For all the frantic want I have seen and experienced, for all the gurus and sages who can “bring in” your soulmate, for every person who has used the word love very lightly, it never escapes my consciousness that love is a driving force of society. There are those what say one must “love themselves” first to love others. That’s not been true in my experience. I know plenty of people who don’t care about themselves much who love others, though the nature of their love may be unhealthy (IE, at the expense of their own well being, like loving an addict who controls your life), possessive (and full of anxiety), or controlling (used to feel better about yourself by molding another person into the one you want) .  Does it make it any less “love”?  Is there a way to “pull” love into your life? Is love really something you can control?

I have no easy answer to a giant question, I am wary of anyone who has too easy an answer,  but I do know I have experienced all of the above. I’ve been schooled by the biggest love gurus only to find that, personally, its too much of a chore and too inorganic to do lots of “stuff” with my mind, etc, to drum up my ideal love.  I have loved an addict.  I have been on the receiving end of the control equation, giving up lots of myself to be what someone else wanted me to be.

In the “modern school of love” didactic I have explored far and wide, and while I am neither a critic nor an expert in the field, I have found it all too far from real to me.  I’ve been to seminars. I have been a fly on the wall at  Love Addicts Anonomous with friends to see what they had to say.  I’ve been to the biggest “love psychologists” (One told me that my ex-boyfriend had a pedophile complex! Ew!!!) and I have danced around this giant issue with every color of interest and cynicism in turns.  I know for sure for myself that it is not possible to “manifest” someone in a forced way and “control” them and actually feel whole, vulnerable, alive, spacious and wonderful about the process or the relationship. If you think you are in control, if you think you have reached the ultimate attainment of love and you are simultaneously talking about another person in your life, well, I guess we love differently. The scariest part of love in my experience is that you can not control anyone else, ever, unless they are your young children who rely in part on your control as young children to survive.

There’s a Buddhist principle of impermanence that I get breathless even thinking about. Its the concept that everything in the entire world is fleeting. Even as you read this, we just lost a moment, and another. Impermanence can create great anxiety for people who believe in absolutes and seek the tangible from the intangible and strive for the certain.  Impermanance creates monumental beauty when you embrace it and find more in every situation and every moment.  We take for granted what we believe will last forever. Impermanence makes things very much happening in real time; real time is all that really matters.  Impermanence means there is only right now and every wonderful thing and person in your life should be enjoyed while you are with them in the best way possible. Impermanence makes everything possible,.

So, where to begin with your own love-cultivating feng shui ?

• Why not explore new ways to look at how secure you are in your own life and how much you are able to live in the now without control of anything?  If you want to dive in, you can work your way through  Feng Shui 101 my DIY feng shui guide and create a space that makes you feel more present, powerful and in flow in a personalized way. If you’d like to try a bit of experimenting before taking on your whole home, here are a few places to start…
• I have to say, homes do a good job of letting us know how open people are to sharing their lives.  THIS article on feng shui love red flags can give you a few clues as to where your partner or potential partner may be at in terms of even thinking about these concepts. This is not an absolute, but it’s never been wrong in my experience.
• Opennness is a good place to begin where loving even yourself is concerned!  HERE are some fun ways to nourish yourself in a way that helps you feel more, well, peace and love!
• In the realm of loving yourself there are innumberable great ways to demonstrate and amplify that self love in your environment.  While you may or may not not be able to pull a specific person into your life in an absolute sense, being happy is magnetic. THIS article on setting up a bedroom, an old classic, may spark some ideas, and the whole blog is dedicated to feel good feng-shui that you can experiment with at your leisure…

And while I have no easy answers (and perhaps no answers at all) to questions as big as love, I have lots of feng shui, design and holistic lifestyle stuff to share, so never hesitate to drop me a note with your questions!!!  xoxo Dana