"How deep is your love?" I remember hearing that song as a kid in the 1970’s, blasting through the streets of New York City. It was summer of 1978 and "Saturday Night Fever" was the shiz. I also remember hearing Yvonne Elliman singing the first few verses of "If I Can't Have You," "Don’t know why I’m surviving every lonely day, When there’s got to be no chance for me, My life would end..." I was thirteen; I had my hair in a Farrah Fawcett wave and I was just discovering boys.
What a journey it has been. Many relationships and one failed marriage later, I learned how deep my love could go and what it meant to fail. We all go through failed relationships. Whether it is a love relationship, or a failed sibling relationship, or a failed friendship, you can’t go through this life without your share of loss, hurt, and pain. When my marriage ended I learned a lot about pain, how it is inevitable and how suffering is optional. For a long time I didn’t understand the concept that we choose our suffering. It was through the help of mentors, teachers, and therapists that I began to learn that we have a choice in how we see a relationship. It’s not always about us and we can learn to let go.
I also learned two powerful lessons: 1. The deeper the pain, the greater the capacity for love. 2. No hurt is wasted and we can learn to use our pain and our experiences for good, to help others and to grow. No longer did I have to suffer. I could change a bad experience and use it to help a family member, friend, or maybe you through this blog. How deep is your love took on a new meaning. Today I love fully and deeply, and if I have pain, I know I will get through it and in the end I will have an even greater capacity to help another person.
