DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL by Thomas Moore .

Chapter 6: Lovesickness.

Sub-paragraph- WALKING ON COALS


One curious aspect of lovesickness is its tendency to last long beyond its period of ripeness. People know that they are in a situation that is not good for them, and yet they let it go on and on, often for years. Even if they dont do anything actively, they expect the relationship to improve. Many cling to the security they have rather than risk it for a more vital but unpredictable relationship with someone else. But often people are just reluctant to end a relationship until it sheds its last drop of promise.

Some people put off the inevitable until they can stand it no longer. Then their resolve is clear and forceful. I had a client once who one morning was sitting at the breakfast table waiting for his wife to join him. Eventually she came down from the bedroom with her bags packed. That was the last he saw of her. Apparently the decisive moment had arrived for her, but he was devastated. Talking to him I was surprised to see a huge blind spot in him. He had no idea what his wife was going through. He assumed life was as simple and pleasing for her as it was for him.

It takes time for the soul, so deep and complex, to sort itself out and arrange itself for a decision. Myown way is to wait and wait until the apple of decision is about to fall on its own. No doubt, I am extreme in my patience and temporising. When I counsel others, I feel no rush. I feel it's important to gather oneself together before making a move. Many people make decisions just on the principle that you should do something. I'm afraid it may take a while for the soul to catch up with them.


Sub-paragraph - LURED INTO DARKNESS


After years of practicing psychotherapy with men and women of all ages, I am convinced that love is the most common source of our dark nights. It may be romantic love, it may be the love for a child. The lure is strong, but the darkness is intense. It is as though love always has two parts, or two sides, like the moon, a light one and a dark one. In all our loves we have little idea of what is going on and what is demanded of us. Love has little to do with the ego and is beyond understanding and control. It has its own reasons and its own indirect ways of getting what it wants.

Robert Burton, who lived in the time of Shakespeare, diagnoses love as a sickness and at one point suggests that it might be better to destroy it if you can. But to choose not to love is to decide to die. Everyone needs to love and be loved. You surrender, and then the spell descends and you get swept away by days and nights of fantasy, memory and longing, and a strange sensation of loss, perhaps the end of freedom and of a comfortable life. Even if you have had experiences of painful and unsuccessful love, you don't give up on it. The soul so hungers for love that you go after it, even if there is only the slightest chance of succeeding.
To be continued. . . . . . . . . .

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