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Does Love Hurt?
What if love hurts? The quick answer is, if it hurts, it’s not love. So what does it mean, if we feel a pang of discomfort while thinking of a loved one? It means we want something we’re not getting OR someone wants something from us we can’t or aren’t willing to give them.
Go back to the definition of Love being a verb (see Part One). While we are actively engaged in a mindset of love we cannot simultaneously be engaging in a mindset of 'what’s in it for me?' There have been studies that show we can’t actually 'multitask', we are merely switching between various tasks distractedly.
So when we feel pain while thinking of someone we love, it’s because it’s mixed with something else. We’re vacillating between what we want, don’t want and what we want for or from them. Love is unconditional, so it will never bring pain. Note that the definition shared in Part One does not include an amendment with a list of the things we are guaranteed to get (or be spared of) in return. That’s not love, those are wants and needs; desires separate from love. So it’s attachment and aversion, not the love, causing the pain and discomfort.
Attachment and Aversion*
Almost inevitably, there is some level of attachment or aversion in our relationships. There is a subtle or powerful longing to "get" or "get rid of" something that is being entangled with our ever present unconditional love that only knows how to "wish for happiness". If there’s discomfort, our love has strings attached.
Attachment is when we we want something to go our way. We want said person, place, thing or experience - our way. An attachment can be neutralized quickly if we know how to pilot the navigation of our desires. If we can be flexible about how, when and whether or not we’re even going ever to get what we want. With this flexibility, then maybe, we’ve got our attachments in check. Because, we really can’t always get what we want, exactly how we want it! And that’s just being real.
Or, alternately or interchangeably, we have can aversion. There’s a lyric to a song: It’s a thin line between love and hate. Well, this is that mind that is distractedly zig-zagging between the two minds. We want to change something about a person, place or thing. Or we just want them to stop, go or stay away. This is a aversion.
These minds are so common, so we shouldn’t use this information to give ourselves a hard time about our love being slathered with ulterior motives. We just need to know what’s going on, so we’re not blaming the other person, place or thing. We need to take responsibilities for our wants and needs. We need to be able to distinguish between love, attachment and aversion.
Desirous Attachment*
But! What if we want our way and are willing to go so far as to compromise our own values to get our way? Then we can easily get into a sticky mess. We become obsessed with getting it our way, exactly how and when we want it - and we can’t stop thinking about it. We start obsessing. This is desirous attachment. Desirous attachment is harder to navigate, because it often hijacks our ability to stay reasonable, patient and discerning. We lose our better judgement.
Let’s use an example. Let’s use something relatively benign. Let’s say you really want a toasted macadamia nut butter and guava jelly sandwich. (I’m in Kauai writing this). You’re anticipating the feel of the crunch of the toast, perfectly soft, but firmly browned. You imagine feeling the chunks of macadamia bits sliding across your tongue - elongating the flavor of the salty nut butter. And as you chew you, you get the crunch of the nut chunks, sending a burst of more nut butter yumminess tantalizing your taste buds. The guava jelly is a bonus, but secondarily sweet delight. Organic and local of course. It’s a perfect nut butter and jelly sandwich. So if you can get this, when you want it - it’s fine right. And you move along your day and go back to work after your lunch break.
But what if you can’t? What if you’re back in California where macadamia nut butter is hard to find, much less guava jelly. But you know your friend is going to be in Hawaii a little longer and so you could get her to bring you some. How much money are you willing to pay her, to bring some back to you? She doesn’t usually check in her baggage, so she’s not likely going to want to pay the $25 bucks just to bring you back jars of mac nut butter and guava jelly. Are you willing to pay the extra $25 bucks? How badly do you want it? How much do you really need it? Would you lie and say your mom wanted some and if she could please buy it for your mother? Would you be willing to promise her double the amount it would cost for the jars and the baggage check? What are you willing to do, to get what you want? Do you see where I’m going?
Let’s talk about physical intimacy. In fact, let’s talk about sex. Let’s replace the nut and jelly sandwich with sex. Sex itself isn’t inherently bad, good or neutral. But are you so preoccupied with it, that you’re willing to have sex under compromising circumstances? Are you willing to lie (including white lies), steal, cheat, harm (in deed or in word) or kill to have sex?
If not for sex, what would you be willing to lie, hide (tricky right?), steal, cheat, harm or kill for? Money, partnership, status, financial security, possessions, to have a child, buy a house, get drugs or to achieve rock n’ roll fame (within your field)?
