I faced my first heart break at the age of five, when my mother sent me to my grandmother in the countryside (for what felt like a decade but was only 6 months or so long). I cried the whole way. I don’t remember her reaching out to me to connect. She later said she invited my grandmother to the dissertation defense… but not me… I remember that since that summer I started calling my grandmother “MOM” and when I finally went back to my home in the city, seeing my mother I asked her “Who Are YOU?”… She answered of course “I am your mother”. I pointed towards my grandmother and said – “NO, THIS is my mother!!!”

You’d say this is normal, as kids play games like this. But the reality is I continued to call my grandmother my mother until her death. She was also the first person to meet my husband, when we travelled from US to Europe, so he can visit.

The next two heart breaks were just as dramatic and long-standing, and they imprinted deeply my relationships with girlfriends and boyfriends.

I met my first true girlfriend at age 7 in school and by age 8 we were separated. I felt such deep trust, flow and energy connection with her that I was traumatized when this was gone, as I changed a school and then I’d only see her in parties, where it felt she was distant, and the connection had vanished as if it was never there. I was traumatized and frozen in my grief for years…

The next rift was as a teenager, when I had a (shared) crush on a beautiful young man, who I met during summer vacation. I met him in a pool, where he was already surrounded by a flock of beautiful women.  While I was both drawn to him, I also felt repulsed by all the women who were flocking to him… he came to me, and we had the most magical two weeks together. He had to leave, since his grandfather was sick and he promised he will write, but I never got a letter. I felt betrayed Decades later I learned that my mother, who liked him a lot at the time, had destroyed his letters, since my father scolded her… At the time, we lived in a communist country, so he was ‘dangerous’. If someone has found our correspondence, my father, who worked in the military could have been in trouble, and thus the whole family…

But when I asked my mother why in all these instances, she just watched me and she never connected with me and explained the facts of life, she said she thought I’d get over all of these situations… Oh, yes, I did… after such deep suffering, I had made a commitment that I would never go through that again. I CLOSED MY HEART for both friendships and love! And this continued for years on end. Of course, I had friendships and I married, however, over the next more than a decade, I was never open, flowing, loving, trusting and vulnerable. I was guarded, locked deeply and holding to my commitment to protect my vulnerable heart, with my deer life!

Long story short, I dropped all my high school girlfriends (since they betrayed aspects of my trust), I married and divorced (since my husband was demanding intimacy, when he was guarded) and I had a major breakup with my dear girlfriend of almost a decade (since she wasn’t sensitive enough to what I was going through at a key point on my journey) … I also felt men were not trustworthy, as they couldn’t be relied on for what they said they’d do… Do you see a PATTERN? I was going in hellish circles. Watch the words and the patterns behind my story… I was living in the same nightmare of self protection, while longing for love, I was cutting everybody out, I wasn’t vulnerable, trusting and open myself.

But WHAT is love? And how do we get to that flow, connection, vulnerability, intimacy that we all yearn for? How do we meet the other from a space of heart opening and presence?

This was my lifepath, for me to learn and then to share and teach later… The quest for love was set very early and the longing was there… But first I had to burn in it for decades…

LOVE, the eternal quest to be seen, heard, understood, embraced, be present with (loved) “through thick and thin”, unconditionally held, fully available for when needed, trusted, basically the search to become the center of another person’s life. This is what we traditionally yearn for. (And a lot more at different stages of our life…) But… do we ask, how does that happen and why ME? Why would anybody choose ME from the 7 billion people on earth? And how do I CHOSE somebody? Do I choose them when they have met all these unspoken prerequisites (needs) of mine? Aha! I don’t think we come to these questions unless we have crashed and burned multiple times. I don’t think we even start looking truly into what ACTUALLY LOVE IS, until we have tried and messed up multiple times.

BUT WHAT is love indeed? Is it a feeling? Is it an action? Is it an emotion? Is it a behavior?

Have you asked yourself, why sometimes I feel loved and sometimes I don’t? Why sometimes I feel loving and other times I don’t? What is the difference? How am I different and how is the other person different in these cases? We are largely unaware of where our experience comes from and what swings it and fuels it. (Note: And I am talking from experience, observation and multiple discussion with my partner, closed intimate friends, and my students (plus reading, self reflection and tons of learning, practice, integration, and teaching of various aspects of meditation, mindfulness, energy work and energy medicine through various modalities, trauma, inner child and shadow work, tantra, Daoism and desire mapping and integration, gratitude, presence, and much more))

I will say something very disputable and controversial here. It doesn’t matter what we say and do, as long as our energy and state is loving, and we are present. This is first and foremost. Then whatever we do or say is from a space of love. We can say (and I have said) very difficult things, but because I have been present and aware, the only way I could say them were in a caring manner. I could not do anything else. Thus, the other person was open to hear and wasn’t hurt. And this is the only truth about love. In fact, this is what love is. Love is an ENERGY FIELD, which comes out of presence and being heart centered. Then, whatever we do and say from this space, will be loving. Usually, we judge and get impacted by the actions, but they are just a symptom of the state the other person is. Largely, this is a state of unawareness, where they are not present and are driven by their own past and patterns (often just as hellish as our own).

But how do we access this ENERGY FIELD? How do we become loving? Again, there is no ‘becoming’ loving. It is not an action we can take. All actions, words (and thoughts) are secondary to our state of being. When we are present, we are naturally caring and connected. We are connected to ourselves, thus we can (and are) connected to anybody with whom we communicated or interact with. So, we are in a state of BEING LOVE!

And this is TRUE LOVE. True love is not some sappy “chick flick’ fast food substitute of love, it isn’t holding hands while walking on the beach or sending sweet Valentine’s Day cards, messages and gifts, not endless kissing under the mistletoe, not happily ever after starting with a flashy wedding in a beautiful dress in exotic location, or passionate sex in front of the fireplace. Although TRUE LOVE includes all of these, they are the consequences, not the indicators of it…

Curious what are your thoughts on true love! 🙂

With Love,

Milena Devi