So What Did You Really Love?

So, What Did You Really Love?

Let’s say that you go to a restaurant.
This place advertises that it serves the best nachos on the East Coast.  It’s advertised in the menu, and it might even be on that little lighted board that they sometimes put out on the sidewalk to catch the eye of people passing by.  You may have had them there before, or known someone else who just raved about them!  Either way, you are smiling on your way in the door.
When you get to a table, you feel pretty good!  You’re *really* looking forward to this meal.   And when you’re in a mood this good, everything else in life just seems to line up too.  So you sit down, and order the nachos, the waiter says “Coming right up.”
But they don’t show.
So after thirty minutes or so, you might ask again about the status of your order.  And again the water apologizes and says, “Just a few more minutes.”  This goes on for the better part of two hours, and finally you ask to see a manager who tells you “Oh, sorry-you see, that was a special occasion, we don’t make those any more.  In fact, we fired the chef who did, and the owner has such a thing against that jerk that we will never ever serve nachos again just because they remind the owner of the chef he didn’t like.  Sorry-but if you had asked, we would have told you so it’s really your fault for wasting your own time so don’t go thinking that you’ll get any discounts on something else.”
If the restaurant does not offer you what you wanted, and is unwilling to work with you-what do you do?
Do you continue to sit there, hoping that SOMEDAY they *might* decide to serve them again because they used to do it?  Do you blame yourself for believing in something that was promised to you. Perhaps you think that if you had been a better person, they might have made them for you anyway?  You might sit there, remembering the time you had the nachos, and order something else; pay more-enjoy it less, and think that you were lucky to have had nachos once and you should settle for what you can get now.  Some people might grab the menu, point to all the things advertised and yell “YOU PROMISED!”  Maybe they think that will guilt the manager into producing the food.
But that’s really sad.
You want to get up and go to a place that promises what you want-and comes through with those promises right?
Why then, do we hold ourselves in relationships that no longer come through with what was promised in the beginning?
When you ask someone why they remain in a relationship like this, they are likely to say, “Why, because I’m in love!”
But that begs the question-if what you are in love with is no longer a part of the menu-or what was offered is not, in truth, available from the partner-or never was; then just what do you love now? (not then, but now?)

You love the illusion of what you were being offered.  You love the memories.
You loved the way you felt.
Sit down for this one-
You loved the WAY YOU FELT.
You loved your vision of them.

BUT YOU DO NOT LOVE THEM.

You wanted to be with them because you felt better about yourself when you were.

But now you no longer feel good about yourself.
So now what?

The key is to realize that feeling good about yourself has NOTHING to do with them.
What a partner may do, temporarily, is motivate you to connect more strongly with your Inner Be-ing and it’s that CONNECTION TO YOURSELF that makes you feel good. Returning to our poor friend at the table, what happens is that eventually the menu changes.  The person changes.  And you are left without access to your connection, sitting around waiting for something to change so you can get it back.
Realizing that what you once loved no longer exists is hard.  You feel like a fool.  You want to do *something*-anything-to get back to that good feeling place you were once in.
This is a hard truth for many to stomach-no pun intended.  But the truth is; the ONLY one responsible for your connection is YOU-and once you practice a little, you can make that connection yourself, BY YOURSELF, any time you want regardless of who is with, or not with you.  And via Universal laws, once you are able to Love yourself-you will see that love reflected back to you in the people around you.
To put it as clearly as I can (at the moment):
You do NOT fall in Love with people.  You encounter people who remind you to fall in Love with yourself. And if they no longer do that, let them eat cake.