What’s your longing? Is it painful? Maybe we’re even willing to use our wiles to get excessively more and more of the things you want? Maybe you don’t think so, but many of us work in jobs that we hate and aren’t proud of, because we get a steady paycheck. It’s a form of selling out on ourselves and our values. It’s essentially pimping ourselves out for money (or fame, companionship; fill in the blank). Granted, sometimes it’s the only way we can make a living. I understand this, but we still need to know that internally we feel and know we are compromising ourselves and our value due to our desirous attachments. So it’s essential to examine our attachments, especially desirous attachments and how they’re effecting ALL of our relationships, to people, places and things.
Codependency on Autopilot and the Internal Special Forces
When we are on autopilot with our codependency (see Part One) AND we’ve got full on desirous attachment functioning, it’s like having our internal special forces on full tilt. We’re defaulting to the inclinations of all our disempowering references of love and we’re on a mission to get what we want at any cost. We’ve got all our wily skills on high alert, helping us to get our longings fulfilled. We spend a lot of our internal and external resources aiming to fulfill our longings to the point that we compromise our values, likely on many levels. This is what is so painful. Or if it’s been a long time, this is what numbs us. Hence we’re on autopilot.
When we compromise our values for the sake of fulfilling our longings, we feel out of alignment with ourselves and it hurts. Sometimes is a dull ache underneath the surface other times it is acute agony. We wonder, "Why do I seemingly have everything I think I should have, but I’m still miserable and apathetic?"
For example, someone who wants partnership so badly, may engage in manipulative actions of hiding things about themselves, so that a potential partner is willing to interact with them. It may not be sex that they’re after, they may just want companionship. So they might say all the right words and do all the things they know that partner wants to hear or do, just to get them to be with us or to stay interested just a little bit longer. We’re often so afraid of being alone. So we latch on to what we know and get all our special forces to stay on task. We can do the same thing with a job, a friend and typically the most difficult codependent relationships are with family.
The Cellular Compromises of Codependency
Is this concentration of our internal and external resources wishing for that person’s happiness and peace? Maybe. Do we have some vested interest in things going our way? Probably. We try to sugar coat it by telling ourselves that we’re so "nice". I’m just doing something nice and supportive for them. When actually we might be obsessed with doing our damnedest to control the outcome, however possible? If so, this is co-dependency. This is what hurts. At it’s worst, this is what we’re numb about. It’s so painful, because we’re literally and figuratively investing hefty parts of our being in the quest of the mission of our attachment. It can get so insidious that it acts like neuropathy. We tell ourselves, "everyone needs to sacrifice a little", "I’m just taking one for the team." Yet, what if there’s a numb, burning and tingly like ants underneath the skin feeling, with no clear explanation? It is compromising some or all of our internal resources? It’s important to be aware of, because it’s not just a matter of the heart, it’s a matter of our cellular health. If we are being supportive and giving all we’ve got, within the alignment of our values, will not compromise ourselves cellularly. If we are, we could figuratively and literally kill ourselves. This is why it’s really important to know what are values are.
Knowing Our Values, Deepens Our Intimacy
The main way to deter the pain of this kind of co-dependency on steroids, is to know our values. Each of our values are different and may or may not be changeable. This is such an empowering self-exploration. When we’re younger, we may unknowingly compromise ourselves to get what we want because our values aren’t fully formed yet. Or they’re just defaults from our childhood and teens. Over time, we may strengthen our values and get clearer about what we want for ourselves and how we want to interact with others.
Knowing our values also helps us to know how to develop and navigate healthy intimate relationships with people. It helps us know what we’re looking for and how we’re seeking to relate to others. It helps us to connect clearly and mindfully with others that have shared values. Knowing that some of our values aren’t fully formed also protects us from harming ourselves and others. It’s like knowing what we’re good at and being open about what you’re not sure if you’re good at yet.
For example, we may have really clear values about sexual boundaries, but not about lying. I don’t value the skill of being a good liar, but I have come across more than one person that has said that they or their family and friends operate with the value that lying is important and useful tool an. If you and another person have different values about lying, you can see how that might become destructive really quick. You might have different values about having multiple lovers. In some cultures, it’s acceptable to have a lover that you don’t speak about to one another. Not my guava jelly, but non-monogamy is very popular in my part of California and if it’s a shared value between partners, it’s a value they are willing to work for. So the homework isn’t to judge your values and interests, it’s to know them and be keenly aware of how their evolving and how they affect you.
