How To Be Present With Love

Understanding Need-Love verses Appreciation Love

While sitting at my office desk, I turn to my coworker who is partially lit by a small beam of sunlight. It leaks out of the narrow office window high above us. “The sun is out” I comment. “Yes. It feels so nice.” he says. The thought of being bathed in refreshing light led to the thought of being outside. My imagination took over: the visual of trees swaying in the wind accompanied with the sound of palm leaves rustling lulled me away from the stale office room. This led to an even grander thought – the huge empty expanse of a blue ocean who’s white-crested waves crashed upon the shore. I heard the waves. I smelled the ocean breeze and mist. I imagined the warmth of the tropical sun on my aching skin longing for natures soft caress. “I would love to be at the beach right now” I say. My office coworker smiles and nods in acknowledgment, feeling that same longing, that same need.

Ever hear yourself saying “I would love to have (blank)” or “I need (blank)?” Let’s take a deep look at how those statements apply to love and the key word that constitutes both: need. What does it mean to need love? What happens to us when we become needy of love? What really is need? Understanding what need is and what need does so that we may live without need is key to experiencing happiness. Happiness does not exist when the heart is in a place of need.

Now let’s look from another angle. What is the opposite of needing? That would be contentment with appreciation. How does appreciation of a loved one affect the nature of a relationship?  How can we make ourselves happier through relinquishing neediness by adopting a model of mindfulness? We will explore this as well. In doing so, you will arrive with a clearer understanding on how you can start being happier today from a simple change in perspective.

Let’s take a look at Need-Love as shown in the desperate, pleading yet beautifully illustrated poem by Anndria Turner:

Every night I imagine touching your face,
but nothing is there except empty space.
My dreams are filled
with visions of eternal bliss,
sealed by your tender and heavenly kiss.
I awake from my dreams,
yearning to hold you near,
searching but not finding
bringing me to tears.
I lie there thinking about how you showed me love,
making me wonder if you were
sent from heaven above.
I fall asleep knowing that
you are in my mind and my heart,
for love is eternal
and we will never be apart

We have all felt this before, this awakening of love by another human.  We all have felt that eternal love in the presence of someone.  The subject present in this poem teeters on the edge of understanding and growth or neediness and desperation. In the latter is where Need-Love grows into an unwanted guest. In the lines “I lie there thinking about how you showed me love” and “visions of eternal bliss” are characteristics of romantic love. Without focus and understanding of what love is and how to interact towards love, an addiction starts and needs grows.

What happens? We will start with you as a full unit, a one hundred percent of being. The moment the thought of need arises, you subtract a piece of your being and place it outside yourself. Now no longer complete, you seek that missing piece to feel whole. There is a void that needs to be filled. This is a shift in power that weakens you. It makes whatever is outside of you holding your missing piece, in this case a piece of your love, more powerful. This lack of equilibrium causes unhappiness. This person believes the path to happiness is to chase and to posses and to retake this missing piece of power. Of course we never catch it. And so we writhe in unhappiness.

We need this and that. We need love to feel whole. If we only had this much more money, we will feel happy. We cannot be happy here, we need to be somewhere else. See the games we play? These needs can never be filled. Like a bucket with a hole, we keep filling hoping to be full. As long as the source of love or happiness exists outside of us then we are still in a place of need which is misery.

We must be complete – by ourselves. We arrive there by changing the way we view things.

No longer do we need the love of that person to feel whole.  Instead, we appreciate the love that exists inbetween two people. In this imaginary space between two people love exists. Love does not exist in the person nor from the person, but inbetween the persons who experience love. Because the inbetween – the relationship – exists solely in our mind, love also arises from our mind. Love is and always will be within us. Sometimes we lose sight of that love within and so we begin to seek for love outside us. We chase soul mates, and we chase God. Through serial monogamy we may chase the love our parents did not provide us desperately seeking approval and love from another human we did not receive as a child. Whatever it is we seek, this chase is but kicking up dust while the wagon sits.

The delusion of external Need-Love can be born when something stirs us into passion, awakens us, and brings us to life (like the poem above). The delusion is that we can misunderstand the source of this feeling. That person who makes us feel love brings us not face to face with them, but face to face with ourselves reminding us of the love we have within. Sometimes we forget where love lies and choose to believe that another person is required to make us feel alive and that we cannot sustain our fire of life without them. And so begins the need, the weakening of self-power, and the need for love outside ourselves.

