The Power (30 page)

Love Means Freedom

Now here is the tricky bit with giving love in relationships, and it’s the one thing that has prevented many from receiving the life they deserve. It’s only tricky because people have misunderstood what it means to give love to others. To be very clear about what it means to give love to others, you need to understand what it means
not
to give love to others.

Trying to change another person is
not
giving love! Thinking you know what is best for another person is
not
giving love! Thinking you are right and another person is wrong is
not
giving love! Criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, or finding fault with another person is
not
giving love!

“Hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.”

Gautama Buddha
(563-483 BC)
FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM

I want to share a story I received that demonstrates the care we must take in our relationships. A man’s wife had left him and had taken their children with her. The man was devastated, he blamed his wife, and he refused to accept her decision. He continued to contact her, determined to do everything he could to change her mind. He may have thought he was acting out of love for his wife and family, but his actions were not loving. He blamed his wife for their marriage ending. He believed that she was wrong and he was right. He refused to accept his wife’s decision to choose for herself. Because he would not stop contacting his wife, he was arrested and sentenced to jail.

The man eventually realized that he was not giving love when he denied his wife
her
freedom to choose what she wanted, and that he lost
his
freedom as a result. The law of attraction is the law of love and you cannot break it. If you violate it, you break yourself.

I am sharing this story because the ending of intimate relationships is very challenging for some people. You cannot deny someone else’s right to choose what they want, because that is not giving love. It is a bitter pill to swallow when your heart is breaking, but you must respect everyone’s freedom and right to choose. What you give to another person you receive yourself, and when you deny another person’s freedom to choose, you will attract negative things that deny your own freedom. Maybe the flow of money to you decreases, or your health weakens, or your job takes a downturn, because all of these things would affect your freedom. There is no “other person” for the law of attraction. What you give out to others, you give to yourself.

Giving love to other people does not mean you let people walk all over you or abuse you in any way, because that’s not giving love either. Allowing another person to use you doesn’t help that person, and it surely doesn’t help you. Love is tough, and we learn and grow through its law, and as part of that learning we experience consequences. So it is not love to allow another person to use or abuse you. The answer is, get yourself onto the highest frequency of good feelings that you can, and the force of love will resolve the situation
for
you.

“Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.”

René Descartes
(1596-1650)
MATHEMATICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER

The Secret to Relationships

Life presents everything to you so that you can choose what you love. And part of the gift of life is that you are given all kinds of people, so you can choose what you love in those people and turn away from what you don’t love. You are not meant to manufacture love for qualities in a person you don’t love, but simply to turn away without giving them any feeling.

Turning away from what you don’t love in someone means you’re relaxed about it, and you know life is giving you a choice. It doesn’t mean that you argue with them to prove they’re wrong or you criticize or blame them, or that you want to change them because you think you’re right. Because if you do any of these things, you are not giving love – big time!

“Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.”

King Solomon
(circa 10th century BC)
BIBLICAL KING OF ISRAEL, IN PROVERBS 11:17

When you are on a feeling frequency of love, then only people who are on the same feeling frequency as you are can come into your life.

You know some days you feel really happy, some days you feel irritated, and others you feel sad. You can be many different versions of yourself. A person in a relationship with you can also be many versions, including happy, irritated, or sad. No doubt you will have seen them being many different versions, but every version is still that person. When you’re happy, then only the happy version of other people can come into your life. But
you
have to be happy to receive the happy versions of other people!

It doesn’t mean you are responsible for other people’s happiness, because everyone is responsible for their own lives and happiness. What it means is there’s nothing else for you to do but to feel happy yourself, and the law of attraction will do the rest.

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”

Aristotle
(384-322 BC)
GREEK PHILOSOPHER AND SCIENTIST