Like many, when I first met Serge Benhayon, his family, and other students embracing the esoteric way of living, I felt something very different, I felt much more in my skin or at ease with myself. I later realised that although these people felt different, they were just ordinary people getting on with life.
As I spent time with Serge and his family I began to feel truly met and loved, but what I was really feeling was that I was starting to truly meet, love and accept myself, in a way I had never done before. This was all very confronting. Feeling the love wasn’t confronting, it was that I hadn’t felt such love with my close family, partner or the people I had known for many years. I had to admit that the ‘love’ that I had previously felt was not love, but recognition and attention or ‘emotional love’ that I had strived for my whole life. But all I ever really wanted was to feel true love, to meet the love within myself and feel this with others.
To this very day I am still letting go of the need for the emotional love that is so familiar from the past. Looking for certain body language, certain eye contact, or words or physical actions that indicate to me that I am being loved or liked by someone. If in that moment I am not truly feeling what is there, then this is where the problems begin, because I either miss the fact that love is actually there, or I miss the fact that there is something more harmful under the so called love, and I take all of this on instead.
The other harm I see in wanting emotional love is the constant program being played by me, doing or being what I think is needed to try and get what I need to see or experience to feel the so-called ‘loved’. This prevents me from being myself or being able to relax and respond to life naturally, and instead I am constantly analysing or on edge. It is also a very unloving way to be with others, because it is silently demanding them to be a certain way so I can see what I need to see to feel loved. Ouch!
By Anonymous
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
We seek ceaselessly for love except for the place where it already is – in our inner-heart where we connect to the Divine love of who we are and from there meet true love in the essence of all.
It is so true we miss out because we are wanting to be loved so badly that we would do almost anything to get that love. It is so easy to compromise ourselves when we want something so much so being aware of this potential is very empowering.
All the games that we play when all we really want is to love and be loved, truly so. There are so many notions of what love truly is that we have forgotten that it’s us being in stillness with ourselves and then as an awesome follow on we can be (in) love with others.
Yes, it’s quite a rude awakening to realise that that thing called love that we’ve been chasing has been of an emotional variety that has us looking to get our needs met through another so that we feel OK about ourselves. It’s a false economy, since we give our power away playing hostage to fortune and forget the love we already truly are.
“all I ever really wanted was to feel true love, to meet the love within myself and feel this with others.” I had only every thought there was emotional love but when I met Serge Benhayon and listened to presentations I came to feel the depth of true love that was within my inner-heart just waiting for me to feel it. A love that has no boundaries and is forever expanding.
“It is also a very unloving way to be with others, because it is silently demanding them to be a certain way so I can see what I need to see to feel loved. Ouch!” Ouch indeed, as I too have lived that way for all my life. It is a complete trap that most of us have fallen for – allowing how others respond to us to dictate how we feel. How crazy is that?! Deep gratitude to Serge Benhayon and all his family for showing us that there is another Way.
So true Amanda, emotional love and the dramas it brings is such a hook. It distracts us with its highs and lows; giving us all the excuses under the sun to not take responsibility for our choices. We can indulge in our happiness and follow this up by our hurts forever isolating. Blaming the other, playing the victim or the bully with attitude are all part of ‘not-so-merry-go-round of need’ . Emotional love, as you say, is not love at all. And to be love, well, we already are love; all we need do is to reconnect to our self and a great way to start is with the gentle breath meditation and here is the link: http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free/meditation-for-beginners/reconnecting-gentle-breath-meditation.html
Emotional love and relationships in a deadly combination. Because the relationship is only built on needs, “what can I recieve from being with this person, what can they give me?”
Instead, my preferred option… Be all that you are and the love that we are, meet another person who is honouring of these same qualities and hey presto – the potential for a power house relationship.
This is said in simple terms and there is more to consider.
it is quite a revealing feeling to me when I go somewhere hoping to be emotionally loved and all I feel is my own need for others to love me. When that is noticeable I make changes quickly but when we live in a world where everyone is feeding each others emotions and confirming the emotional love is the way to go, it is so easy to forget about yourself and get caught up in those emotions. To me it’s a blessing I have met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to realise there is another way, that is, TRULY loving.
I know the ease of which you speak. It is so much more Full-feeling than any recognition, approval or acceptance from outside of ourselves.
