I WAS LYING in bed last night when I had this flash. It was something I had read a week or so before in Terry Cole-Whittaker's book, What You Think of Me Is None of My Business. In the chapter on relationships it said something like, relationships come in two varieties: lovers and teachers. I don't remember what I was thinking about while I was actually reading, but last night it hit me that this idea of lovers and teachers was a really important piece of information. It seemed to me that in that one central idea was the key to understanding everything - the meaning of life, why we are here. Every relationship I have ever had has taught me a great deal. In fact, I couldn't think of one that hadn't. Yet, there was more to it than that. The greater Truth seemed like something elusive. It reminded me of what it's like to wake up in the morning after a really intense dream - trying so hard to remember it, only to have it slip away.

Apparently, I am not the first person to struggle with this topic. In fact, this topic has been getting a lot of coverage in spiritual circles for a very long time. My intention here is not to reinvent the wheel. The first time I remember seeing this particular wheel was over two years ago, in The Handbook to Higher Consciousness. And guess what? I didn't even notice it. Perhaps I had so much to learn, the notion of lovers and teachers was just beyond my grasp. Since none of us are so different from one another, maybe I can add a slightly different spin to this formidable topic that will inspire you to think about your relationships in a new way. Maybe if I tell you some of the truly silly things I have done personally in my efforts to be loved, you will see yourself there too.

How do I get more love? That's what it all boils down to really. Don't we all want to feel loved? I believe we do. Of course, that isn't the way it seems sometimes. Sometimes our efforts to be loved are pretty well disguised. And I think this is the great duality, the reason for our existence that is hidden from us; we are here to love and we are here to be loved. If that is true, why is there so much going on that clearly has nothing to do with love? What is Love?

Okay. So, what is Love? While I'm sure we could find a good working definition in a lot of places, the one in the Bible is a pretty good starting point (1 Corinthians 13:4-6, NIV).

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

We can see from this passage that there is one thing that is conspicuously missing from this definition of love. Fear. A very good friend told me once that there are only two reasons we do anything, love and fear. Anything that is not love is fear. I had to think about that. It seemed like a gross oversimplification. Yet I have not been able to find a single instance where it doesn't follow. If we apply this to the Bible's definition we get some statements like this: Love is patient and Fear is impatient. Well, let's think about this. The last time I was impatient, I was in a hurry. I wanted the kids to hurry up and get in the car because I didn't want to be late. I was afraid of being late. I was afraid I would disappoint my teacher and my classmates if I were late to class. If I follow this all the way, I was afraid that they would be upset with me and not love me. So, it all goes in a big circle, I act out of fear because I am afraid of not being loved. It follows that when we are in a loving place, we are unafraid.

Another important thing we can take from the Bible's definition of love is that love is not self-seeking. That is, love does not have an agenda. This is another way of saying that there are no conditions placed on love. This is when we love for love's own sake. This is, "I love you because you are." This is not, "I love you because you do x, y, or z." If we are in a situation where we love a person because of what they do for us or someone loves us because of what we do for them, we can be assured that this is not love. This is an attachment, or entanglement. Unfortunately, most everyone has extensive experience with attachments and entanglements and very little experience with love. It seems most of us have learned very early on how to trade and barter to receive the "love" we need from those people that are most important to us. The thing that seems most difficult is understanding that the love we need so much from the outside is already inside of us and has been there all the time. We are all perfect. We were born that way. Someplace along the line we forgot that we are all and have everything we need to do the job we need to do here. It is time to be reminded. You are perfect. You were born perfect. You have everything you need to be blissfully happy here and now. Oh, by the way, being blissfully happy is your job.

Now that we have a working definition of love, we can move on to talking about lovers. Now when I say lover, I'm not talking about something romantic. In fact, I think it is pretty rare to have a romantic lover. A lover is a person in your life that just loves you. It doesn't matter what you look like, they always think you are handsome or beautiful. If you get together and you are a few minutes late, it's no big deal. There isn't any pressure to perform or impress, you can just be yourself and know that everything is just fine. My first lover was my grandfather. Sure, my mom and dad loved me. Grandpa was different though. His face beamed when he saw me. He just loved me. He didn't care if I went to college or went to work. He didn't care if I got married or we just lived together. He always said, "It doesn't matter what you look like or what you do. You are mine." And because of that he would always love me. He had this big house on a hill that he lived in all by himself and my brother and I always knew that if we were down on our luck we always had a place to go. I count myself very fortunate to have had that experience. All that was required of me was to be. Today, I would say that he saw the divinity inside of me.