Do you like to drink alcohol, do you value a lot of open communication in your relationships, do you value cooking together, traveling, sports, not driving, physical comfort, being a homebody, truth, art, live music, activism against oppression? Glamping vs. camping? Both? What’s important to you? What are your deal breakers? It’s not to say that you will only have friends, coworkers and intimate partnerships with only people that share your exact values. In fact that can be limiting too. How else do we evolve if we’re not exposed to values we may or may not want to try on? I think it takes a village of variety to keep any one individual happily aligned in their values and interests. I have friends that I can watch sci-fi with and friends that I have deep heart bearing conversations camping in nature with. Knowing prevents us from harming others and helps us to prevent others from harming us - on purpose anyway. Sometimes you only know when you know. Our responsibility is to know ourselves.
Directing Our Internal Special Forces
I was in a relationship with someone that I shared many values with. They were super fun and enjoyable. Our shared values and interests included worldly and spiritual priorities. But one value, truth over lying, wasn’t shared in the end. It turned out that they had relapsed back into heavy alcohol and drug abuse. Because I was so devastated by this seeming betrayal, I based my next relationship choice primarily on whether or not I thought the next person was going to have problems with alcohol and drug abuse. I threw all my other values of fun and spirituality out the window, because I was so terrified of being heart broken again. So my special forces were all on vacation and I ended up in a dead relationship based on one priority- avoiding the fear of being alone.
So not only do we need to to know our values so we can find people we share values and interest with, we also need to keep our values at the forefront -so we can prioritize them for ourselves! Otherwise, we’re hurting ourselves, by neglecting our values, in our pursuit of our desirous attachments. It’s important to keep our special forces consciously and purposely on task to protect our values, not protect to our attachments. If we don’t hire them to, they will likely go on autopilot and we’ll end up wondering why we’re so miserably unaligned with ourselves.
Intimacy with Boundaries
Knowing our values also helps us to get clear on what we’re focused on, so we can have the ability to create a foundation that supports our ability to love unconditionally. As I eluded to earlier, the end goal isn’t to surround ourselves in a protective bubble of twinsie liked minded people that always agree with us on every issue or ways to play.
My parents couldn’t be more different than me in regards to sociopolitical perspectives, but I’ve found a way to love them, unconditionally, with conversational boundaries. Don’t get me wrong, it was a painful path to walk down. The key is to allow ourselves to have all of your feelings around these clashes. Feel your feelings. Ideally with a witness (friend or therapist) that you trust. In fact, grieve whatever loss of a dream you had around these rifts. I never thought I would hang up the phone on my father over a raging political debate, but it definitely happened. And it was heart wrenching. We’ve agreed to disagree. At first begrudgingly, I’m sure, but I saw them a few months later. Thankfully we’ve moved forward by prioritizing what we want. We wanted to move towards love again, for tolerable measured chunks of time. Let’s be real.
As my values have grown clearer over the years, I’ve also had to learn how to maintain distance from previous partners, friends and communities who do not share my values. I do value finding a way to love them unconditionally - internally, often with more sincerity than before, from a distance. As aversions and desirous attachments arise, I examine them with greater ease. And when I feel hurt. I know know I need to call a goal setting meeting with my internal special forces! At the end of the day, I prioritize loving myself and generating love from my heart, in order for me to easily access my peace and happiness. Because I value being in alignment with myself, I’ve got my special forces on task to help me maintain my alignment. When I’m aligned, it’s easier and more effortless to generate unconditional love to almost anyone. This makes for a pain free, happy and peaceful heart. Having this kind of intimacy and knowing with ourself, makes it incredibly easier to be profoundly intimate with others.
Is My Love Enough?
When we are on autopilot with our codependency (see Part One) AND we’ve got full on desirous attachment functioning, it’s like having our internal special forces on full tilt. We’re defaulting to the inclinations of all our disempowering references of love and we’re on a mission to get what we want at any cost. We’ve got all our wily skills on high alert, helping us to get our longings fulfilled. We spend a lot of our internal and external resources aiming to fulfill our longings to the point that we compromise our values, likely on many levels. This is what is so painful. Or if it’s been a long time, this is what numbs us. Hence we’re on autopilot.
When we compromise our values for the sake of fulfilling our longings, we feel out of alignment with ourselves and it hurts. Sometimes is a dull ache underneath the surface other times it is acute agony. We wonder, "Why do I seemingly have everything I think I should have, but I’m still miserable and apathetic?"
