Loving each other is…

I remember, in my childhood there was a chewing gum «Love is …» with sentimental inserts in the spirit of «Love is to sing and dance together.» Today, new inserts could be printed: “Love is taking a selfie only together”, “putting the first “like” on her posting”, “love is a secret Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) for two” … Our contemporaries fall in love, experiencing passion and jealousy, happiness or suffering — these experiences are as acute as they were 100 years ago. However, today we are more divided and more often suffer from loneliness, among us there are more those who want pleasure and believe that they have a right to them. Therefore, for many, falling in love passes, and love never begins — for a hedonist, this is too energy-intensive, costly project. At the same time, love continues to be a value. Clients often ask: what to do if love has passed? Especially women — for them, the lack of love is more often a reason to end a marriage, which otherwise suits them perfectly. They give up a titmouse in their hands (sustainability, stability) for a pie in the sky (the chance to find someone with whom there will be genuine spiritual intimacy). One client told me with surprise how she suffered from love for the one who left her, and complained to a friend, and he unexpectedly said to her: “I envy you — you are so alive.”

When we love, we are seized with a strong feeling and at the same time turned to another person, we want to know about his experiences. This is a difficult task, we do not always cope with it. It is important for a lover to be able to maintain good contact with another without losing contact with himself. Failure to accept this contradiction leads to a confusion of concepts, due to which love for oneself is confused with selfishness, and love for another with dependence. Providing freedom of choice and respecting the personal space of another is one of the most important tasks of a lover.

In the psychodrama workshops, we explore the experience of love, and I ask participants to enter into this role, that is, how to become love itself and feel it with the whole body. Usually they begin to smile, feel warm in the stomach, in the chest or in the whole body, their posture straightens. Some sway slowly, make an accepting gesture with their hands, and reach forward as if someone is about to be hugged. If the parents accept and love the child, he will grow up with the experience of love. If they devalue, blame, punish, then it is difficult for such children to love themselves. Unconsciously, they endow their beloved with a maternal or paternal role and expect them to compensate for what they did not receive in childhood. It is a hunger for love, not love itself.”

The magazine’s question «What does it mean to love each other today?» caught me on my way to a lecture at the Russian State University for the Humanities. Entering the classroom, I asked this question to my students. “This is a crack in the shell!”, “These are everyday problems with the arrangement of a common home”, “This is the restriction of one’s freedom to the freedom of another!”, “This is the inevitability of the pain of parting!”

Yes, probably, and so … For me, the first association is different: to love is a blinding happiness to be, this is a jubilant “yes!” life, it is inspiration that gives strength to creativity, gives taste and color, it is courage for new ideas and actions, it is the magic of transforming everyday life … Pain, fear, betrayal, dictate, jealousy, loneliness, attitude towards another as property or sacrifice up to self-denial — remain on the other side of love, in the sphere of its absence. The purpose and meaning of love is the joy of being for another and the labor of organizing the world for the beloved in such a way that the other, the beloved, can find himself in life, become himself and surpass himself, realizing his meaning. To love means to be there, despite the distances, to empathize without teaching, to give the best and to believe in success “despite” and “despite everything”, to be sensitive, not intrusive, to love him in another, and not yourself. To love each other is to keep oneself in the other and the other in oneself, protecting, but not fettering. No matter how the scenery of times changes, the mystery of love remains the main thing in everyone’s life at all times.

Since the end of the 30th century, the romantic ideal has triumphed in culture: «Die, but do not give a kiss without love.» It is believed that the relationship between a man and a woman is good if they are sanctified by love. Meanwhile, this very love is understood as a bright, absorbing and often unusually beautiful … attraction. The period of falling in love is beautiful, to which we owe most of the world’s poetry, but it cannot last forever. But for those who are driven into the head that this is the most important thing, without this life — in any case, life with another — loses its meaning, longing sets in. And so attraction to the next partner not only seems desirable, but also provides a legitimate way out of a boring situation. Everything looks as if a person not only can, but is obliged to break the hateful bonds, spit on everything, succumb to a holy feeling and enter into a new relationship. This approach destroys the family and makes people unhappy. Modern culture is teen-oriented and promotes teenage behavior: curiosity about new things, fast fulfillment of one’s desires, lack of attachment, sexual experimentation. Today’s adults under 40-XNUMX dress and feel like teenagers. Teenagers of all ages are the best consumers. But they are not able to be responsible, support each other in difficult times, take care of children, they are lonely. Another approach is offered by traditional culture. People who are getting married are not asked if they love you or not. Love or not, it’s up to you, but you make vows, and not only is it very beautiful, it’s very correct. Your union is sealed with mutual promises and assumed responsibility, it has a basis, confidence in itself and in each other. But such a union can be created only by resisting the many temptations of modern culture.