Love can be seen as a super power if you decide to embrace it as such. Though it may be dormant, it lies within each and every one of us, but like any tool, weapon or skill, it takes practice to learn how to wield it masterfully.
For instance, we have many tools that we can use when we feel like we’ve been attacked, treated badly or disrespected by another person. We can counter-attack, ignore and ban them, launch hate campaigns or we can choose to love them.
What if a friend betrays you?
You have a variety of tools you can select to deal with the betrayal. Anything you do in response to the betrayal will have a similar effect on you. At the outset defending yourself vehemently may make you feel justified or better during the counter-attack but most likely will have aftershocks of remorse, guilt, shame or sadness that could lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) similarities. On the other hand, you could respond with love.
What would the love response look like?
When choosing the love response it’s important to note that you are in no way condoning the actions of the other person. In its highest form, love does not require either an apology or forgiveness on your part. Love only requires you to initiate and launch the love rocket.
Launch Your Love Rocket
The love rocket soars high above the situation, explodes and showers its contents over everything. Try to see your situation from the aerial perspective of the love rocket, seeing you and your adversary as tiny dots on the landscape.
From this perspective you can see the person who betrayed you actually did you a favor by educating you as to his or her level of trustworthiness. As the love cascades down from the heavens, you can love yourself because you are good and you can also love the other person because he or she is equally as good as you. The more you look at this person from a perspective of loving yourself and him or her, you can’t help but wonder what the other person might be going through or what life experience has led them to the place where they felt they had to treat you like that?
Though you may see them now from an empathetic point of view, there is no cause for alarm, confrontation, explanation or intervention necessary. You simply accept that things are what they are as you allow this person the space they need to find their own way in the realization that we are all only doing the best we can with what we have.
You are an intelligent person, and now you know this particular person was not as trustworthy as you might have originally thought. You retain the education, are wiser for it and adjust your relationship accordingly.
While choosing to love might sound like self-martyrdom to someone who is more accustomed to fighting battles head-on in brutal combat, it is actually taking the high road that leads to peace and harmony.
It is not a sacrificial denial of self, if anything it’s just the opposite.
You love yourself enough to love others and protect yourself by reaching for your set of love tools to respond to any situation.
As you receive and retain the learning from others, you adjust your relationships accordingly.
What if I’m in an abusive relationship?
That doesn’t mean you need to love someone while they devastate you. It means you love them as you love yourself and leave them, putting the necessary distance between you so they cannot continue to do harm to you as you continue to love them from afar.