Love - Guest Post

I am so pleased to welcome to Veronika Sophia Robinson from The Mother Magazine,  joining us on this month's theme of 'Love'. Veronika's work on this beautiful publication inspires parents and families around the world to live and parent consciously and honestly.  Veronika is offering three free subscriptions to this gorgeous publication - Don't forget to enter to win one for yourself or a friend!  (three gift subscriptions)

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Love by Veronika Sophia Robinson from The Mother Magazine

If we fully bonded with our baby at birth, the instinct to love and protect will be so strong that nothing can break it. Nature ordained that we’d have hormones on our side which would allow this to happen (She, unfortunately, hadn’t counted on modern-day obstetrics to get in the way!). Imagine, though, if the love hormone ~ oxytocin ~ which promotes the mother-child bond was also used to full advantage in our marital relationships? Imagine a partnership where the drive to love, protect and nurture was so strong that nothing could break it. Am I talking fairy tales? I don’t think so.

Many people stay in relationships long after the use-by-date, and say they do so for the sake of the children. It’s noble, but it doesn’t feel entirely honest to me. Our children learn about marriage through us. If our relationship consists of sniping, nitpicking, sarcasm and ongoing fighting (or just plain cold war emptiness), is THAT the gift to model to our children? Is this what we want them to recreate in their own marriages?

When you create a child with another human being you are ALWAYS in a relationship with them ~ whether you’re living happily ever after or divorced or the partner is deceased or geographically apart. The gift you give your child is how you speak about their other parent. A child will never ever feel good and whole about themselves if you are hell-bent on destroying the person who contributed to half of their existence. You might think that you’re parenting consciously, for example, choosing a non-vaccinating, vegan, home educating lifestyle for your child, but if you are constantly undermining, belittling or attacking her father then that poison will be far more deadly than any vaccine; chemically-covered carrot; or mainstream institution.

Recently I found myself pondering the true meaning of spirituality…and always I came back to the word compassion. You can have a PhD in metaphysics, or meditate at sunrise, but are you compassionate? How compassionate are you towards your life partner (or ex partner)? We are all wounded children at heart, walking around in big bodies. When we can remember this then our approach to fellow human beings will change.

Compassion and love are intricately linked. Compassion allows us to feel another’s pain, and every other feeling or experience. And this can only happen when we feel at one with another. This is the true meaning of love. Love joins. Fear separates.

There aren’t many mentors in this world who model ‘healthy love’. This is evident in the oft-quoted saying: “every marriage is difficult/has fighting” and variations on that theme. This is simply not true. It might be common, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all truth.

A few weeks (literally) before I met my husband-to-be almost 17 years ago, I wrote a list of what I wanted in my ‘ideal’ man.
* spiritually compatible
* good sense of humour
* someone who’d sing to me
* vegetarian
* kind and gentle

The original list was much longer than this, but I remember these being my top five. Turns out the Universe sent ‘him’ to where I was working: a school of metaphysics. He made, and still makes, me laugh one hundred times a day. He not only sings to me, but to audiences. Turns out he’s a professional singer. And what does he eat? Plants! As for kindness, he’s one of the kindest men on the planet.

I believe it’s important to be clear about what truly matters to us in a relationship, and the traits we’re looking for in another. To do so makes our choices conscious. If the Universe sent me a tone-deaf, depressed, violent, atheist carnivore and I said ‘yes’, then I wouldn’t have been true to myself ~ or to him. Yet, so many people say yes to someone who wouldn’t be on their ‘list’ if they’d thought consciously about relationship. What if you’re already in a relationship with someone and may be she or he doesn’t resemble someone on your ‘list’? If you’re committed to the relationship, then write a list of what is important to you about marriage/commitment/relationships. Let that be your focus. Don’t look at what’s missing, but at what you can, together, create. The sad truth is that many people don’t even know what they want in a relationship.

I need to be very clear. I’m not one of the ‘lucky’ ones (though I do indeed consider myself lucky!) because I found a Mr Right. I believe I created him into my life (“sung him to me”, as the Australian aboriginals would say), and he sung me into his life. We both knew what we were looking for. Not long before this meeting, I had believed “all men were bastards”. It was my mantra. This had been my experience (my story) and I was sticking to it…but you know, we can’t make changes unless we’re prepared to let go of the story and write a new script. I had to change that belief and to trust that there were good men who walked the planet.

Veronika Sophia Robinson is happily married, and together with her husband Paul, they edit The Mother Magazine.They have two unschooled teenage daughters, three charming cats, and live at the edge of small village in rural Cumbria. Veronika is also the author of several parenting books. www.themothermagazine.co.uk