Love is My Compass

8 minute read time

“Love is all you need.” The Beatles knew a thing or two. And to me, these lyrics are true. Love is what has seen me through an insane six and half years of dealing with the fallout of my husband’s brain haemorrhage, where he woke one morning, stumbling around in the dark of our hotel room. From the moment I opened the curtains to see what was wrong and the sunshine burst through, like nuclear glare, obliterating everything in its path.

Love, the only thing I had to hold on to as we lost everything else that day. It’s what kept me going when I saw Rob fading, dying. All I knew was to radiate love to him, hold on to the love he had for me, hold on to what was raw and true. Nothing else mattered. As I spent weeks by Rob’s bedside whilst he was in a coma, my love for him kept me by his side. I wanted him to know he was loved, to feel it, to know he had a reason to hold on, to wake, to live. I radiated it through touch, through song, through reading to him. It was the only sensation that kept me from being drowned by pain. Love, my life belt in a sea of sorrow.

Love then became my fuel, my fire, my whole reason for being when Rob remarkably pulled through and woke. The first thing he did was to find me, look me in the eye and smile. The look of love. This time, love not just keeping me afloat, but pushing me, propelling me in all my actions, like I’d been walking in the rain and the sun came shining down, guiding me towards our new way of living through recovery and healing, finding a new way to be in the world now that everything had changed.

It took tragedy, stillness and reflection for me to understand that love is, in fact, my compass. Questioning everything, understanding my true needs and wants, listening to the voice with no sounds; this time of rock bottom exploration made me understand who I actually was, what I was made of and what my values were. Without the identity masks of work and other labels, we define ourselves. I came to the conclusion, my values are beauty, courage and love. And if I applied this to everything and anything I do, it will guide me and lead me.

It takes a continued practice of meditation and journaling, taking a walk, a swim or yoga helps too. Carving a moment for me in the day whether it be 5 minutes or 60. And I don’t do all these things at once, I mix it up depending on my mood or how much time I have. Somedays, I don’t get round to it at all. I am only human after all. It does take sustained discipline to stay focussed on those values I defined, to treat myself with love first and foremost, as we all tend to put ourselves at the bottom of the list, whether consciously or not. And it’s been harder than ever in the past year as time has been globulous, an ever continuous mass of hours with little definition of self.

LOVE FOR ALL

To truly act from a place of love, it’s not simply directed at one person. It’s an overarching view of the world and how you treat those around you. It’s in how you react to how others treat you. On receiving an eviction notice this month, I’ve had to work hard, dig deep and act from a place of true forgiveness at how it’s all been handled. More so to protect myself, which I still am coming to terms with, but in this moment of shock and struggle, as we find our selves potentially homeless, I have had to strive to bring my thoughts and actions back. It knocked me down for sure. I have had to dig really deep, remember my resources, remember myself in all this.

As love, it’s in every move you make, it’s how you treat and respect your body. What you nourish your soul and mind with. It’s bloody damn difficult at times; it requires patience and ultimately, faith. And like all faiths; all worship and practice, it takes courage and discipline.

I tried to listen to inner wisdom before all this tumultuous change, but I was too busy dampening it down, looking outside of myself for answers, taking on the external opinions, voices and expectations of the patriarchal society. The system shapes us into thinking love is romantic, love is dreamy, fanciful, it’s something that doesn’t come naturally to us. That it’s bought or has to be a certain way, or that it’s not a worthy lens to view the world through. Not as worthy as consumption, as cash. Yet I feel a seismic shift.

And having read Glennon Doyle’s Untamed just recently, change is coming. If you haven’t read it yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. Love is a way of seeing and a way of being. An embodiment of being. An attitude that determines how the person relates to the world - to everything, every day. Being guided by love doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt and I don’t feel pain in amongst it all. Love is life. It’s living.

As Glennon states, “It’s the inevitable, excruciating, necessary pain of losing beautiful things; trust, dreams, health, animals, relationships, people. This kind of pain is the price of love, the cost of living a brave open-hearted life”.

To live a full life full of love is not a safe bet. As to be loved, and to love, requires openness and the courage to take a leap of faith and gamble on it, placing your bet on living life through those values.

This beautiful thing called life, is beauty, is pain, is courage, is love. “Love is a doing verb, love is a doing word,” Massive Attack state in their track Teardrop; the voice and beats reverberate through my veins. Yes. This is my church. Love is a decision, an action, a judgment, a promise. Yes, it’s a feeling too, but if it were only that, it would come and go. Feelings can be fleeting.

I’ve learnt for it to last, for love to belong, it has to be unconditional. There is no ego in its essence, no acts of narcissism. Through my first marriage, I got it wrong, all wrapped up in the false notions of love, the ego-driven societal trapping ideals of love. A version of love I was playing at, as I hadn’t ever truly understood it first hand. I was constantly playing at what I thought was love, trying to please everyone, except myself. Repeating the example set for me by my mother: to be a wife is the goal, to be loved is to be a martyr to your needs and to be a people pleaser. I was young. Playing all the wrong cards in my first half of life, testing and trying, driven by my head, not my heart.

Ignoring the voice that whispers and tries to show you the way. Erich Fromm perfectly analyses it here:

Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved."
Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love."
Immature love says: "I love you because I need you."
Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.

Ultimately, love is a decision; a promise. Love is not made whole by objects or things either. To love is to see others for who they are, truly are, objectively and without impact on your ego or being. To welcome them as they stand with no desire to change or alter. Having been pushed and nudged to change in my previous relationship, I know now how this was not love.

Most challenging is channelling this love for my son. Understanding that it’s the giving of myself, once I am fulfilled and feeling alive, sharing my joy and passions, what makes me feel alive and thrive and full of love for him. Enriching him and doing my utmost to model what I did not see; a love that is pure, that has no price or demands. That he does not need to give in order to receive, that giving should be a pleasure, not a trade-off. I hope that I shine a light for him, that by loving myself and loving him and my husband, surrounding him with love, reflects it all back to him. That my boy will know love and self-expression is the greatest power we have at our disposal, within us, the greatest strength. And he’ll learn to show me all that he is, and I’ll love him because of exactly who he is.

Loving unconditionally, holding on to the fact that whoever he becomes, love nurtures, it doesn’t hold or push or pull. As Maya Angelou states ‘love liberates’. And I now fully embrace that. Through all I have experienced, love is my only constant, my compass, my guide; I have liberated myself.