You think a tormented, all-consuming romance is “devotion”?
No. The truth about the “love brain” is spiritual starvation.
It isn’t that he is so wonderful; it’s that you are too hungry.
Because your heart is so deprived,
any crumb someone tosses your way
you take for a lifeline.
A taste of sweetness, and you want to tear out your heart to trade for it,
yet you never get back even half as much being cherished.
That is the real root of your pain.
Luckily, there is a girl called Jane Eyre,
and her story can cure this “love brain.”
By rights, Jane was poor, small and plain;
in that oppressive age
she should have been desperate, the one most in need of rescue.
But facing a man of wealth and status,
she refused to be kept.
She spoke the words that shatter every kind of self-abasement:
“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? … it is my spirit that addresses your spirit … equal, — as we are!”
She showed us with her actions:
I can have nothing at all,
but I must have myself!
So, my dear, don’t love from a place of lack.
Feed yourself first.
With learning, with looking inward, with growth,
nourish yourself until you are vibrantly alive.
When you no longer need someone to rescue you,
what you attract will be two souls running toward each other.
Remember: stop begging anyone for your worth.
In this life
we are not here to find love,
but to find ourselves.
May we all live like Jane Eyre,
blooming in the dust,
reigning in the storm. 🛕