Awake Awareness

How aware and awake are you? Perhaps you could describe your daily activities, mention your name, profession, likes and dislikes, etc. Maybe you can share what you had for dinner the previous evening.
Is this awareness? Is this being awake? Do you know why you ate what you ate? While you were eating, what were you thinking about? Why?

There is a slim line between the performance of activities and actually performing an act without being pre-programmed to do that. You may be listening to the same radio station each day on your way to work. You just dial the station and let yourself hear what is being broadcast. Do you question what you hear? Or has the habit of hearing it, solidified it as true.

Something to ask yourself - why do we need to hear/know what celebrity wore on the red carpet? Why do we need to see commercials based either on fear or arousal tactics?
How do you respond when you encounter these? Do you automatically react, or do you choose to act despite what someone or something is trying to evoke within you?
Ask yourself- why did I just do this? Why did I just have these specific thoughts, and how aware am I while all of these other things are taking place around me (and inside of me).

Love

It is the day after Valentine's Day- the commercial version of love.
There are different versions of love: Phila, Eros and Agape.  The first one is the kind of love experienced towards coaches, mentors, friends or family. The second one is the so called romantic love. It is shared between couples who are connected intimately. And the last but not least, is the universal love or god given like love you can feel towards others and creation.

Valentine's Day targets the second kind of love. Yet, true love can represent a blend of all of these. Over time, what started as an infatuation can turn into a long lasting relationship and a friendship. And, when you honor your beloved, you can also experience moments of Agape.  Nothing in the universe is stagnant. So, a relationship and the love that sustains it also changes over time.

In a real loving relationship, each partner respects the personal space of the other as well as his personality. When one of the partners starts to change the other by telling them what to wear, what to eat, what to do with their time,etc. ownership had crept in.  What may had led the two partners together could have been the subconscious projection of their ideal self onto the other. Instead of discovering what the other person is really like, the individual is imagining that their own qualities that they posses are those of their beloved. Over time, as the infatuation weans off, disregard for their partner can start manifesting under different forms.

Can a romantic symbiosis exist within a couple that had been together for many years? Yes! It is possible as long as the two partners do not become enmeshed or try to change one another. After all, real love is not the love of self  (that would be narcissism) but the love of the other as that person is!