Overcoming Fallacy #2: "Love MUST Be Painful;" Why We Use Blocks

Going into this post, I fear becoming one of those nauseatingly sappy guys I want to kick in the balls just to see if they have any (though I'm sure several of you already consider me there and probably not just from this blog).

To recap my last post: just short of two years ago, I realized my belief that no one I would want would want me back was a complete lie and fallacy, particularly pertaining to love interest. A few months later, I came across the book Remembering Wholeness by Carol Tuttle, which rightfully taught that our beliefs create our experiences.

In approximately my eighth week of The Artist's Way, intensely in full-swing of the course, I uncovered yet another love block, which seemed to play off of, and go hand-in-hand with, my previous one. I believed love MUST be painful or else it isn't real, making me often feel that love is a joke. I was frightened to pursue love. Still, I wanted it, like anyone else. I believed this about love, but didn't want to.

Part of this came forward from watching the television show Married at First Sight and dreaming of the day when I, too, could argue in a kitchen with my beloved and just be sick at the very thought and presence of them. It felt energizing. It felt alive. It felt...less than what I thought I should aspire to, even if it made me feel a part of everyone else. I mentally played with and analyzed my perceived concepts of married life. As things occurred to me, I explored them in my stream-of-conscious morning pages:

(August 31, 2014) "I don't like to talk about hard topics with [Spock]...It doesn't always feel safe but almost feels more painful. I think [Spock] loves painfully. [Spock] makes love hurt. It hurts to love. I think I've picked that up from [Spock]...without realizing it. It's like being afraid to love always because of the anticipation of the hurt that will come. Is that what life has taught [Spock]? If you love you will find hurt? What a fallacy and bad lesson. To love is to find joy and celebration. It must be this way...It's not just romantic love. It's all love. But I think I've mostly translated it into romantic love and family -- that if I love them, it means to hurt and be hurt by [them]...How do you work through...conception passed on to you?...I feel like this is huge!...Other forms of familial and romantic love I've seen are always gripey and short-tempered -- another form of saying love is pain. Love is pain! No, it's not...Pain is a warning. Not a result or plea bargain. Pain should not be the result of love, unless there is something to be fixed. Sometimes that [which needs] fixing, I think, is simply our attitude. But whatever it is, it must be addressed. We have felt the warning. We should listen to it and make appropriate changes. Do not live in pain! Life is not meant to live painfully.

 (September 1, 2014) "I believe it was learned observationally. I don't know if [Spock] believes [it]. I think [Spock has] lived it but doesn't completely believe it. It's like 'love is a joke' for me. I don't really believe...it's what I've observed and sometimes felt. Still, it hasn't prevented love being painful to transfer to me...I think I need to explore what I believe love to be...Love is a gentle feeling of admiration, safety, and respect. It lifts us up when we're down. It holds us together when the road gets rough, when we need a home. The relationship must also have grounding and a partner consideration and ability to work together as a team and business. It is the joining of [life] managements between two people. Pick someone you'd like to manage [life] with. It then grows into the management and raising of children -- more people. Pick someone who can enjoy and do that. Love is busy, but it must be maintained. Love is hard work, but it brings great joy. Love is healthy. Love is what we're after. Others' mistakes do not determine my destiny. Love is desirable and possible.

(October 13, 2014) "[Love] is not a display of pain, or expectation to be driven and pulled through pain, to prove worthy your love."

Love is not pain.

An excerpt from Remembering Wholeness (250), in which
Carol Tuttle mentions the belief that love is painful as one of
ten lies we think are love. Interestingly, I haven't gotten to
this part of the book, yet, but came across it only a few weeks
ago when curiously browsing ahead. Of it, for me, I wouldn't
say I attracted people who created a lot of pain, except
possibly the most painful one. My experience of pain was
mostly internally created and self-inflicted. Of course, there's
no telling what was truly going on inside for any of them.

Nevertheless, I feel the belief of painful love laid underneath my first, broken, belief. It probably helped control and maneuver some of my "dating" actions. In fact, I can think of several occasions, a few VERY BIG self-sabotages, when I did things to make love painful for myself. I did it to myself! Honestly. There were things in my love experience that I take responsibility for having done to make love painful, because I believed love had to be proven through pain to show how real it was. There was no happiness or sweetness in mind. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I set out to create pain for myself, which was actually quite traumatizing. At the same time, much of this, I see, was brought on from lack of self-management due to youthful naivety. Still, I created a life experience that co-existed with my beliefs.

Painful love is also mentioned by author Julia Cameron in the chapter for week ten (September 8-14 for me) of The Artist's Way:

"Painful love places creative choices outside their hands. Reaching for the painful thought, they become instant victims rather than feel their own considerable power. 'If only he or she would love me...' ...Now, note carefully that food, work, and sex are all good in themselves. It is the abuse of them that makes them creativity issues...We begin to sense our real potential and the wide range of possibilities open to us. That scares us. So we all reach for blocks to slow our growth. If we are honest with ourselves, we all know which blocks are the toxic ones for us. Clue: this is the block we defend as our right" (164). 

While Julia is talking more specifically about creativity, the blocks, of course, can relate to anyone's life, as the way we live (in whatever profession we choose) is an expression of our individual creativity. (As in, any use of "creative" or "creativity" in these quotes can be replaced with "life").

So, why do we resort to these blocks? Julia claims, "To alleviate fear. We turn to our drug of choice to block our creativity whenever we experience the anxiety of our inner emptiness. It is always fear -- often disguised but always there -- that leads us into grabbing for a block" (165).

I can very much see where fear and victimization were at play in my life, love or otherwise -- the love fear of having what I observed from others or having worse than what I observed; and the love fear of having something greater than what I observed (and then to transcend the previous realities that led to some of my hard-held beliefs; fear of an unknown, though it might be greater and wonderful). I was scared of "the wide range of possibilities." As a victim, I could deem myself immobile and irresponsible, as well as a martyr for true love, agonizing my way through the pain for the greater good, and in the name of love, to earn my stripes. Yuck!

A brilliant expression of fallacies of love. These confessional lyrics are an example of painful love and self-lies.

I do believe love can bring moments of pain and disappointment, for, to truly love, you must have a vulnerability and openness to that person (or object of affection). People are fallible and will make mistakes -- perhaps completely screw up. Every couple is going to face disagreements and sacrifices that will be met with compromise or frustration, but that will depend on the willingness of both, or all, people involved and their manner of communication.

But love is not pain. It does not mean to go about in agony from a constant broken heart in perpetual mourning and frustration. It isn't to go into a relationship expecting to get hurt. Yes, it may happen. But it isn't to create that hurt for yourself out of expectation or belief. To love is to live. And to live is to strive -- even in set backs -- not to settle in to something broken. And in that I think is the key. That and self-love and -respect. That is my true belief.

An incredibly insightful mini-healing session that explores several different blocks to love/dating.
The heart thing reminded me of that time unintentionally I drew a heart.