Is it Love or Attachment?

It is up to our hearts and souls to guide us to longer-lasting relationships through the true expression of love.

Love is a complex and often misunderstood concept. It implies depth and layers of connection, understanding, joy and compassion. We use the word as though we understand it, but how often is there depth to what we mean? Attachment, on the other hand, is a bond that forms to satisfy the ego’s needs: survival, safety and security, whether physical or emotional. There is a tendency to muddle both connections and call it all love.

This muddle forms a large part of my dialogue with clients. As an intuitive counselor, I help people sort out the confusion, pain and guilt that results from misunderstandings between family members, friends, coworkers and romantic partners.

 “Why does my mother-in-law hate me? I haven’t done anything to her? Why is my best friend ghosting me on social media? When will I meet my soul mate? My twin flame? Why am I always attracting men who are wrong for me? I want to be loved. I am a good person. I deserve it.” The questions may sound similar, but the conversations in each scenario need to connect specifically to the individual with patience, understanding and compassion: Love in action. We all have separate beliefs, desires, fears, challenges, aspirations and history. And we all want to be understood and loved.

We all have desires that stem from the ego. It often gets a bum rap, but the ego has an important function. It is mainly responsible for the survival of our species. It helps us navigate the earth plane, which is why we are here in the first place. Through the ego, we learn to quickly distinguish between what feels safe and what does not—physically, mentally and emotionally. We learn what gives us pleasure and what gives us pain.

One downfall of depending upon the ego is that it is not a deep thinker. It tends to respond to immediate gratification—and that is where attachment arises. Attachment has no roots. It is not grounded. When we think attachment is love, we find it cannot withstand the turbulence of human interaction for long because it is self-centered—but that is the job of the ego. It is up to our hearts and souls to guide us to longer-lasting relationships through the true expression of love.

I believe that the deep longing for love comes from feeling separated from the most benevolent, loving Source, where all souls know themselves to be an equal part of the whole, loved, protected, understood and joyful. Each of us on Earth has chosen to experience the illusion that we are separate, and we learn step by step what it is to return to love from a struggle to survive and thrive on our own. It is only an illusion. We are watched over and protected, but since we have chosen this experience, our protectors are not allowed to make decisions. We have to ask for help.

In the deep recesses of our soul, we remember the beauty of our connection to the Source. We have a role model to learn how to understand and respect our needs, usually through challenges, and then we learn to understand and respect the different needs of others without shame, blame or guilt.

 That’s when we develop deep love for others; we love them the way they are, freely, with no strings. We accept them as they come to us: no manipulation or hidden expectations. We feel the peace, connection and joy that come from understanding and experiencing the path of others through our connection with them. Their challenges may not be our challenges, but we can gain understanding and develop compassion by learning from the perspectives of others.

For instance, when our relationship is as a caregiver or healer, our understanding can lead to identifying and potentially helping another resolve the root cause of their challenge. To truly help someone, we need to understand from the depth of love what has caused the situation so we can support them and guide them as they heal.

We are individuals, and we also are equals. We may disagree or dislike the words and actions of some, but a deep love of others enables us to honor everyone’s freedom to experience the wisdom gained from their own paths, whether we agree with them or not. It is not for us to condemn the soul who triggers us.

As we live with the profound principles of love, we feel the barriers to love dissolving. Our path becomes more straightforward. We feel joy in the small things around us. Peace enters with a calming stillness. We feel at one with all that is.