DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL by Thomas Moore.


WHY IS LOVE SO FRUSTRATING:

A woman named Amy told me recently of a man she has loved for many years at a considerable distance. He is the meaning of her life, and yet, she says, he can't express his emotions and can't satisfy her need for a real lover. She goes on with her active life, but all the love in her stays focused on him. Friends tell her that he will never be available to her, but she hangs on.

Amy remains stuck because she believes that her man is capable of opening up and he never does. As so often happens, there is a magnetic pull toward impasse. It's as though the soul wants to be stuck. It doesn't want success, and it doesn't want life to flow and move in. Friends and family don't understand this situation, because they are concerned about life, not soul. They want their children and their friends to be happy and to show signs of success in everything-family, work, and love. If they could look into the of their friend and child, they might understand that it's not time Yet for happy conclusions. The soul has its own timetable and its own needs. If those needs are not met, the stalemate may stretch out for a long while.

Amy talks about her frustrations in love as though they were completely external. She firmly believes that if the man she adores shows his love to her, everything will be fine. But I doubt that's the case. When love is stuck or frustrated, you have to look at yourself and your own part in it. Yes, it is very likely that your loved one is also stuck, and has a problem with love. But your impasse indicates that your imagination may have to broaden. You may have to look closely at the way you are living , because it is this life of yours that you are bringing to the unhappy relationship. You have to look at yourself, not just at the other, and you have to consider the whole of your life. Your love is not disconnected from all other dimensions of your daily experience.

Although it may seem obvious that love is all about getting people together to share a life, it is also, if not primarily, an introduction to further depths of the soul. You may never have meditated or contemplated before, but now you are forced to brood and think. You may never have felt so affected by your emotions, and now your emotions crowd out most other considerations. You may never have given yourself much to fantasy and daydream, but now that is your preoccupation. All of these developments show an increase in the activity of the deep soul.

Now, as the relationship develops, it can become, as Jung says, a container for the soul. As you change and as the relationship goes through many stages, you are introduced even further into the soul. If the relationship doesn't get far or has an unexpected ending, even then you may feel compelled to feel your emotions and rehearse your story again and again in a process that may sculpt out the space you need just to have a soul.

At this point, some couples reconnect, but often it takes a new relationship to build a mature form of love.

As the religious traditions say, love is the creative force, making out of your life and experience an articulated world, a life of meaning and sophistication. People who are experienced in love are at a different stage in development compared to those who have yet to go through this particular kind of initiation. Love fuels every dimension of life, and what looks like romance or relationship may be development of a more widespread passion for life. That is why our love initiations are crucial. If we can work them out, all of life can have erotic quality.

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