Valentine’s Day is upon us. Restaurants are being booked. Lingerie is bought. Love is in the air. The shops are filled with pinky paraphernalia. Forced flowers look happy and colourful, at least for the day. I am not a great fan of Valentines or any Hallmark anniversary.

Last year I was lovelorn. The pining for a love just gone. I was in a state of yearning. I could not shake this love from my brain. I carried him around like a sparrow tapping at my conscience every minute or so it seemed.

This lasted until this Christmas just gone when we finally parted for good. Sadly, it was not healthy but neither of us seemed to be able to walk away. Though we never argued, we were bound by the same fears– fear of loving, fear of rejection and fear of abandonment. Fear is the opposite of love. Love conquers all, Fear destroys all.

Healthy love is bliss. Being in love is magic and sustaining this love is easy for some. For others reaching this place is difficult and painful. We seem to repeat the same mistakes over and over again and forget to look at ourselves. We continue to look out. Not in.

The infatuated, obsessional love appears to keep me hooked like no other and I find it very difficult to overcome the yearning I suffered in my heart. The excitement generated by a cocktail of emotions that fuel my veins can be chemically powerful. These emotions are fear-based. You have heard the saying ‘you always want what you can’t have’.

I discovered a book recently written by a monk from Glenstal Abbey. ‘Manikon Eros: Mad Crazy Love’ by Mark Patrick Hederman. This book is about ‘desire’. We are all creatures of Desire. He explains, learning how to love is learning how to be ourselves and love ourselves. Desire is what we are at our deepest. It is what makes our heart miss a beat. Without love we are nothing. Love for ourselves firstly is the essence of our being.

I have suffered because of addictive infatuated love. Sadly, addiction has crept into many areas of my life. This love is bound by obsession, just like any addiction. Even when the person shares the feelings, I do not trust or believe. This is something lacking in me.

Hederman states that ‘Addiction swamps and saps the energy of our more personal desire. It is a widespread panacea for anesthetizing this reality. Enslavement to nicotine, chemical substances, alcohol, work and many kinds of sexual and love addictions afflicts a much larger percentage of the planet than we would think.’

Addiction is a perfect distraction from looking at oneself. Often the addict will get cured from one addiction and switch to another. This is common in Love. We spend our time analyzing, pondering and obsessing over the character of our love. We forget to look at ourselves.

Addicts tend to be extremists. Always looking for the buzz, normal is boring so to speak. It’s difficult to overcome, but possible with awareness and patience. The spiritual journey can help but it is not for all of us.

Hederman suggests, ‘Be, don’t have. Be free to desire and not be a slave to need. To love means to let go’. He also suggests that we must no longer see ourselves as the focal point around which everything and everyone else is a possible possession. We must swap our natural physical place for a more real and metaphysical one. Becoming human is a process of rebirth. Being open to change is the first responsibility of any person suffering addiction to anything or anybody.

At least, I am no longer in that painful place of feeling lovelorn. I am neutral and happy. Who knows next year, I may be writing a different tune. But to be content alone is happy for me. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Manikon Eros: ‘Mad Crazy Love’ by Mark Patrick Hederman, Veritas Bookshop €2.00.