Choose Love

We’ve all heard the term unconditional love and yet many of us wonder, what does that really mean?  Can I really love unconditionally?

Don’t most us of put conditions on our love?  In our humanness, most of us look at our partners and say, I’ll love you as long as you never… or I love you, but if you ever…  Or, sometimes we feel “I love her (or him) because she is beautiful, or successful, or athletic, or any other characteristics we love about our partners” and then unconsciously, some part of us knows that if those characteristics changed we might not feel the same way.   Unfortunately, this conditioning has become a “normal” part of the way we relate.  What if it were different?

What if you choose love?  What if, instead of seeing fault first or trying to prove our point and be right, we chose love?  I know this may not sound easy and yet, didn’t you get into relationship in the first place because you loved this person and thought they were great?   Why is it then that we chose conflict over love?

As one of my teachers once said to us, “Would you rather be right or be in love?”  I know I’d rather be in love.  Once I put this secret into play in my life, it was easy for me to relax when challenges arose.  I realized that I was definitely more interested in moving forward in love than staying in the pain of the situation.  And when I focused on returning to love, love came quickly flooding back.

Of course, there will be times when we are angry or frustrated or hurt in our relationship and we have to be honest about that.  (You can’t sweep it under the rug and remain close and connected with your partner, but more on that later.)  It’s a matter of remembering that the love came first.  If we open into love, and allow our pain or upset to be there in the love, we see our partner and ourselves with love and compassion that creates a space for any challenge to be resolved easily and effortlessly.

When you rest in love first, everything can be welcomed.  Love creates a space for all celebration and challenge.  When you remember the love (and how often we forget it) we can relax, express our feelings, and honor our partner’s feelings.  You’d be amazed how conflicts and challenges actually resolve themselves when we really let love into our hearts and let it serve as the foundation for our connections.

In these moments of inner turmoil, we often see our partner as our enemy.  Oops!  They are not our enemy.  They are our beloved!

They are our beloved!

Anytime you have a challenge, a conflict, a hurt, a frustration, an unmet need, remember that the whole relationship started with love.  Love built the foundation.

Love built the foundation.  Put love first.  Choose love.

Besides one-on-one private sessions, Joanna has a variety of workshops and events coming up this fall focused on conscious intimacy, love and sexuality.  See her great list of upcoming events!

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In love, light and ecstasy,