When we choose to experience Need-Love we desire to take from the outside and bring it inside. Not only does this create a weakened, desperate state, but it reinforces the illusion of separation. Also, Need-Love removes us from the present and inserts us into a future fiction or even our past, which also does not exist. Lastly, when we need, we seek to possess which is impossible. Do not look for love outside. Cultivate love inside.

If I had a prayer, it would be this: “God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen.” ~ Byron Katie

Characteristics of Need-Love:

• Needing external love
• Desire to possess
• Not being present
• Self-power is external
• Self-weakness
• Taking
• Separation
• Fear
• Conditional love
• Control
• Love one
• Relationship growth
• Pain
• Ending relationships create pain
• Loneliness
• External anger (partner not meeting my needs)
• Victimhood
• Feeling responsible for partners needs

Characteristics of Appreciation-Love:

• Appreciating love
• Desire to experience
• Present awareness
• Power is within
• Object is within
• Sharing
• Integration
• Choice
• Unconditional love
• Trust
• Love many
• Personal growth
• Happiness
• Ending relationships does not create pain
• Connection regardless of distance
• Internal anger (why did I create this)
• Responsibility
• Being responsible for giving

Tip: Keep a gratitude journal

We can gain greater appreciation for things in our lives using gratitude lists. Each night write in your diary three things you are grateful for. This habit has been shown to increase happiness. That is accomplished through present awareness and recognizing the connection – the inbetween that exists between you and the subject. The feeling of gratitude and happiness are gained from acknowledging a relationship (between anything, even a book, though with things living it’s greater). Each time you feel gratitude towards something, you acknowledge the relationship, that inbetween. This is an act of hugging yourself for having such a wonderful thing to love in your reality. To appreciate this love and this inbetween is to love yourself. That is why it raises your level of happiness.

The key is to express love and appreciation towards your relationships. The greater the level of consciousness of the subject, the greater the happiness and growth experienced. This is why humans offer the greatest amount of personal growth. Growing is what we must do and this is accomplished not through desperate, weak, need-love but rather mindful appreciation-love.

What follows are some ways to show appreciation-love and be present with love. These will help you become more present, more mindful, and happier.

• Speak love
• Offer loving acts
• Be present
• Be accepting
• Speak truth

The more you let go the need for love and begin to appreciate love in your life, the greater you increase your sense of well being and happiness. This does not mean smile despite your miserable life. It means appreciate the good things and more will come due to your bonding with good things. If something no longer serves you, you can still let it go and bring something new into your life. Change is good. The point is to stop chasing, stop needing and start accepting and start taking responsibility for creating your own reality including where love lies.

Somewhere I heard the following story:

A white man goes to live and study on a Navajo reservation in the Southwest. While learning their songs he noted all the different words they had for “rain” and how the many of their songs were about rain in one of it’s many forms. He asked why are there so many words for rain and why do you sing about it so much? The Navajo replied: There are many different forms of rain. There are hard showers and there are sprinkles. There is rain that nourishes our crops and there is rain that washes away the land. Because it is dry here, rain is the most important part of our existence. We need it to survive. And thus we sing about it.

The Navajo man continues: When I drive my truck out to the nearest town I listen to your radio. All I hear are songs about love. I suppose we both sing and listen to these songs for the same reason.

What the Navajo observed from our popular songs are that we live in a land dry and thirsty for love. It is so scarce we sing and plead for it to come down and drench us, much like the Navajo do with rain.

Being so desperate for love we cling to anything that resembles it. This is Need-love. It does not make the best of us.

Through Appreciation-Love, we both can come to learn how to better serve our partners, our relationships and ourselves by appreciating loves existence rather than needing it. It’s a mindset. It’s called conscious living.

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” Morrie Schwartz

While sitting at our makeshift desks made from public picnic benches, I turn to my partner who is partially lit by a small beam of sunlight. It leaks out of parted clouds high above us. “The sun is out” I comment. “Yes. It feels so nice.” he says. The thought of being fully bathed in refreshing light led to a slow appreciation of the surroundings: it began with palm trees swaying in the wind causing a rustling sound that lulled me away from my laptop screen onto a grand sight: the huge empty expanse of a blue ocean who’s white-crested waves crashed upon the beach. I heard the waves. I smelled the ocean breeze and mist. I looked up at the cloudy skies and began to appreciate the soft texture and diffused light. “I am happy we are at the beach right now ” I say. My partner smiles and nods in acknowledgment, noting the same beauty around us.