Romantic Love and Your Soul

Romantic love has a purpose, an enormous purpose. Its task is to free you from the bubble of practicality and ordinary busyness, to reveal the fact that you have a soul and that life is far more mysterious than you imagined it to be. –Thomas Moore, The Dark Nights of the Soul

You can’t stop thinking of her, wanting to be with her, fantasizing about a life with her. You’ve always considered yourself a very practical person, but, now, it’s all flowers, holding hands, long meaningful conversations, and breathless anticipation for your next date. And you never want to hang up when she is on the phone. What’s up with that?

Your emotions are all over the map for him. He is the sun, moon, and stars of your universe. But you have been deeply wounded in the past and don’t want to go through that again. Do you throw open that final door to her: the one that opens up the deepest part of your heart? “Yes! I know it’s risky and maybe even irrational but love transcends the rationale of every day decision-making. Love has its own reasons.” You burst out laughing at yourself and open that last door.

Mesdames et Messieurs, your soul bids you welcome!

Romantic love is one of the chief means for introducing you to the fact that life is about more than analyzing and utilizing, goals and strategies, food and clothing. This love opens you to the mystery of your soul. Rather than organizing your life solely around “what’s practical,” you now begin arranging your life according to what and who is feeding your soul, as well: what expresses your soul’s deepest needs and desires.

          When you are in love you become aware of your soul’s needs and longings: a new reality that, up until love came along, you either ignored or ran from. It is this love that causes you to break the chains of ordinariness and practicality, so that you can live with “imagination and emotion.” (Moore) In other words, it is Romantic Love that leads you to stop living solely out of your head and begin paying attention to your soul.

            Romantic love cannot be treated like a chemical to be analyzed. Love is not a mathematical formula or a syllogism. Love transcends logic and reasons, practicalities and feasibilities. Love has its own rationale, its own way of being in the world. As love flows from the soul, this stands to reason, as the soul is as mysterious as love itself.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2013