Pia's testimony - unconditional love is the route to joy

Pia Sharma is a 38 year-old life coach living and working in London, specialising in cross cultural communication, particularly in the corporate sector. Pia and I started working together last year in order to resolve some basic issues that she had been aware of for many years. Her initial goal was to access certain childhood memories, which she knew still had a negative impact on her basic trust and self-esteem, and specific peak performance tasks such as public speaking. This interview was conducted in the last month, at a crucial point for Pia when old issues about vulnerability in love were rapidly shifting.

Pia – In the past my experience of love was tainted by my lack of love for myself, and therefore the men I chose reflected that negative self image. Initially they were very attracted to my image as a strong, confident, dynamic person – a little bit of a femme fatale at times! –and they wanted to control that person. And when they glimpsed the more vulnerable side they didn’t like it, which only reinforced my own tendency to reject that part of me. They were disappointed in that part of me because they were only interested in my ‘fake’ strength. That rejection felt terribly hurtful and I would go back into my shell and hide........I would think that this is a side of me that can never come out and that I will always be rejected if people know who I really am. A lot of people feel that way I think. So the real Pia never really came out. This meant that I relied heavily on fake validation from people around me, because the real person wasn’t getting any recognition. Most importantly, that real person wasn’t getting any recognition from ME! I was denying myself recognition. I was feeding off false praise and flattery, and superficial responses to my sexuality; a slightly aggressive, dominating and angry sexuality. It was as if I was punishing myself, repressing myself when I was doing this. This was going on for all of my adult life up until now!

Anna – I can certainly relate to that – that was definitely my story as well. I think it is very common for many women, particularly nowadays where there are some very destructive and confused ideas about what being a woman ‘in a man’s world’ means. This only reinforces the equally destructive paradigm of the femme fatale as the dominant archetype for female sexuality. The femme fatale is destructive because she uses her sexuality as a means to control others and cannot relate to people with humanity. She is a lone figure and therefore a tragic one because she cannot connect with others properly. Our culture is steeped in images and representations of the femme fatale and it is difficult for young girls not to emulate her as they begin to explore their sexuality, particularly as she exemplifies the rejection of vulnerability that is so ubiquitous in our culture.

Pia – Yes, it's so true. There were one or two relationships were there was genuine love and acceptance, but only to a very limited extent. I wasn’t really ready to let my inner, true self come out. The relationships I had were always dominated by my need for being loved – it was more about my own ego than about the person. It was about my need for that validation and ‘love’. So there were lots of failed expectations and rejections and then with each new failure increasing self hatred. I was also setting myself up for failure by choosing people who were quite unable to love me in any real sense, or really see who I was for that matter.

Deeply hurt, I stopped being in relationships for almost three years – I had a few affairs, but I just recently realised that I was keeping away from falling in love because I was afraid of it, I just wasn’t ready for it. But THEN!!!!!

This is the most amazing journey I have been on, ever. In the last fourteen months there has been a new journey of really and truly understanding and accepting myself. It hasn’t been easy and has involved a lot of work and a lot of thought and reading and reflecting on myself and my needs. Most of all, reflection. It opened up a new world for me where I have been able to integrate my subconscious and my dreams and for the first time have the courage to really feel what I feel, and really allow myself to live my feelings.

The real turning point for me has been to forgive my stepmother, truly forgive her, for hurting me very much as a child. When my parents divorced I lived with my father and his new wife and she bullied me mercilessly. She taunted me about my looks and personality and made fun of me in front of visitors to the house. That time laid the foundation for my self-hatred and fear, which poisoned my experience of myself and the world for many years. In the course of the last year I have been steadily able to begin to forgive her and thereby let go of the pain and bitterness I was carrying around for all this time. I was finally able to do this. Finally I had a dream about her and I felt so sorry for her and put my arms around her and hugged her. I realised I had completely let go of anger and hatred – it was all gone. That was huge for me. Everything before that was a build-up to that.

What has happened is that this allowed me to find a more gentle side of myself. That is still coming out and I am rediscovering my life and the world – I am seeing it through different lenses and those lenses are more receptive and open, more gentle. The new me wants to love and to give love. They are most of all grateful – waking up in the morning and actually feeling grateful for the tiniest thing.

Anna – One of the mistakes our culture makes is to think of love primarily as a feeling that needs an object, when really it is an attitude of mind. If you are a truly loving person, you can feel love all the time, for all phenomena and experiences. That’s what gratitude is, after all – love for the world around us and all that we receive from it. Feeling love at that level transforms our experience of life.

Pia - Even my dinner can inspire such feelings of love it is quite amazing!!! It is a journey, not a finished one, but finally I feel that I am actually today able to accept and embrace my complete vulnerability. The gentle, soft, open Pia who really wants genuine love, a gentle love. ....The thought of gentleness in the past was something that really disgusted me, but obviously it was myself I was rejecting. Within these last few days I am now practising feeling that vulnerability and accepting and realising that I am actually in love and I have no idea what will happen as a result. I am in love without knowing whether it is reciprocated or whether it will go anywhere! And seeing for the first time that it is OK! I am so grateful for that feeling because it is a beautiful, gentle feeling. I am not so scared of it now – which feels amazing. Last night I cried a lot because I really allowed myself to feel my vulnerability and accept that there was a chance that I would get rejected and therefore hurt, but it was OK. But now I see that being rejected doesn’t mean I have to stop loving.

Unfortunately in the past this is what I did – for a long time and of course that means I could never find love – for myself first. Until you really understand that truth you will not tap into your full capacity for love. Loving yourself is not about being self-obsessed it is about being accepting and it generates so much energy in you that you focus on others. The energy starts going outwards instead of coming in to fulfil your ‘needs’. It completely changes your energy in a much happier and more fulfilled way.

While I am talking to you now I feel this bubbly feeling of happiness in my throat which is amazing – and I have a new companion today, which is love! It feels like a lovely little friend.

Anna – Do you have a sense that the love you have for another is a gift to you, from you – that is, that it is a wonderful emotion to be embraced fully and enjoyed - and that actually therefore every time we feel love is a blessing regardless of whether that person reciprocates.....?

Pia – Love is not about whether it is reciprocated or not. It is enough in itself. I have only truly understood and FELT that for the first time today. There will be moments of doubt and it will be difficult at times – there are always steps back and forth – that is not the point. The point is the process and being aware. Now I realise that in the past, when I ‘loved’ someone it was really about losing myself in that person – giving someone else the responsibility of making me happy rather than taking responsibility for myself. Now I see how mistaken that was. When I love, I can still retain my independence of mind and spirit and see them and the love I feel as a gift to me, rather than something I require in order to be complete.

Anna – So love is a gift to us, regardless of what the other person feels. If only more of us understood that, that we don’t have to be fearful about loving, but welcome it whenever we feel it....how much happier we would be as a culture.

We are brought up to think that if we don’t get anything back from someone and we are giving them love or whatever, then somehow we will be losing out, we will be depleting a finite stock of emotional energy and happiness. When really the truth is that the more we allow ourselves to love in an unconditional way, the happier and more joyful we are and everything we give out we receive back many, many times over – if only through the agency of our own inner –generated gentleness and peacefulness.

Thank you Pia for having the courage to share today.

Pia – Thank you!