The teachers in our lives are often those that frustrate and irritate us. They push our buttons. Anyplace we go, we can find a teacher. Some examples of the most common teachers are parents, mates, children, bosses, coworkers, friends, neighbors... pretty much anyone we come in contact with has the potential to be a teacher. A recent teacher of mine was the customer service manager at my bank. I have a vending service so I deposit large numbers of $1 bills on a weekly basis. I often knew "about" how much was there, but I was happy to let them count it with the machine. This worked out fine until the manager found out about it. Frankly, I thought it was a pretty petty issue because they have to count it anyway and I told her so. This resulted in her verifying each time I came into the bank that I had counted the money and had a completed deposit slip with the teller that was working with me. So I made sure I counted the money and filled out the slip. At first it really bothered me. I would scowl and mutter as I walked out of the bank. Then I realized that I was letting her ruin my morning. So I resolved to maintain my happy demeanor and eventually she stopped checking on the status of my deposit slip. That would have been great if it had been the end of it. It wasn't. We had struck a sort of vibrational resonance where she knew that I had buttons she could push. It was kind of like I had a lock and she knew she had the keys. So over the next couple of months she would pop in to tell me that there was yet another thing I needed to change about my banking. Often when we know there's a button to push the urge to do so becomes almost irresistible. Eventually, I decided that the easiest way to flow in this situation was to find another branch.

So I asked myself, "What did I learn from this person?" Well, there are several things. First, I caused the whole negative interaction. When I made the judgment that the bank's policy was petty, I was not coming from a loving unattached position. I was coming from a position of a person who was being victimized and inconvenienced. The victim position is very polarized. When we come from a position of being victimized, it creates an energetic urge on the part of the other involved to persecute, rescue, or run like the wind. She did the most natural and comfortable thing she could in her position, she persecuted. Had she understood what was going on, she could have chosen another course of action. My understanding came a little too late to change the outcome. If we understand these vibrational nuances, we can choose to simply vibrate higher and see the divinity in those around us. Sometimes you have to just play the game, even if it seems stupid and makes no sense. The second thing I learned was that I don't have to give anyone control over my mood. If somebody does or says something that irritates me, it is up to me how I handle that. Sure, I can get really mad, push out my chest and show them that I really am right - like I did when I told them their policy of requiring the cash to be counted was petty. Or I can resist the urge to be right and just shrug my shoulders and say, "Oh, okay. I can do that." This is just another way of saying, "I see the Divinity in you." I can choose to just accept people where they are and go on about my day. It is important to remember also that if I am angry or frustrated, there is a lesson to be learned. The lesson here was not to be a victim. I had been a victim when I resisted the request of the manager to count the cash and I had been a victim when I allowed my morning to be adversely affected. Okay, so I had learned a valuable lesson. How we respond to frustrating or adverse situations is completely up to us. I felt pretty good about myself and that I had bounced back from this lesson pretty quickly.

It was pretty clear to me that this was a teaching only experience. This teacher taught me a lesson, but she would not be my lover that I could see. And some relationships are like that. They are just there to teach us a little lesson. Many relationships can be transformed from teaching to loving relationships. While it is tempting to think that our relationships will be lots more loving when our spouses start accepting us as we are, when our children do their chores without being asked, and when our mothers in-law quit telling us about all of our shortcomings, we will all be waiting a really long time if we leave all the changing to everyone else! I've tried that strategy for more than 30 years and it's time to try something new. The new way of thinking is that the love starts with me. If we want to be loved more, we have to love more. We have to be willing to put it all out there and say things like, "I love you, just the way you are. I love you because you are here." That trite phrase that seems to be popping up everywhere, "It's all about me" really does have some truth to it, if we stop to consider that we are the ones who can make change, only in a different way than we are used to. We can't impose our values on others or control the moods of others, but we can always take charge of ourselves. And this is how we really can change the world. We can choose to crank up the love. (Keyes, 1975) When others don't follow suit, we can look at them with compassion, because it is difficult to come from a place that is not loving and to feel like you have no control over your feelings. We don't have to stop being loving ourselves.

