Love is abundant, not scarce. We have many opportunities to find and re-find love.
By Kristin Baker — Written on Jul 19, 2015
When a new relationship blossoms, feelings of bliss envelop every facet of our lives. Everything is wonderful, and even little idiosyncrasies of our newly found mate are not bothersome because we’ve never felt this way before. We believe that we have found the love of our lives: The One!
Then, for reasons utterly unknown to us - or so we pretend - the relationship ends, and we are left feeling perplexed and mystified. Modern media capitalizes on the notion that every human being is destined to find that one person with whom they will live happily ever after. Society has embraced this tradition, and from our youngest years we are programmed to believe there is only one person with whom we can feel complete.
So, we start dating as early as our parents will allow in search of our one and only soul mate, and we find him or her….over and over again. With each relationship that ends, our skepticism about finding this elusive person grows, yet we continue the quest. The repetitive cycle goes on: meet someone, there’s attraction, we date, we develop feelings, we fall madly in love, and whether there’s marriage or not, the relationship endures, until it doesn’t and the relationship dissolves. Having a relationship end does not mean that the relationship was flawed (most of the time) or that we didn’t have great times and learn something about others and ourselves.
Every time we date someone, we develop feelings that we’ve never felt before and will likely never feel again. Every time we fall in love it’s at a different time and place in our lives. The person that made our hearts melt in high school is not the one to make our hearts skip a beat as a 30-something. A soul mate might be a feasible truth if our souls stayed static, but our souls do not nor do we. We evolve as do our romantic wants and needs. That’s why relationships dissolve. The problem arises when we end a relationship convinced that we’ve lost our one chance at love. Some do find love that is enduring, but for those of us where that hasn’t occurred, rest easy, there are ample opportunities for new love.
Love and romance are just two more things that fall under the societally-imposed illusion of scarcity, where opportunity is limited and you have, at best, one chance at true love and happiness. We’ve been told over and over: opportunity only knocks once in a lifetime. Completely untrue. The best favor we can do for ourselves is to reject this premise and recognize that like most things, love and romance are abundant. Rather than feeling there won’t be another opportunity for happiness after love has been lost, have gratitude for the nice dinners, evenings of wine, laughter, interesting conversation and perhaps a cool trip. Then, shift your focus to being open for the next opportunity to have a different, and often better, feeling of love and romance. With each romantic connection, we learn about ourselves. We also learn what traits and values our partner must have for us to have the strongest chance at a long-lasting relationship.
Empower yourself by shifting your belief structure to believe that love is everywhere — because it is — and our ability to romantically connect with someone is infinite. Live and love in the present.