Slave

SLAVE

A SLAVE to love?

Or booze, food, drama, drugs, sex, exercise, cigarettes, money, study, our children, parents, friend, our lover, a marriage, our past.

Anything ringing a bell?

Back in 1985 Bryan Ferry sang Roxy Music’s classic hit …

“SLAVE to love”. If you are not old enough to know it the deliciously tortured lyrics sung Bryan Ferry who was then dating (pre Mick Jagger) the sublime Jerry Hall.

Let me share a brief verse so we are all on the same page …

“Tell her I’ll be waiting in the usual place with the tired and weary

And there is no escape

To need a women you’ve got to know how the strong get weak and the rich get poor

Slave to love

Oh, oh, slave to love”

This song echoes how some of us have felt in relationships and life in general. Controlled and dominated by our fear of love, and a habitual love of remaining skeptical, angry and fearful about true, deep and lasting love.

I hear this word SLAVE like the word addiction so often used without respect for it is powerful origin. When we are truly enslaved we are forced to obey the person, place or situation, under extreme dominance.

It is a horrible feeling at any age.

Cutting the chains of indoctrinated fear that bind us takes great and deliberate courage to change. Many of us have dependencies on people, situations and things but enslavement is a completely new ball game.

The word addiction has its Latin roots that translate to mean enslavement. For those that identify with feeling like a SLAVE to anyone or anything dominated and forced to obey a situation or relationship that erodes our self respect and personal dignity, a personal review is perhaps overdue.

When it comes to the phrase “A SLAVE to love” any relationship that consistently asks we negate our self-respect and autonomy is not love based. It may be sold to us as love, but it is anything but love. Of course we commit to responsibilities when we love another, however ongoing dialogue that involves respect to and from both parties creates a sense of freedom, not enslavement.

If other weapons of mass distraction that I listed earlier such as work, food, money, and sex etcetera leave us feeling like SLAVES, we need to reclaim our self-respect and personal power as adults.

So many parents who had abusive parents become reluctant to discipline their children confusing it with punishment. These parents too often feel like SLAVES to their children unable to set boundaries and say no.

As we review this word it is healthy to check in with ourselves and ask ..

“Do I feel like a SLAVE in any area of my life?”

If we are feeling ENSLAVED and don’t know how to break the chains that dominate our behaviour, it is perhaps time to ask for help. If we have given our power away, it is never too late to take it back. Let us remember heartfelt love does not enslave us, it sets us free.

It has been said that males can choose to be slaves, rebels or Kings and the females heart can choose to be a slave, princesses or Queen.

I have been a SLAVE, and a painful princess and have hung around with fearful females for way too long in years gone by. Give me the Queens way, any day. I am personally still on my Queen trainer wheels but am loving every minute of learning the discipline required for responsible living and loving.

Princesses and rebels compete with each other, whereas Kings and Queens empower each other.

Let’s remember moving forward that none of us ever deserve to become someone’s SLAVE to earn love.

Lotsa love Cynthia xxx