Unconditional love and why we don’t love men in uniform anymore

In a time of pressure for the esthetic and appearance, we start valuing more the authentic presence and the courage to be yourself in any context.

In an attempt to reconcile the loss of the essence of both women and men we face a crisis as we leave our personalities take over and drive a rational or conscious ( but without pure awareness). This crisis is also enhanced by the society changing values and learning about equality which means both men and women put more efforts in esthetics. However, our ability to recongnize the efforts and “see” the others is limited by our constrains on gender balance. For this reason, I saw useful a discussion on unconditional love and recandling the light of our true essence which deserves unconditional love.

In architecture school I learned to analyze trends and evolution of needs for inhabiting spaces. However, inhabiting our bodies is not something that you can learn anywhere. Maybe some of us learn that through yoga like I do. Others learn to do that through cultural liberation like we can read here. But in any way we decide to go from our heads to our hearts we will discover a completely new connection there. In the same article linked above, Andra argues that despite living more freely and comfortable in her body without facing any restrictions or discomfort from people’s judgment, she still enjoys being seen.

This point came recently in an interview between Brene Brown and Russell Brand where ( around minute 18–20) she argues that the strategy to help people be seen is the one trick that helped Trump win the elections as he spoke to so many people who had not feel heard and seen before.

From my own research I came across a passage in the book that summarizes my current beliefs:

If essence is who we are, our true nature, then why is the majority of humanity not in touch with it at all?

The following passages from the book explain how we can reconcile the loss of our essence for the „personality” developed as adults. The essence is going back to our pure inner child nature which is still very much about that essence if it wasn’t constrained and altered.

As such, through awareness training we can climb the mountains that got us to the point in which we are unable to love the essence and we need to judge the personality which is the „worked” version of our selves. Personality changing is a lot of conscious work just as much as it is to recover the essence, but the difference is that while one celebrates the psychological work ( personality changes), the other celebrates the spiritual awakening ( finding and giving voice to the essence of the inner child after it was healed from all the covers that protected it once personality started developing).

These mountains are the reason why we still look for changes in our apparences and signs of acceptance based on the smallest work in our esthetics. If we put on some nice makeup or a fancy suit or a nice uniform, we expect people to celebrate us by cheering and admiring us because we’ve done the efforts. But as it turns out, those are not the true values we share anymore as a society. More and more people celebrate the inner work now and the mountains we’ve climbed. And the beauty of that is that:

• first of all, once you’ve climbed at least one mountain, you already have a higher overview and perspective about things and your other values for things in life will start to align
• And then the second joy is that you are now able to share unconditional love for everyone who has done this work on themselves as well.

Coming back to the title of my article…why we don’t love men in uniform anymore… I have 2 stories to share: one from the generation of my grandma and one that I lived.

It was during my grandma’s generation when women from the 50’s were looking for men in uniform to get married. The chase was real. Women found men in uniform charming and with a sense of elegance that offered them the feeling of comfort and safety. Times were rocky after the wars. It was hard for them to talk about their true feelings because there was a lot of pain associated with it. Uniform was the sign of triumph and gave the idea of peace a sophysticated elegance and glam. Men looked impressive in uniform, but they needed to compensate with fancy clothing for all the dirt and despair of the war.

My grandfather’s brother who was born in 1913 went to war. When he came back, in 1940 he married a divorced woman 12 years older than him who liked jewlery and velvet sofas. He was a war veteran and had an impressive look in uniform. He was a charming young man just like my grandfather was. He looked like a Holywood star in a uniform. His wife did not want children so I pretty much became the grand daughter they never had. But unfortunately, as his wife grew older, she became blind and she could not admire her handsome younger husband anymore. She lost the entire reason for being with him in the first place. So instead, he made sure he brings more textiles like velvet in the house to comfort her last days and make the experience between them become more tactile once the sight was lost. My memories of their house includes this tactile experience and all the soft beds and cushions and covers and curtains. It was a luxury of velvet and silk and fur to compensate for the loss of the essence. Their personalities revolved around it. Until… she died. And things pretty much fell apart for him emotionally. He felt lonely and his uniform did not impress anyone anymore. He used to talk to me about his medals from war and explain how he used to go to balls with his wife.

But I felt completely disconnected from this. I was not interested in those stories. Instead, his new occupation after war was horticulture. His garden was a paradise. He loved flowers. So did I. We spend hours in the garden learning how to plant flowers and how to care and speak to them. His roses were something all women in the neighbourhood used to admire. It wasn’t his uniform anymore that impressed. He started „dating” again around 80 years old. He invited a few such ladies to his house for coffee or tea and he gave them flowers from his garden and they talked about spiritual things. I realized he learned to let his soft nature to become his new trick to get women’s attention even if his physical beauty faded as he was now an old man. His „lovers” were now ladies he charmed with his authentic nature. They found connection in other things than apparence and fake material abundance. They found true essence back. He died at 93 and lived a long life filled with love in many shapes and forms as he was open to discover them.

My personal experience with esthetics… I used to be a very well dressed little lady as a toddler and adolescent. My grandfather became my personal tailor after he retired and needed to develop a new hobby to chase boredom away. Just like his brother the veteran, he also was a handsome strong man. He had the most impressive ties and suits. His wardrobe was so neat and tidy that it looked more like a pharmacy than a closet.

As a young woman I already had the image of this perfect handsome man who was my grandfather, but since I did not feel I can touch him too much because he was always so perfect and I would „ruin his clothes” if I jump in his arms, I learned that such men are unapproachable emotionally. I was waiting for the night time so we are all in our pijamas and I could play with him. As a result, my first boyfriend was a wonderful boy from a small village who looked amazing wearing a bathing suit when we’d go to swim in the river behind the house. I remember the first love mornings playing in his curls and enjoying simplicity and not fancyness. He „saw” me not just as a fancy girl from the city. I was a foreign sight for him but our love was pure.

When we go though dark times, be them war like it was for our grandparents, or be those moments of disconnect when we lost the connection to our essence, we need to find ways to cultivate unconditional love. To look beyond the velvet, the silk, the fur, the diamonds and search for the simple flowers perfume and the soft kiss on the forehead in the morning before doing out the door.

If you liked this article I am curious what were the elements in your interior design that helped you cope with anxiety or loss of connection with your body. How did you experience re-embodiment though the way you furnished your „cozy” space at home. How much does your „uniform” speak about your sensitive nature? Drop the answers in comments below. As always thank you for reading!