For example, someone who wants partnership so badly, may engage in manipulative actions of hiding things about themselves, so that a potential partner is willing to interact with them. It may not be sex that they’re after, they may just want companionship. So they might say all the right words and do all the things they know that partner wants to hear or do, just to get them to be with us or to stay interested just a little bit longer. We’re often so afraid of being alone. So we latch on to what we know and get all our special forces to stay on task. We can do the same thing with a job, a friend and typically the most difficult codependent relationships are with family.
The Cellular Compromises of Codependency
Is this concentration of our internal and external resources wishing for that person’s happiness and peace? Maybe. Do we have some vested interest in things going our way? Probably. We try to sugar coat it by telling ourselves that we’re so "nice". I’m just doing something nice and supportive for them. When actually we might be obsessed with doing our damnedest to control the outcome, however possible? If so, this is co-dependency. This is what hurts. At it’s worst, this is what we’re numb about. It’s so painful, because we’re literally and figuratively investing hefty parts of our being in the quest of the mission of our attachment. It can get so insidious that it acts like neuropathy. We tell ourselves, "everyone needs to sacrifice a little", "I’m just taking one for the team." Yet, what if there’s a numb, burning and tingly like ants underneath the skin feeling, with no clear explanation? It is compromising some or all of our internal resources? It’s important to be aware of, because it’s not just a matter of the heart, it’s a matter of our cellular health. If we are being supportive and giving all we’ve got, within the alignment of our values, will not compromise ourselves cellularly. If we are, we could figuratively and literally kill ourselves. This is why it’s really important to know what are values are.
Knowing Our Values, Deepens Our Intimacy
The main way to deter the pain of this kind of co-dependency on steroids, is to know our values. Each of our values are different and may or may not be changeable. This is such an empowering self-exploration. When we’re younger, we may unknowingly compromise ourselves to get what we want because our values aren’t fully formed yet. Or they’re just defaults from our childhood and teens. Over time, we may strengthen our values and get clearer about what we want for ourselves and how we want to interact with others.
Knowing our values also helps us to know how to develop and navigate healthy intimate relationships with people. It helps us know what we’re looking for and how we’re seeking to relate to others. It helps us to connect clearly and mindfully with others that have shared values. Knowing that some of our values aren’t fully formed also protects us from harming ourselves and others. It’s like knowing what we’re good at and being open about what you’re not sure if you’re good at yet.
For example, we may have really clear values about sexual boundaries, but not about lying. I don’t value the skill of being a good liar, but I have come across more than one person that has said that they or their family and friends operate with the value that lying is important and useful tool an. If you and another person have different values about lying, you can see how that might become destructive really quick. You might have different values about having multiple lovers. In some cultures, it’s acceptable to have a lover that you don’t speak about to one another. Not my guava jelly, but non-monogamy is very popular in my part of California and if it’s a shared value between partners, it’s a value they are willing to work for. So the homework isn’t to judge your values and interests, it’s to know them and be keenly aware of how their evolving and how they affect you.
Do you like to drink alcohol, do you value a lot of open communication in your relationships, do you value cooking together, traveling, sports, not driving, physical comfort, being a homebody, truth, art, live music, activism against oppression? Glamping vs. camping? Both? What’s important to you? What are your deal breakers? It’s not to say that you will only have friends, coworkers and intimate partnerships with only people that share your exact values. In fact that can be limiting too. How else do we evolve if we’re not exposed to values we may or may not want to try on? I think it takes a village of variety to keep any one individual happily aligned in their values and interests. I have friends that I can watch sci-fi with and friends that I have deep heart bearing conversations camping in nature with. Knowing prevents us from harming others and helps us to prevent others from harming us - on purpose anyway. Sometimes you only know when you know. Our responsibility is to know ourselves.
Directing Our Internal Special Forces
I was in a relationship with someone that I shared many values with. They were super fun and enjoyable. Our shared values and interests included worldly and spiritual priorities. But one value, truth over lying, wasn’t shared in the end. It turned out that they had relapsed back into heavy alcohol and drug abuse. Because I was so devastated by this seeming betrayal, I based my next relationship choice primarily on whether or not I thought the next person was going to have problems with alcohol and drug abuse. I threw all my other values of fun and spirituality out the window, because I was so terrified of being heart broken again. So my special forces were all on vacation and I ended up in a dead relationship based on one priority- avoiding the fear of being alone.