Our essence is love, but because we do not connect to this fact, we are always looking outside ourselves for recognition and ’emotional love’. Thank God that we have people like the Benhayons, and you, reflecting the truth that we are all looking for.
Feeling more in your skin and at ease with yourself is a blessing unto itself, one for which I will be eternally grateful to Serge Benhayon for inspiring a deeper connection, understanding and acceptance of myself. The truth about emotional love that you have exposed is an almighty ouch indeed and something we can all learn from and then choose to replace through our own connection with the true love that emanates from inside us all.
One of the beautiful things I earned due to my association with Universal Medicine is the confirmation (because the knowing was there) that what I called love was emotional love, a very limited and limiting kind of love. Embodying and living true love on an everyday basis is still work in progress for me. Although I do not yet choose true love consistently across the board and permanently I have made tremendous progress in this direction. This process has allowed me to keep deepening and deepening my relationship with life.
Love is such a misinterpreted thing. So called love as we know it is often used as the currency for manipulation and control. It’s only when we re-connect to the true love, we understand how off the mark we have been.
This age-old illness of seeking emotional love was cured the moment I met Serge Benhayon. Not that I never fell into this trap again, but there is an instant knowing, a marker of how real love feels like. And if I so choose to, I am able to discern whether it is the false or the true love.
Beautiful Dragana, how you make it about true family and letting go of the ideal of sharing the same blood or name. I find it so freeing to allow myself to feel how big my family is if I make it about love. A rich feeling inside through feeling all the connections with other people.
These days I really see how much attachment and need I placed on love- which made it so emotional. But I was also of the belief that being emotional was a good thing – it meant I was showing how I was feeling. But that wasn’t it at all. Love is like you say – a connection with yourself. A nurturing and a being.
All it takes is one person meeting you (and me) in full, allowing us to feel the difference between what we thought love was and what true love is After meeting Serge Benhayon my life was never the same. There is a life before and a life after the realisation I don’t have to look outside myself and ‘work real hard’ to be loved.
So many people confuse emotions with love. The two are not separate in their perceptions, and so they feel that they are not being loving unless they feel emotional with it. I remember the agony this caused me in the past, but now I understand that difference so much more my relationships have changed, and the feeling is so much more expansive and does not contain any of those niggling “what about me?” thoughts of possession and need.
I’ve been feeling that too Rosanna. I had become distracted and something a friend did affected me and I felt less. Then I reconnected to my deep self and it all fell back into place. It’s ok to be ordinary – extraordinarily ordinary!
Very true Eunice, emotional love is fed to us breakfast lunch and dinner through all the relationships around us, through the media, TV etc. To break out of that requires some inspiration and Serge Benhayon has definitely provided a living example of that.
Yes simonwilliams8, emotions are our biggest addiction and emotional love is full of drama, the ups and the downs, so it is little wonder that we are willing to indulge so freely. What Serge Benhayon does is meet the person behind the addiction. We can all do this for each other it is just about building a deep connection within ourselves so that we can then connect deeply to another. In connection we know we are love and that this love is not emotional in any way.
That old chestnut of recognition and acceptance that I search for, as a poor cousin to love is so familiar, and so deadly. It simply exposes that I don’t feel enough in the first place, and then have to work really hard (hence getting exhausted) to try and get it.
The alternative to just be me is refreshing because it’s effortless and therefore there can be so much more of it.
My words exactly Rachel, you have beautifully summed up what my experience of emotional love was, and what in contrast true love is.
Having constructed a life around seeking attention and acceptance from the outside world, I had forgotten how to behave with ease and trusting that what I am seeking is already within me. No seeking or striving or trying required. But having allowed myself a moment (or multiple moments) to stop the drive and the trying, confirms to me more and more that I don’t have to do anything, just allow myself to be me.
This is a lovely and simple blog, but no less powerful for its simplicity. I love how clearly feeling true love has allowed you to see the difference between it and emotional love. It is a big one to work on, because emotional love is such a normal expression – considered good even, compared to the other emotions out there, but it’s still not the truth. And it is so true the games and scenarios that can play out when our focus becomes emotional love and attention, rather than meeting someone and seeking a true connection. Thank you for sharing.