Don't Confuse Comfort with Love

Sometimes, we become so enamoured with wanting to have someone in our lives that it often leads us away from the real reason behind wanting a relationship. 

In some cases, the love is so intense and so real that we can't put it into a context that we can understand because we haven't felt that kind of love before. So, we run away from it, not believing something can be that real and lovely.

Someone gave me an analogy of why someone would run away from a deep love and choose comfort: He said that it's like collecting stamps and you put those stamps in one book and you only use that one book. Suddenly, someone comes along and gives you another book and you don't know what to do with it. You can't understand it because you've only used that one book. 

In the context of love, we can become accustomed to that one type of love, and that's all we've been able to understand. It's comfortable and safe. There's nothing that needs to be understood because it can be put into a context that makes sense. It can be put into that one familiar book.

Then, a different love comes along. This love is a much deeper love where the feelings are stronger--more than what you have felt before. You have nothing to relate it to because you haven't felt like this before. It's new territory.  

Instead of taking a leap to experience something that you know is deeper, you retreat back to the old book or the old type of love. It's not new nor different, but at least you can put it into a context you understand, and you feel safe. When I say 'safe', I don't mean the kind where you'll be protected, but in the way of 'if I don't take a chance then I won't fail.'

We see this all of the time where couples aren't really happy, but they stay because it's comfortable. You stick with it because the alternative would mean stepping outside of your comfort zone for something deeper, something more loving than you have ever felt before.  

This is the death of a well-lived life--choosing mediocre over extraordinary. This is the difference between love and comfort. (Don't confuse this with instant infatuation, because that's a completely different thing and a completely different blog topic.)

This isn't to say that people shouldn't work at a relationship and should give up as soon as it becomes less than satisfactory. What this is about is knowing when there's no chemistry and no attraction in a relationship, and choosing safety and comfort over deep love.

I love this quote by Keay Nigel in her article 'The Difference Between Needing, Wanting, and Loving Somebody': "This is not love that you are feeling. It's nostalgia."

The fact is, when a deeper love comes along, and you question it's validity, just remember that you had asked for it at a vibrational level. You had asked the universe to bring you something deeper, more profound, and something that you have never felt before. And, therefore, you received it. Resisting it means you are declining a true manifestation of your desire. Resisting means you are sabotaging yourself.

“A life lived in fear... is a life half-lived.” ― Baz Luhrmann

Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away.....

Lately, I've been thinking about 'potential relationships': the relationships that look like they have the possibility of being something, but become nothing.

Or, the relationships where we are sure that the other person is into us, but nothing transpires. Then, that becomes the start of billions of questions of wondering if that person really did like us in the first place.

As you can imagine, this is very frustrating.... with a 95% chance of a person's head exploding from the continued thoughts and analyses.

The feedback we are getting from our love interest is all very...well, wishy-washy. Plus, it doesn't give us much satisfaction if we have to guess all the time about someone's affections. Abraham-Hicks has a excellent analogy stating that, when you are aligned to that other person (and vice versa), wild horses couldn't keep you, or them, away. View the video here: Wild Horses

So, my questions is: Would you prefer to have someone who adores you and you adore them?

Or, would you rather try to convince someone, who is only half-interested in you, that you are worthy enough to be adored?

This goes back to my previous blog post Your Brilliant Light and how we tend to settle because we feel inadequate and not good enough for something better. 

Perhaps, we settle for less because we are afraid of change; afraid of searching for something more.  C. Joybell C says this quite eloquently: 

“We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.” 

Wait for the Wild Horses. 

Namaste.