Love is a Principle, Not a Feeling

Sometimes, common culture provides powerful reflections. So it is with this exchange between characters in the movie, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One:

“I swear your life will always matter more to me than my own.” (Ethan Hunt played by Tom Cruise to Grace played by Hayley Atwell)

“You don’t even know me,” replies Grace.

“What difference does that make?”

*****

Some years ago, I found myself in a primary relationship that was especially challenging. It was the source of many conversations with my long-time mentor, who I often affectionately call Master Samwise. For quite some time, those were largely fault finding, i.e. I focused on what was wrong with her.

Eventually, Sam asked me a key question. “Do you love her?”

“Of course! What the hell kind of a question is that?” I replied.

“Well, you know, love places no conditions on another.”

“Wait … what … but …” I countered.

“Ron, there are no buts. Love expects nothing of someone other than their well-being. Love means accepting them exactly as they are and exactly as they are not.”

That conversation was a transformational moment, an inflection point for spiritual growth and development. Once one takes the idea to heart, all we can see is all the ways we place conditions upon others, including ourselves, and even upon life itself. It sounds like this:

I will be okay when … (Fill in the blank with expectations of others)

In my recovery book, Progressive Recovery Through the Twelve Steps: Emotionally Sober for Life, there is an appendix entirely devoted to exploring our expectations. As they like to say in the rooms of recovery, “Every expectation is a disappointment or resentment in the making.”

That is now a bedrock principle in my practice. Any upset is cause for a good look at the expectations or conditions that set it into motion. The only questions that really matters are:

What are the barriers to love? What is it that we find unlovable?