Disclaimer: This is kind of personal but I am sure people can relate, and I felt a desire to share because it was shared with me and made a pretty deep impact.

I was having a conversation with a client today about love, dating, marriage, divorce, etc. He was telling me that on the third date with his now ex wife, he knew they weren’t meant to be together. This, of course, made my brain light up as I have been going through a break up with a similar feeling right from the get go. So I inquired as to why he stayed with her for so many years. His response: “I loved her.” Simple. We think love is the most important thing; that intense, deep, burning love you (hopefully) feel for the person you share your life with. That deep love is the love of the unconscious. But what do we do when our conscious self knows that the person we are with is not right for us, just like my client knew at the third date, yet love takes over and blinds you? Love is blind after all, right?

For the last 9 months I have loved someone with my whole heart and I don’t fall in love. I have been in love twice in my entire life and I am 27 years old. For me to fall in love takes a person out of this world. I honestly don’t have words to describe it and I don’t feel like trying. I think it just comes down to a feeling…that intense, deep, burning passion…that person you don’t want to live without. 

From Meet Joe Black:

William Parrish: I know it’s a cornball thing, but love is passion. Obsession. Someone you can’t live without. I say fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy, and who’ll love you the same way back. How do you you find ’em? Well, you forget your head and you listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Because the truth is, honey, there’s no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven’t lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.

A girlfriend sent me that when my boyfriend and I broke up recently. I cried when I read that because I realized that although I loved him like that, I did not get the same love in return and it killed me. To love someone like that and not get it back is the biggest let down and leaves the biggest hole in the heart…at least for me. 

I have known for a long time that he and I are not right for each other. My gut kept screaming at me to run as fast as I could, but my heart kept me holding on, and I did a lot longer than I should have. My gut is my conscious and my heart is my unconscious. My client explained that your conscious mind is your reasoning and your unconscious is your feeling. He said you may not always feel that intense passion towards someone like William Parrish told his daughter, but if that person is kind to you, treats you right and is a great companion that sometimes you may not need that deep passion, that unconscious, for it is that deep passion that can mask many things that your conscious is screaming at you. Two examples being you have that deep, crazy, burning passion for another but you are miserable because you are just not on the same path, you don’t get treated the way you feel you need to even though you’ve expressed what you need. Or you don’t have that deep passion (at least not right away) but the other person cares for you, tends to your needs, treats you the way you ask to be treated, understands and accepts things even when they don’t necessarily want to, simply because they love you. And you do the same. It may not be that burning love that pains the heart, but it is a sustainable love. The love that lasts forever because you are best friends. Love doesn’t fade when you find the right one. 

Although my gut was right all along, I am in a way very happy that I followed my heart. This person allowed me to love again. I felt love for another person for the first time in 4 years. I became unselfish, I learned how to cook because of him (honestly that was the real reason), I learned how to care about someone so intensely that I would do anything for that person. But in the end, it was my gut, my conscious mind that was right all along. But then I think, what if? What if I stick it out a little bit longer and my heart was right? What if it just took a little longer for him to come around, to understand me better, to love me like I love him? 

So I ask myself and you, do we love with our conscious or our unconscious?

One thing my client did add because it is possible…some people do get lucky enough to have both. I told him that I hope to someday be lucky enough.