So, when we're faced with a situation where we're feeling uncomfortable, frustrated, or angry, we can recognize that there is a lesson here. It isn't the other person doing something to us; it is our attachment to our own expectations of how we think things "should be." I often think that I am somehow entitled to do my writing on the computer undisturbed. I am a mostly stay-at-home mom of two very active boys. It is simply not a reasonable expectation for me to hang on to. I either have to let it go or find a way to work around it if I want to be happy. If I hang on to this idea that I am entitled to be undisturbed, I will just find myself feeling angry and frustrated over and over again. If, I decide, as Ken Keyes suggests in the Handbook to Higher Consciousness, to up-level my needs to preferences, my life will get a whole lot happier. I can say, I prefer to write at the computer undisturbed, but if I should be disturbed, I can just pick it up again at a later time. Another option is that I can choose a time to write when the boys are sleeping. The point is that the boys' disturbing me is not the problem. The problem is my demand that I should not be disturbed. In fact, anytime I make a demand, there is a problem because I am just setting myself up to be unhappy, angry, or frustrated.

Once we've identified the problem, the next step is to find a way to be grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow. In the example with my boys, I'm learning to appreciate that this is an opportunity for me to learn to give more love. Instead of being tense and cross when they sit next to me at the computer, I can be calm and relaxed and explain that mommy is writing an article. Since they often want to know what the words on the computer say, it is a great opportunity for me to explain that we really need to love each other more and not be so afraid. Sometimes, I can tell them, people are not that nice to each other. I can impress upon them that it is most important that we always be kind and loving with each other. I might ask them if they can remember a time when they said or did something unkind. Perhaps they remember a time when someone was mean or unkind to them. Maybe we could role-play how they could have been kinder in their responses. So, when we are being grateful, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for us. What started out as a problem, me being frustrated at being disturbed, can be shifted into an opportunity. In this case we could have a very important talk.

So now that I knew what the problem was, and I was glad to get it, what was it that triggered it to start with? In this case, the trigger was that I was busy doing something else and I didn't want to be disturbed. The problem was that I had an expectation that I was very attached to. When my son interrupted me to ask about what I was writing on the computer, I was frustrated. I wanted to give him a short answer and send him on his way so I could give my full attention to that task at hand. So why was I so attached to being undisturbed? I had given myself a deadline to have this particular article done and I was running out of time. What that meant to me was that I was failing. I was not enough. It is funny how on a day-to-day basis, I can hinge my self worth as a person on something as small as a self-imposed deadline. I had placed a condition on my love for myself. Finish this article on time and I will love you. If you do this, you will be lovable and worthy - today. That is, until the next deadline. There may be other triggers out there, but I am willing to bet that the lion's share of our problems arise from this one right here. Most of us are unable; don't know how, to love ourselves unconditionally.

We are all familiar with the second commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Most of us get the love thy neighbor part. Loving ourselves is a lot more difficult. Perhaps it would be easier if we said, "Love thyself as thou love thy neighbor." Dr. David Hawkins says, "Be kind to everything and everyone, including oneself, all the time, with no exception." Okay, so most everyone that has written a book on being happy says that you have to love yourself. Great! Where do I get this unconditional love for myself? That's where things get a little bit sticky. The problem and the solution are that it is inside of me all the time. No one out there can do it for me; I have to do it for myself. We are all completely perfect and worthy and an extension of our creator. Our creator loves and treasures us right where we are just as we are. The biggest part of learning to love ourselves is learning that we are lovable just the way we are. We don't have to achieve anything. I don't have a roadmap, but I can tell you some things that really help me as I walk along this path. One of the first things I did was to learn to pray, every day. It felt a little funny at first, but I kept at it and it really seems to help keep things in perspective for me. The other really big thing I did was to make meditation a part of my daily routine. I make sure that I get up half an hour before anyone else in the house so I can get it done before the day gets away from me. These changes alone took a lot of time to take hold. It is one thing to read about what to do and quite another to actually do it so that it really becomes who you are. As I have incorporated prayer and meditation into my life, I have gradually started adding other things like affirmations. Part of loving oneself is being gentle and kind. Lasting change happens slowly and surely, not overnight. Lasting change is the goal.

