A Valentine’s Day Message
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
by Barb Casper
In the dictionary, love is most often defined as an emotion felt and actions performed by someone concerned for the well-being of another person. Love involves affection, compassion, care, and self-sacrifice . However, this definition is somewhat limiting and focuses solely on the love felt between individuals. It doesn’t encompass the many facets of love or the need to live a loving and heartfelt life.
Many fans are familiar with Tina Turner’s hit song, What’s Love Got to Do with It, which became her first and only number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100.1 The song includes the lyrics “What’s love got to do, got to do with it, Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”
How do we answer that immortal question? Isn’t it so much easier to avoid pain by building walls around our hearts? The downside is walls keep love and happiness out, too. The answer is you have to keep breaking your heart until it opens. Leonard Cohen, in his poem Anthem, reveals the truth of life…”There is a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.” Knowing this helps us to bear life and undertake the transmutation of pain into love.
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” “Why are you knocking at every other door? Go, knock at the door of your own heart.” “Only from the heart can you touch the sky.” “This is a subtle truth: Whatever you love, you are.” “Wherever you go, whatever you do, be in love” – Rumi
One of my favorite mystical poets, Rumi, placed great faith in living from the heart and leading with love. His message: love-based doctrine prevails over the current fear-based order of our world.
We are vessels of love, yet we often don’t recognize this is who we really are already, underneath all of the pain and fear that we allow to color our lives and choices.
Our electrical minds ignite the pilot light of thought. Yet, living solely in our heads allows us to succumb to fear, doubt, and pain. Soon, life difficulties and stressors turn into a furnace; a raging fiery inferno within ourselves. If we only focus on our losses or the potential of losing out, we eventually “burn out,” give up on life, s well as the possibility of living a loving and happy existence.
It is only when we live from our hearts that we are able to attract that which we truly love. The warm glow and enduring light of love keep our path lit showing us our way through the darkness.
To live a life of love, we can choose to reveal the open innocence we were born with, allowing it to surface and heal ourselves and others. We can choose to look for and live joyously in the beauty, the wonder, and the light rather than attempting to overcome the darkness, the cracks, and the imperfections in life.
If we define ourselves as finite, small, and incapable of change we may not be able to overcome the risk of exposing our true selves. After all, there is safety in never taking a risk, right? However, there is more to life than safety. Maybe it is time to risk being sorry rather than being safe. Maybe it is time to create a crack so the light can get in.
If we define ourselves as eternal and one with everyone and everything and lead with our hearts, love will show us the way.
