Monday, September 10, 2007 at 2:02am
Do you love me?
Column: Love, God and Sex
My favorite scene in "Fiddler on the Roof" comes toward the end of the movie. Tevye the Milkman is adjusting to the idea that people can marry for love. Tevye and his wife of 25 years, Golda, were married in the traditional way: Their union was arranged by a matchmaker. After Tevye's three daughters all go off with spouses with whom they've fallen in love, Tevye asks Golda, in the form of song, "Do you love me?" Together they sing and reminisce about all they'd been through together. At the end of the song, Golda concludes, "I suppose I do." Together they chime, "It doesn't change a thing, but after 25 years, it's nice to know."
The great spiritual teacher Osho talks about how people don't know the meaning of the word "love." People say, "I love ice cream" or "I love golf." Then they turn to their lover and say, "I love you." Is loving your lover or spouse the same as loving golf or ice cream? Osho also talks about the difference between relating and relationship. Relating is a verb. Relationship is a noun. A relationship is a thing. It's stagnant. The purpose of relationship is to capture love, to be a solid, secure, safe and dependable thing. Relating, on the other hand, is fluid. When you meet someone new, you begin the process of discovery. In a way, it's like adjusting the knob of a radio when you're scanning for a frequency to find music that you connect to. Or it's like a dance, when you're adjusting to each other's rhythm. When you find the right frequency - say, you discover you both like the Rolling Stones or Vincent Van Gogh — you feel great and want to hold on to that feeling and so you enter into relationship.
Everything in the universe is subject to entropy. Entropy is the tendency of all systems to break down. Negative entropy is the term used for injecting energy into a system to prevent it from breaking down. Applying negative entropy to a relationship is the process of continuously relating to your spouse. That means being willing to allow for your spouse to change and grow and to always reveal new aspects of himself or herself to you.
When my first marriage ended, my ex said that I was no longer the woman he married. I wasn't. In the process of living, I changed. He couldn't relate to the "me" that was unfolding, and the "me" that was unfolding could no longer stay in the frame of his picture of me.
My second husband and I have never lost the ability to relate. We've never lost the ability to acknowledge each other's need to grow. The reason that we've successfully done that is that our spiritual connection to one another is primary. We met through the study of "A Course in Miracles," which teaches that your essence is the same as God's, as in the course's workbook lesson "Love created me like Itself." Our marriage has been the classroom of applying that credo. Applying the credo "Love created me like Itself" requires the consistent practice of prayer.
By praying, I mean going to your core whenever any conflict come up - and as we know, conflicts always come up. Sometimes they're small and sometimes they're huge, but conflicts surface. The key to solving conflicts is to turn to God in whatever way you understand God. All conflict involves fear at some level: fear of change, fear of loss, fear of "if I do this or if I don't do this, will he or she still love me?" So prayer confronts core fears. An interesting thing happens: When you confront your fears, you can then approach your spouse honestly and without defensiveness. You're no longer afraid to be who you are or what you're becoming.
More interestingly, sex gets better. It's as though the more honest you are with yourself and the less defensive you are with your spouse, the more your heart opens. The ability to surrender, which leads to the best sex, becomes easier when you're not afraid to express yourself completely.
Honesty with oneself is allowing all the layers of fear to be peeled away. The stripping away process can be fearful in itself: Without my defenses, who am I? And yet when you get to the core of an onion, is nothing there or is everything there? Without defenses, you can merge with the All, as in the old joke "What did the Buddha say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one with everything!"
The concept of love has gone through different incarnations since Tevye's times. From "Do You Love Me?" to "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" to the sentiment expressed in The Cure's "Lovesong":
"However far away I will always love you
However long I stay I will always love you
Whatever words I say I will always love you
I will always love you."
That kind of love comes from relating, growing, breathing, embracing change, being patient, opening, revealing, and allowing the beauty of being all of who you are and who your spouse is to emerge.
