The Power of Love

It’s an amazing force of nature. It is a feeling that can come from within us, go all around us, go right through us, and tackle us too if we’re not careful. It can be a beautiful thing, but the power it can have can be overcoming at times. So intense that we don’t even realize it. And sometimes, that is the best thing for us! Love, it’s just so powerful.

Wouldn’t life be so much easier if we could describe our feelings of love to another? You can’t describe it, so why we try, I’m not sure, it’s entertaining to us in a sense! HA! We usually just find our self ending with, "Well, you can’t understand." And you know what, you’re right. I can’t understand your love. You’ll never understand my love. That’s okay. And honestly, it might be best that way. HA! Love, it’s just so powerful.

I may NEVER see what you see in “him.” You may NEVER see what “he” sees in “her.” What is “seen” in each case is what develops that “love.” Love, it’s just so powerful.

Love is a force. It’s a power that directs. It directs one to make decisions. One might make a decision to help another out of love. One might make a decision to tell someone "no" out of love. One might choose to share their opinion out of love. One might ask another to make a decision in a situation based on one’s love. Love, it’s just so powerful.

There’s the saying “Too much of a good thing can be bad.” How true is this? I don’t know. I don’t know a lot, but I can tell you one thing, too much power can make a king bad. Too much power can make a parent bad. Does it always? Nope. Can it? Sure. Can the power of love go bad? Sure. Does it always? No. So how can we tell when the power of love has gotten "bad?" I mean, love—Love, it’s just so powerful.

The power of love has gotten too powerful when ______________. Sorry, I don’t know the answer. I have no idea! BUT, this is a PERFECT example of what to expect in therapy when you go in with the expectation that the therapist is just going to TELL you what to do. That they are magically going to know all the answers and be able to “fix” your life for you. I don’t know all the answers. And I’m sure you have NO problem accepting that about me…HA! But what I do know is that through my experience, and listening to the stories I have listened to over the past semester in counseling, I can tell you this. Love, it’s just so powerful.

This is quite possibly the worst blog entry I have ever written. Blogs are funny. We as readers hold blogs to “standards” and we as writers hold blogs to “standards.” Tonight I am writing because I am just purging. I am purging thoughts and frustrations in my mind from a rough client session I had today. Nothing I have shared in this blog entry violates confidentiality with my client(s), nor will it as I continue. What it is however, is my drawn conclusions from working with the clients that I have that leads me to purge the thoughts to others to read and consider. In no way is this entry written for someone or someones specific. It is written for EVERYONE, myself included. I just want to end with some thoughts that will be purged in a manner that might not flow, might not seem pretty, might not meet any “standards,” but thoughts none the less that are based on my experiences. Because honestly—Love, it’s just so powerful.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard a client tell me how much she loved him, or how much he loved her, I could cover ALL the medical bills she has for each trip she made to the hospital following one of his beatings of her…

…it would cover the bills WITHOUT needing insurance coverage!

Do you realize how powerful love must be that it could make someone believe someone who beats them—no, not just a hit, but BEATS them—still believe that they love them? Can love have the power to distort how one views a situation? Is that possible? Love, it’s just so powerful.

“I didn’t love myself, but he loved me.” Aww…that’s so sweet. Maybe he will complete you now. Maybe if you get married and endure the beatings long enough, you’ll love yourself too. It’s worth a try, right? Distorted view? Nah. That’s simply how love works. We complete one another, right? If I get married I’ll surely feel better about myself. He’ll love me. I’ll love him. He promised he was going to stop drinking that alcohol anyways. I know when we’re married he’ll do it. He’ll do it for me. I mean we’ll love one another, you know. Love, it’s just so powerful.

OH, so the power of love only turns out “bad” when it is an abusive relationship…PHEW, I thought I had something to worry about. I’m okay then. This doesn’t include me...

...OH HONEY…JUST WAIT! Do you see the commonality throughout this entry? And no, it isn’t that I’m getting REALLY sarcastic the more I go at this…let me give a hint, LOVE, IT’S JUST SO POWERFUL.

In the experiences I have shared thus far, there is a commonality of abusive relationships. This is the type of client population that I’m working with at the current time. And these are the BEST types of situations to SEE the power that love really can take on. These examples show it CLEARLY to anyone NOT in an abusive relationship that the “love” was blinding the individual. It was distorting their thoughts. Distorting their perceptions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had clients do things they most likely would have never done before had it not been for the “love” they were so involved with. We can lie to our friends. We can lie to the world. We can lie to our self. Oh BOY can we lie to our self. We tell our self we will never settle. We are telling our self we will only marry the guy who will let us remain the Executive Director at our job, even though it means I am making more money than him. And next thing we know, a mere month later we have given our two-weeks notice and plan to have this guys 5 kids and be a stay home mom. Settling? No, we are in LOVE! This guy is WONDERFUL! We love one another. We ARE “the one’s” for one another. Love, it’s just so powerful.

Is this a good place to share about the clients who gave up what they had going for them to be with a guy who was “the one” who didn’t turn out to be that guy after all?

Do you know what the common theme “feeling” I’m running into with clients is? Guilt. It is guilt that one experiences when they allow the power of love to guide all their decisions and then they find out later that it was distorting their views all along the way. Love, it’s just so powerful.

Sometimes we need to stop and make sure we are not having our thoughts and perceptions be distorted. Do you truly believe someone else can “complete you,” if you do not feel “complete” on your own? Do you really think someone else can make you love yourself? Do you really think someone will change how they are because you marry them? "Love" will answer “yes” to all of those because, Love, it’s just so powerful…BUT…

…we must find the power from within US to guide the love.

My supervisor told me this today. We were discussing how does one tell when a feeling is enough. How do you tell if you are “mad enough” for what happened? How do you tell if you have been “sad enough” for what happened? When does a feeling get to a point that it is excessive. My supervisor said this—she said "when you feel that you are no longer driving the feeling, but that the feeling is driving you, THAT is when the feeling has gotten excessive. When the feeling is driving your life."

So when has the power of love gotten TOO powerful? I don’t know, but I can sleep at night knowing that if I feel I am driving my love in my life—the love I express and the love I allow myself to feel—and I don’t feel that it is driving me, I believe I will remain in control of my thoughts and my perceptions. I can rest assured that whether I run into disagreement based on my decisions made out of love or not, I know I made the decision(s), not that the love made it for me. Because you know, it can be scary. Love that is. It’s just so powerful!