Love Sets Others Free
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Seeking Peace
Posts: 1,371
Love Sets Others Free
This is taken from Melodie Beattie, Journey to the Heart. I reallly loved it. It sets a bench mark for what I want out of my next intimate relationship....when I'm ready...
One of love's most challenging lessons is freedom.
Much of my life I thought love meant restraining. I couldn't do this if I loved you. you wouldn't do that if you loved me. Certainly there are times when love asks us tomake choices. But love doesn't limit, it doesn't confine, as I once believed.
Love brings with it the gift of freedom. Love teaches us to allow the person we love to do as he or she chooses. It teaches us to encourage the people we love to freely make their own choices, to seek their own path, to learn their lessons their way intheir own time.
Love that restrains isnt love. It's insecurity. We may tell others how we feel about something they do or don't do. We may make decisions as a reaction to others' choices. That is our right and our responsibility. But to restrain another in the name of love doesn't create love; it creates restraint.
Love means each person is free to follow his or her own heart, seek his or her own path. If we truly love, our choices will naturally and freely serve that love well. When we give freedom to another, we give freedom to ourselves.
I spent years telling my exah that if he loved me and our family, he would quit drinking. He spent years telling me if I really loved him, I would help him and support him (i.e. enable) him. It was such a wicked cycle. Round and round and it went. It was fueled by resentment and anger and lies. Yuck.
All those years, I thought it was love that kept me in place. It wasn't love. It was restraints.
I want a new intimate relationship someday. And this reading provides a great benchmark for what I'm looking for! Hopefully, if I keep working on ME, I'll find it.
One of love's most challenging lessons is freedom.
Much of my life I thought love meant restraining. I couldn't do this if I loved you. you wouldn't do that if you loved me. Certainly there are times when love asks us tomake choices. But love doesn't limit, it doesn't confine, as I once believed.
Love brings with it the gift of freedom. Love teaches us to allow the person we love to do as he or she chooses. It teaches us to encourage the people we love to freely make their own choices, to seek their own path, to learn their lessons their way intheir own time.
Love that restrains isnt love. It's insecurity. We may tell others how we feel about something they do or don't do. We may make decisions as a reaction to others' choices. That is our right and our responsibility. But to restrain another in the name of love doesn't create love; it creates restraint.
Love means each person is free to follow his or her own heart, seek his or her own path. If we truly love, our choices will naturally and freely serve that love well. When we give freedom to another, we give freedom to ourselves.
I spent years telling my exah that if he loved me and our family, he would quit drinking. He spent years telling me if I really loved him, I would help him and support him (i.e. enable) him. It was such a wicked cycle. Round and round and it went. It was fueled by resentment and anger and lies. Yuck.All those years, I thought it was love that kept me in place. It wasn't love. It was restraints.
I want a new intimate relationship someday. And this reading provides a great benchmark for what I'm looking for! Hopefully, if I keep working on ME, I'll find it.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 4,719
Love, love, love this! Thanks for sharing it with us. I wholeheartedly agree. And I am guilty of restraining as well. It's easy to fall back into that pattern to control the situation, especially if things feel out of control.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
