LOVE & ROMANCE
Allowing
Love
By Julia Gordon-Bramer
B
ack in the 1990s, I ran a music magazine as a single
mother. My staff and I held an anti-Valentine’s Day party
every year to have a place to go so we didn’t feel pathetic
and sad. On construction paper hearts, we wrote down
our year’s miseries and posted them, and at the stroke of
midnight, we set them on fire.
It was a great time and a healing, cathartic experience.
The fact is, Valentine’s Day puts a heck of a lot of pressure on us. If
you’re not in love, you feel like a failure or an outcast. If you’re in love,
you question whether your expression of love on this holiday will be too
much or adequate enough. You may question if your love has a future or
if you made the right choice.
As a professional tarot card reader, love is the No. 1 question I am
asked. Everything from “Does he care?” to “What’s wrong with me that
I can’t find it?”
A lover is a blessing, but not the answe r to a happy life. When a client
obsesses over someone, I know right away that he or she considers the
object of affection to be the source for happiness. The hard truth is that
it’ll never work because they’re looking outside themselves.
Can’t find love? You probably forgot to start with yourself. People
who can’t find love tend to be merciless and unforgiving in their self-
judgment. Somewhere along the way, they learned they weren’t
lovable, and that’s the belief they carry out into the world, and they
subconsciously seek to reinforce and prove it every single, painful day.
And don’t think only single people suffer: There are also plenty of
married people in this bracket of lovelessness.
Marianne Williamson, author of “A Course In Miracles,” states that
99 percent of the people who can’t find love know exactly what’s wrong.
When pressed, they admit things like, “I work 70 hours a week” or “I
can’t trust anyone” or “My jealousy destroys every good relationship.”
What’s your story? Get conscious about it, and change things.
Schedule free time to devote to it or work with a therapist. Leave your
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GAZELLE STL
job. Quit hoping life will magically reconfigure around you while you are
doing things as you always have. Realize that keeping the status quo is
deciding love for you is not a priority.
Maybe 2018 is the year you understand why you subconsciously have
set yourself up to be single (or feeling so). Own that you created it,
and decide to break that pattern. Love is a beautiful part of the human
experience if you want it bad enough to let it happen.
Gordon-Bramer is a professional tarot card reader in St. Louis, and author
of “Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath” and the “Decoding
Sylvia Plath” series. Visit her website at juliagordonbramer.com.