As we work to love ourselves more, we work to love those around us more. There was a time when I thought love was a feeling. While love certainly feels good, it is so much more than that. Love is very much a choice. Each moment of each day we have opportunities to choose love or choose fear. For most of us getting started out, we don't really see ourselves as making choices because we've made the same choices so often. We go along, something makes us uncomfortable. We react. Then someone else reacts. We wonder why we are so unhappy. The challenge here is that when we go along, let's be more mindful. When we feel uncomfortable, angry, or frustrated, let's stop and evaluate what's really going on. When we make our evaluations, let's try saying simply, "I prefer," instead of "I want" or "I need." What would happen if instead of getting angry the next time you had a really good reason, you didn't? What if you just shrugged and said, "Let's move on?" If someone cut you off on the freeway, you could just let it go. Remember, it is a choice. Does this mean that you have to be a doormat? No. Love is not being a doormat. While it is true that we can let some things go, there are times when we have to set loving boundaries. This is one of the areas where we often love our neighbor, our spouse, our parents, and others more than we love ourselves; when we are faced with choosing between loving our neighbor or ourselves. Remember that the scripture reads to love our neighbor as ourselves, not instead of ourselves. As we grow in love we begin to learn to stop consenting to do things that cause us to harbor resentments. Part of loving ourselves is saying no sometimes. Resentment is the silent killer of happiness.

We all have lovers and teachers. There is truth to the saying that, "No man is your enemy ... every man is your teacher." Our teachers are everyone that we come in contact with. While it is often nicer to learn a lesson from a loving teacher, harsh lessons often make a lasting impact that stays with us. The greater goal for all of us is to give and receive more love. We all want to love and be loved. We all want to feel like we are lovable and worthy - and we are. Often we can recognize that we are learning a lesson and shift a teaching experience into a loving opportunity. The key to doing this is first to recognize that we can only control our own thoughts and actions, so the other person may or may not choose to cooperate. Let that part go. Recognize that they are there to be your teacher and find something about the lesson to be thankful for. I realize that this may take some time. It took several weeks for me to see that the customer service manager at the bank was my teacher - and not the wicked witch of the west. Then it took nearly the entire day to be grateful for the lesson she taught me. Once we get here, it's time to dig in and pull out that false notion that made us react so strongly. For me, it is without fail that I am somehow not worthy, or not good enough. Maybe it is slightly different for you. Whatever it is, pull it up, look at it, and love it. It is yours. Pray about it. Know that it is healed. If it returns a day or a week from now, that's okay. Love it some more. Choose to love everything more. Love everyone more. Love yourself more. This is what all of our teachers are here to teach us. Love more. Once we learn how to love more, we can just do and be. And that is how we can change the world, one person at a time.

© Kanya Ellington, 2006

Resources:
Terry Cole-Whittaker, What You Think of Me is None of My Business, 1979 Jove Books, New York, New York. ISBN:0-515-09479-X
Ken Keyes Jr., Handbook to Higher Consciousness, 1975 Love Line Books, www.livinglove.org, ISBN:0-9600688-8-0(Pbk
Alan Cohen, The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore, 1981 Alan Cohen Publications, Somerset, NJ. ISBN: 0-910367-30-2
David R. Hawkins M.D., Ph.D., Transcending Levels of Consciousness, The Stairway To Enlightenment, 2006 Veritas Publishing, Sedona, AZ. ISBN:0-9715007-4-6.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kanya Ellington grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and has had an interest in metaphysics and spiritual pursuits since childhood. She enjoys teaching courses in Practical Spirituality at Possibilitarian-studies.org. She is presently pursuing a doctorate in Religious Studies at Emerson Theological Institute. She has a Master's Degree in Biochemistry from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. and a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry from CSUF in Fresno. She is a full-time mother of two boys ages 6 and 5 and finds running the Children's Church at the Positive Living Center in Oahhurst, CA very rewarding. The thing she loves to do most is to encourage people as they pursue a spiritual path. She is truly thankful for this opportunity to share her ideas and hopes that they bring more love, peace, and inspire interesting conversations.