The Illusion of Love

The Illusion of Love

My job is reading tarot.

Every week I see scores of people coming for a fifteen minute reading, looking to me for answers about their life. As I listen intently to people’s questions or stories, I am reminded of my own past, mostly dramatic and in search of meaning.

One woman distraught can come see me and a few weeks later she is in love and happy only to be 3 months later single and distraught again. I have some women coming to me with a look of desperation asking me “Is this ‘the one’?’ and others that are so bored with their marriages and looking for a way out. Some women do come to me that are very happy in their marriages and yet want to enquire perhaps about their future and what direction they are going.

One could say, if a person comes to a tarot reader, they are in need of some answers. For a few, they come to me for entertainment and others that lie in the skeptic category that want to prove me wrong! In all of these wonderful people that come to me, there is one common strand, we all want self acceptance and love in our lives.

It seems to me that the ‘love of self’ is forgotten these days by the pressures of modern day life. Social media can create our identity but is this really who we are? WE are busy relating to others but what about relating to our Self ? Self, the precious realm of spirit that we each have within us seems to be ignored. When do we connect with our true identity? Most are too busy doing and becoming to be appreciating our existence and innate nature of Being.

To gain the love of a man is the driving force for most women that come to see me. They think that when they find the ‘special one’ they will be happy. God knows, I was like them for years. Yet after so many attempts I realized the missing component – I didn’t love myself. I mean I liked myself but I didn’t completely think I could be happy without a man. It seemed unnatural that I would put the love of myself before finding Prince Charming. I thought that HE would make me happy, give me what I want. When all along, I had it inside of all I needed to love.

To return to love is not easy. It goes against most of todays social norms. Dropping to do and to be is a constant task. It takes vigilance and daily effort. Kindness and compassion for ‘me first’ is not a selfish act. Once a woman realizes that it is never a man that will fill in all the holes or connect all the dots to create the perfect picture, she is on the path to her own freedom. The picture is an illusion until it becomes coloured by the paints of your own heart. The paints are created by forgiveness, self-hugs, tenderness, amends, right diet, meditating, having fun on your own, loving your own company, accepting yourself exactly as you are and being here and now. Nowhere to go, nothing to become. It just is. I am. The Self feels complete and whole just by totally surrendering to the now.

If most of my clients would relax and love themselves, I am sure they would find what they want- not a man but their own self-love. This does not mean that a woman has to be celibate but it will somehow erase the strong pattern within ’that a man will make me happy’. If one worked on self-love more than getting a guy, I am 100% sure there would be a great reduction in divorce rates and more real relating.

Love is not out there but IN HERE (as I point to my heart).