So not only do we need to to know our values so we can find people we share values and interest with, we also need to keep our values at the forefront -so we can prioritize them for ourselves! Otherwise, we’re hurting ourselves, by neglecting our values, in our pursuit of our desirous attachments. It’s important to keep our special forces consciously and purposely on task to protect our values, not protect to our attachments. If we don’t hire them to, they will likely go on autopilot and we’ll end up wondering why we’re so miserably unaligned with ourselves.
Intimacy with Boundaries
Knowing our values also helps us to get clear on what we’re focused on, so we can have the ability to create a foundation that supports our ability to love unconditionally. As I eluded to earlier, the end goal isn’t to surround ourselves in a protective bubble of twinsie liked minded people that always agree with us on every issue or ways to play.
My parents couldn’t be more different than me in regards to sociopolitical perspectives, but I’ve found a way to love them, unconditionally, with conversational boundaries. Don’t get me wrong, it was a painful path to walk down. The key is to allow ourselves to have all of your feelings around these clashes. Feel your feelings. Ideally with a witness (friend or therapist) that you trust. In fact, grieve whatever loss of a dream you had around these rifts. I never thought I would hang up the phone on my father over a raging political debate, but it definitely happened. And it was heart wrenching. We’ve agreed to disagree. At first begrudgingly, I’m sure, but I saw them a few months later. Thankfully we’ve moved forward by prioritizing what we want. We wanted to move towards love again, for tolerable measured chunks of time. Let’s be real.
As my values have grown clearer over the years, I’ve also had to learn how to maintain distance from previous partners, friends and communities who do not share my values. I do value finding a way to love them unconditionally - internally, often with more sincerity than before, from a distance. As aversions and desirous attachments arise, I examine them with greater ease. And when I feel hurt. I know know I need to call a goal setting meeting with my internal special forces! At the end of the day, I prioritize loving myself and generating love from my heart, in order for me to easily access my peace and happiness. Because I value being in alignment with myself, I’ve got my special forces on task to help me maintain my alignment. When I’m aligned, it’s easier and more effortless to generate unconditional love to almost anyone. This makes for a pain free, happy and peaceful heart. Having this kind of intimacy and knowing with ourself, makes it incredibly easier to be profoundly intimate with others.
Is My Love Enough?
All that said, you may have more questions. I will try to answer some more in the next few posts. For example, will your unconditional love be enough for a healthy relationship? The quick answer is, if you’re the only one rowing the boat, it’s likely only going to keep moving at the rate you’re willing to row. Next week, we’ll explore who’s job it is to row. In the meantime, be a little more mindful about the tasks your special forces are assigned to, exam how flexible you are about how you fulfill your desires and make a list of your top five values and top five interests.
* The teachings of Attachment, Aversion and Desirous Attachment are from Buddhism found in books by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso like Understanding the Mind. If you’d like to nerd out on this further, I can’t recommend these teachings enough.
I would love to hear about your explorations into love that doesn’t hurt and keeps you aligned in your values. Post in the comments below or email me at bee@healingisgiving.com. Lots of love to you! I hope this exploration brings you much love and blissful heartfelt experiences of love, for you and for you to share.
* The teachings of Attachment, Aversion and Desirous Attachment are from Buddhism found in books by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso like Understanding the Mind. If you’d like to nerd out on this further, I can’t recommend these teachings enough.
I would love to hear about your explorations into love that doesn’t hurt and keeps you aligned in your values. Post in the comments below or email me at bee@healingisgiving.com. Lots of love to you! I hope this exploration brings you much love and blissful heartfelt experiences of love, for you and for you to share.
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Deborah “Bee” Uytiepo
Wholistic Health Practitioner and Personal Coach.
Deborah “Bee" Uytiepo is the owner of Beelight, a women’s wholistic health and person coaching practice. Her therapeutic bodywork combines neuromuscular therapy, brain function and visceral organ health, specializing in optimal pelvic and reproductive health. Bee has studied and practiced meditation for over 30 years. She has taught meditation as a volunteer throughout Southern and Northern California for over 15+ years. In order to benefit her clients with the vast rewards of her life’s personal growth work, Bee developed The Let Go Sessions, a series of macro retreats that support your Let-Go’s, holistically and completely, body and mind. Bee is the founder and principal facilitator of Healing is Giving. Healing is Giving hosts community events, fundraisers and workshops that prioritize harm-free(dom). For a more detailed bio, please visit her website: healingisgiving.com
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