Do you agree that Love can Make or Break you?

 I typed the word LOVE in the search engine and many varying definitions popped up.

Including describing love as a set of complex emotions, to having (and developing) strong feelings for another person to many other things.

But a simple definition, in my opinion, would be—Love is a beautiful emotion that also has the power to make you or worst case scenario—break you.

Setting out with this definition, I wanted to explore what happens to us when we are IN and OUT of love.

What do you do when you are in Love?

That whole process is meant to be a chance for self-expansion, integrating, merging your likes, sharing your life, etc. Therefore it is inevitable that you do invest quite a bit or even a lot of yourself in it.

Here is what I do

My recipe is showering that person with attention, a whole lot of it and tons of care. Spending time with each other and as much as I can. Followed by getting to know the likes and dislikes of the other person concerned and adjusting my meter to suit their temperament.

Oh yes, getting dressed and putting my best foot forward are other bonuses/stuff I do when I am in that state of ‘stupor’ (I have named it after feeling that way).

Yes, literally, because I, like so many of us, do get drunk in that feeling and I do not shy away from making a complete fool of myself.

Well, love is an important aspect of our lives and I definitely want to indulge myself in it, so I just let go of myself and stay happy when I am in love.

So then what happens when things do not work out?

The obvious feeling is a sense of loss of just about everything—sharing, caring, and, so many other things that had become a part of your routine life.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that my life too does come to a standstill and I do the exact opposite of all that I did when in love.

I stop caring for myself, binge on anything and everything possible, including eating, working, watching, reading something which does use up much of my mental energy.

After weeks, months or a year, realization dawns upon me out of somewhere, and I try to collect the broken pieces, but by then, I have got into a routine of ‘indulging’ myself. Therefore I do not care and prefer staying in that ‘shattered zone’.

Take a moment and imagine the first me, stepping out in my best mental, emotional and physical ‘make-up.

Now imagine the second me, unkempt, pale, unfocused, moving about in a zombie-like state and no desire to do anything, but getting the very bare minimum things done to manage my life, including barely holding on to that job.

Why does this happen? Why do we lose sight of ourselves when out of love or after getting dumped?

Is it okay to lose our self-worth and let go of our self?

Can you image what will become of us if not for our self-worth?

Then why do we ‘allow’ ourselves to get shattered, broken and demolished?

Why can’t we show the same sentiments and excitement of love for our self?

Just turn all that you do for the other person inward and love yourself.

Yes, you will have to drag your heart away from wherever you lost or left it. Painful.

But you can do this and more.

Because I did it and won over and conquered my negative moments and days to get back on track to love myself a lot more.

I decided to move out of my ‘shattered zone’ and took charge of my being and life.

And here is how I did it.

·      I wake up to the sounds of my alarm followed by having a hot cup of tea. Quick shower followed by taking pains to get dressed (really well) and putting my best foot forward followed by taking the transit to work.

·      Complete focus on my job in hand followed by having my lunch and combining it with ‘me time’.

·      Come home, cook myself something fabulous (eating ice cream out of a fresh avocado is fabulous in my dictionary) and enjoy it while talking to family/friends or chatting with my next-door neighbour.

·      I try and exercise at home every evening after rustling up a meal every other day. Warm-ups, yoga, a bit of stretching and some weights if I am in the mood.

·      My favourite time is after dinner when I read or watch The Big Bang Theory while sipping a cup of tea and finally hit the sack.

·      Weekends and day off including personal days I like taking off from my work to just spend time with my thoughts and get in sync with myself.

·      I do this by taking a walk to the bookstores. (you can find me in Chapters) followed by sipping coffee at Starbucks next boor with a book or a magazine or an international newspaper I have purchased from the store. I just let the day pass by.  

·      I barely use my smartphone except for taking pictures for my Instagram posts.

‘CouchCity’ is not a good place to be in. Step outside of your home and feel the warmth in the look of the people around you in the coffee shop, bookstore or even the local grocery shop where you stopped by to pick up some grocery to make that beautiful meal for yourself.

In this roller-coaster journey of love, I discovered self-care is a very important part of my life. And, that I should never neglect it for anything or anybody.

Ranga Rajah

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Photo by Daniel Apodaca on Unsplash
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