What to do when our first notions of romantic love have been distorted from the get go? Farheen, Mohini and new friend Amardeep dig into their complex relationship to romantic love. Traversing their parents’ marriages, Bollywood songs, love addiction and fantasy addiction, they individually and collectively come upon self-love as the truest, deepest love.
Self-love is not a cliché - it’s a response to heal from intergenerational histories of misogyny, dislocation from community, childhood trauma, sexual violence, abandonment and more. We heal in the present, for the future and into the past for our loved ones.
We commit to examining, meditating on, unlearning and re-learning about love in action - love that is not predicated on hyper-individualism or capitalism.
Quote from bell hooks’ book All About Love, page 188:
“Richard Bach’s autobiographical love story Illusions describes both his flight from love and his return. To return to love he had to be willing to sacrifice and surrender, to let go of the fantasy of being someone with no sustained emotional needs to acknowledge his need to love and be loved. We sacrifice our old selves in order to be changed by love and we surrender to the power of the new self.”
Readings recited in the episode from:
bell hooks - All About Love
Pauline Harmange - I Hate Men
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