Love: Pellucid and Lucid.
“Love is not a feeling, Love is an action. Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action.”
― The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
I would like to share one of my startled moments during the love class. The moment where I came across the above lines which gave me goosebumps in my mind. Never thought love could actually mean something so beyond than being selfless and sacrificing in nature, on the contrary, according to Peck, love is what ensures spiritual growth of our own self and our partner, antithetical to what is mentioned in literature and movies which I knew is sugary but couldn’t fathom what else could it be and then finally the above statement made all the sense to me in this world!
The word cathexis was originated by Sigmund Freud. It’s defined as the investment of emotional energy into an object or a person, often to an extent that’s unhealthy. Think of it like a romantic obsession or overdose of sexual desire. Peck says cathexis happens when we intently focus on the “falling in love” aspect of a relationship that often happens early on. As a consequence, our love might burn with a bright flame, but soon fizzle into sparks before extinguishing altogether. To prevent this, he suggests we think of love as an action, not a feeling. If our love is genuine, it won’t require lots of feelings at all, since it’s much bigger than cathexis. I couldn’t agree more with him on this.
Thank You Vardan Sir and Ankita Ma’am for introducing us to love classes and this book. And perhaps, writing this post makes me realize yet another cherish-able year came to an end with so many beautiful learnings! I would like to express my gratitude to my love class team for sharing the same joy, for being so open-minded and not judging anyone for that matter, for carrying all the trust and love and for being so supportive. It was a pleasure to be a part of this batch. I cannot thank enough to my facilitators – Bhumika Ma’am and Ritu Ma’am for bringing in life to our classes, to share the bond no less, for being the lighthouse of our effervescent journey and for the scrumptious chocolate cake! 🙂