The Evolution of Love

Thirty-five years ago, the Summer of Love started a revolution in the expression of love that shocked older generations and birthed a social upheaval. From that seminal time, love itself has undergone a deep evolution into whole new models of healthy self-love, relationship and family.

The souls who launched the Summer of Love turned their parents' values of self-sacrifice and national loyalty inside out, and set in motion a journey of self-discovery that reached every community. The generations before them had known two World Wars and the Great Depression—powerful forces that had demanded great sacrifices from individuals and families. This noble sacrifice was a call to greatness that forged the will to win World War II, and secure a lasting freedom. .

As Post-War children matured in that freedom however, this model of love as loyal self-sacrifice began to reveal hidden dysfunctions which had been largely ignored for several generations. The many deprivations that people endured in those years carried complex griefs, which then acted out in families as addiction, abuse, touch deprivation and emotional repression. This dysfunction evoked a deep response from Post-War children as they came of age—to discover, love and honor yourself.

Many parents and children are still working on healing the heart wounds that have come from this generation gap in the models of love. As we, the children, continue to do the work of spiritual and emotional recovery, rebuilding love in our families is an ongoing challenge. We are still being called to complete the journey of self-honoring that began in 1969.

The essence of self-honoring is to understand your emotional rights as an individual—the very rights that were so easily set aside and considered luxuries in times of war or scarcity. I have listed these rights as they relate to the seven chakras of the body, because energizing these rights increases the flow of healthy chi in the body's meridians. Many physical problems stem from suppressing these core emotional rights.

1st Chakra — The right to be here without paying a price for your existence, as well as the right to have others keep their agreements with you.

2nd Chakra — The right to feel all of your feelings and emotions with spontaneous honesty and pleasure, and to express your feelings until they are complete.

3rd Chakra — The right to take action and set boundaries, both in what we say no to and what we say yes to.

4th Chakra — The right to give and receive love in the way that allows your highest and deepest love-expression, as well as the right to know that your honest love is a gift to others.

5th Chakra — The right to honor ourselves through our words, and to allow all of our feelings to find verbal expression without suppression or judgement.

6th Chakra — The right to clearly discern what is of loving intent to us and what is not, and to see the overall patterns that define what is healthy and what is dysfunctional.

7th Chakra — The right to receive waves of higher light and love, and to anchor these expansive healings without compromise into our lives.

Exercising these emotional rights ourselves while encouraging those we love to do the same restores one of the most important building blocks of healthy relationship and family, and that is the spirit of fair play. When we can build relationships based on healthy self-interest rather than sacrifice, everyone grows stronger and wiser. Through mastering the skills of self-honoring in our relationships, we can reach the spiritual goals of compassion and forgiveness, and love can evolve ever higher.

All contents Copyright 2004, from "Doing Your Work – A Guide to Balanced Living" by Geoff Brandenburg