The Greatest Challenge in Love

The greatest challenge in love is not finding someone to love.

Nor is it knowing how to love better or deal with the brokenness of another.

It’s got nothing to do with someone else.

The greatest challenge is to be loved.

To allow someone to love you, to relax in the intimacy offered by the beloved.

Why is this a challenge?

Isn’t it the dream to find someone that loves you deeply?

It is possible to let someone love us and accept this invitation without first loving ourselves deeply. Because this kind of love is instructional in nature, creating the environment that teaches us to love ourselves more deeply.

The problem is that when this love-opportunity presents itself, we tend to run.

Why do we run?

Life teaches us to be comfortable with rejection. We learn that the people with the best intentions to love us often reach their limit and are at a loss to love us the way we need to be loved.

Either they ran out of their reserve or just don’t have the capacity to give any longer.

Although this is not a rejection, it feels like one.

So, to prevent the disappointment of giving until there is nothing left to give or receiving until there is nothing left to receive, we tend to run from the beginning.

The evolution of our species after all, thrives on self-preservation.

Our walls of self-protection are adequate enough to keep at bay the deeply unsettling emotions that love triggers.

I speak as though this is common practice… it’s not.

There are numerous well-adjusted people who don’t face this type of relationship challenge. My guess is, those people would not be reading this post.

For the rest of us…

In matters of the heart:

• We are not comfortable with anxiety.
• We are not comfortable with uncertainty.
• We are not comfortable with not knowing, the loss of control, the loss of bearings that accompanies passion.

What’s an appropriate response?

1. Let go of the need to know.
2. Embrace uncertainty.
3. Trust that things will turn out the way they should.
4. Let go of anger — towards the other and towards yourself when there are moments of frustration.
5. Believe that people are good and kind. You get what you expect.

But primarily… make a decision.

To love and to allow love in.

To stay with the uncertainty and allow the relationship to unfold naturally, rather than forcing your way to a position that alleviates anxiety.