finds it difficult to be happy, precisely because the mind consciously enjoys the sense of separativity. It is always judging and doubting the reality in others. … But we also have the aspiring heart, the loving heart. This loving heart is free from insecurity, for it has already established its oneness with the rest of the world. ”

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Ross Galán, NLP Spiritual LIfe Coach

Spiritual Life Coaching School