Some much has been written about love, apart from money and sex it is humanity’s greatest pre-occupation.  Feeling unloved could be fairly labelled as the root of all evil in the world.  Money, sex and other material things in the end are just ways we try to make ourselves feel loved.  This is reflected in some new age thought which states that the absence of money equals you don’t love yourself enough. The vast majority of us are taught to look for love outside of ourselves rather than from within.  Once we are convinced that love is outside of ourselves then it can be used as a instruement of control and it is, mercilessly. 

The sad thing is that you could be in the presence of the greatest love in your life and not even know it.  Whether you can receive love, feel it, it’s up to you and your inner capacity to love yourself.

The theme that has been running through the conscious collective is love.  In particular self-centred love and sacrificial love.  Self-centred love is all about the individual, they don’t feel love for the inside. They are constantly seeking ways to obtain the trappings of love – money, recognition, time from others, success in their business and personal lives, but essentially, they never quite get what they are seeking.  These people do love others, but it is rarely a sacrificial love – because it is all about them, they are happy to love you providing the cost is not too great for them.  Unfortunately these people rarely feel  truly loved.   If you take away some of the trappings of love they feel angry and afraid.  This is exactly what is happening with the finacial crash at present.

Then there are those who love in a sacrificial way, these are the individuals that the first group usually attach themselves to.  Sacrificial love is about recognising that the Other is Self and if the Other is unhappy or disadvantaged in any way then the Self will also be unhappy etc.  This stems from concepts such as: we are all one and love your neighbour as you love yourself.  From a chistian point of view the greatest example of this is christ on the cross.  Personally I believe that no matter what christianty teaches about sacrificial love it is based on self-centred love which expects and in fact glorifies another individual taking on the consequences of their personal bad behaviour.  You cann’t get more self-centred than that. The problem for the Sacificial Lovers is that love rarely comes back to them.  The response of the Sacificial Lover is to do more to love more, be more accepting etc etc.  None of this works of course, it’s not in the nature of the Self-Centered Lover to give back unless there is something in it for them.  In the end the sacrificial lover has the same problem as the self-centred lover they are so busy loving others they forget to love themselves.

The theme in the clinic has been “sacrificial love”  is it all it’s cracked up to be?  Essentially yes and no.  Yes, because until we understand that we are a collective and therefore our personal actions impact upon everyone else we can never truly work as a collective that is for the benefit of the whole.  We all know what happens when nature gets out of balance.  Humanity stepped outside of balance a long time ago and constantly does not think or feel the impact of their actions on the total.  It’s all about me and my needs.  Lots of new age thought is also unfortunately all about me – the glorified “I am” it’s time to move on to interdependence. Environmental damage, species loss, poverty are all hallmarks of humanity being out of balance.   How humanity every thought it was above or different than the environment it is part of is a mystery to me.

 And No, because Sacrificial Love often steps in to save  others from their own consequences which is also very detrimental to all concerned.   Sacrificial Love often keeps on loving even when the self is destroyed – were is the good for all concerned in that action.  If we did not cut ourselves with a sharp knive when we used it inappropriately we would not receive the natural feedback – the consequence.  We would not learn, we would not evolve.  Evolution on every level is reliant upon feedback and consquencies.  Mother earth is the biggest example of unconditional, sacrificial love – the question is how much longer can she tolerate humanities current behaviour.  When will consequences become immediate?

In the end both types of lovers need a review of their style.  From my perspective it is usually those who are deeply spiritual who are the sacrificial lovers.  Which leads me the crux of the current theme – it’s time to clean up your act because in the end sacrificial lovers also crave love, often also feel just as unloved as the self-centred lover types.  The nature of sacrificial love as it is expressed in the world is part of the problem, imagine the difference if every time humanity tried to pollute the earth she rose us and immediately smacked them?

On a personal level – what are you a sacrificial lover or a self-centred lover either way it’s time to clean up!