— — —
Dr. Sorah Dubitsky, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, teacher and healer. She conducts workshops and seminars on love, marriage, sexuality and spirituality as well as offers individual and couples counseling. She is also a fellow at Florida International University's Center for the Study of Spirituality. Her book "A Chorus of Wisdom" is available at Amazon.com and all major online and retail book outlets. Visit her website and her blog, Healing Relationships. Send an email to {email dr.sorah@drsorah.com}dr.sorah@drsorah.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Dr. Sorah Dubitsky.
The great spiritual teacher Osho talks about how people don't know the meaning of the word "love." People say, "I love ice cream" or "I love golf." Then they turn to their lover and say, "I love you." Is loving your lover or spouse the same as loving golf or ice cream? Osho also talks about the difference between relating and relationship. Relating is a verb. Relationship is a noun. A relationship is a thing. It's stagnant. The purpose of relationship is to capture love, to be a solid, secure, safe and dependable thing. Relating, on the other hand, is fluid. When you meet someone new, you begin the process of discovery. In a way, it's like adjusting the knob of a radio when you're scanning for a frequency to find music that you connect to. Or it's like a dance, when you're adjusting to each other's rhythm. When you find the right frequency - say, you discover you both like the Rolling Stones or Vincent Van Gogh — you feel great and want to hold on to that feeling and so you enter into relationship.
Everything in the universe is subject to entropy. Entropy is the tendency of all systems to break down. Negative entropy is the term used for injecting energy into a system to prevent it from breaking down. Applying negative entropy to a relationship is the process of continuously relating to your spouse. That means being willing to allow for your spouse to change and grow and to always reveal new aspects of himself or herself to you.
When my first marriage ended, my ex said that I was no longer the woman he married. I wasn't. In the process of living, I changed. He couldn't relate to the "me" that was unfolding, and the "me" that was unfolding could no longer stay in the frame of his picture of me.
My second husband and I have never lost the ability to relate. We've never lost the ability to acknowledge each other's need to grow. The reason that we've successfully done that is that our spiritual connection to one another is primary. We met through the study of "A Course in Miracles," which teaches that your essence is the same as God's, as in the course's workbook lesson "Love created me like Itself." Our marriage has been the classroom of applying that credo. Applying the credo "Love created me like Itself" requires the consistent practice of prayer.
By praying, I mean going to your core whenever any conflict come up - and as we know, conflicts always come up. Sometimes they're small and sometimes they're huge, but conflicts surface. The key to solving conflicts is to turn to God in whatever way you understand God. All conflict involves fear at some level: fear of change, fear of loss, fear of "if I do this or if I don't do this, will he or she still love me?" So prayer confronts core fears. An interesting thing happens: When you confront your fears, you can then approach your spouse honestly and without defensiveness. You're no longer afraid to be who you are or what you're becoming.
More interestingly, sex gets better. It's as though the more honest you are with yourself and the less defensive you are with your spouse, the more your heart opens. The ability to surrender, which leads to the best sex, becomes easier when you're not afraid to express yourself completely.
Honesty with oneself is allowing all the layers of fear to be peeled away. The stripping away process can be fearful in itself: Without my defenses, who am I? And yet when you get to the core of an onion, is nothing there or is everything there? Without defenses, you can merge with the All, as in the old joke "What did the Buddha say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one with everything!"
The concept of love has gone through different incarnations since Tevye's times. From "Do You Love Me?" to "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" to the sentiment expressed in The Cure's "Lovesong":
"However far away I will always love you
However long I stay I will always love you
Whatever words I say I will always love you
I will always love you."
That kind of love comes from relating, growing, breathing, embracing change, being patient, opening, revealing, and allowing the beauty of being all of who you are and who your spouse is to emerge.
— — —
Dr. Sorah Dubitsky, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, teacher and healer. She conducts workshops and seminars on love, marriage, sexuality and spirituality as well as offers individual and couples counseling. She is also a fellow at Florida International University's Center for the Study of Spirituality. Her book "A Chorus of Wisdom" is available at Amazon.com and all major online and retail book outlets. Visit her website and her blog, Healing Relationships. Send an email to {email dr.sorah@drsorah.com}dr.sorah@drsorah.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Dr. Sorah Dubitsky.