“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice – no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.” ~John Burroughs
It is perhaps the deepest aspect of our human nature to seek security and assurance. This innate need is the foundation of our survival mechanism and fuels the multibillion dollar insurance industry. We spend an increasing percentage of our income to feel covered and yet the unending national conversation about not being sufficiently insured dominates. We look outside of ourselves to secure our future happiness, instead of inside our heart and the relationships that help us become the best part of ourselves. Imagine if some small percentage of all the attention, energy and resources we spend on health, property and life insurance was devoted to implementing a program to insure our loving relationships.
Hundreds of studies demonstrate the powerful impact that healthy intimate relationships have on our wellbeing over time. Not only do they make us physically, emotionally and mentally more fit over our lifetime, but they also increase our standard of living. Humans are herd animals and we experience more of life as a member of a tribe that loves us. What would a policy look like that covers your capacity to love and be loved? A good policy would clearly delineate the relationship as a separate entity. It would make it clear that you and your partner are not the relationship. It would insure the relationship as the vessel that holds the intentions, interactions and emotions that you each contribute.
Would your loving relationship be considered a good risk or is it so full of pre-existing conditions that the vessel is no longer recognizable? Love insurance gives the best rates to the ability to be present in this moment, not lost in the calculations of what has been lost before. Just as current models of health insurance demand consumers to make healthy choices around diet and exercise, love insurance would demand that you fortify your vessel by showing up for your partner and learning to listen more than you expect to be heard.
Paying our insurance premiums make us recognize the value of our home, our car and our health. The investment itself makes us proactive about keeping up with the details of maintenance, whether it is a leaky roof or annual exam. Paying a love insurance premium would require the same attention to the details of your heart and is another way of thinking about the value of keeping your word and honoring your promises. In this way, we get over our immature idea that love should be easy or exists only to make us happy.
Consider creating a love insurance policy that honors the container of your love as the space where you discover and cultivate the best part of yourself. In the tumultuous changing world we live in, it will ultimately bolster your sense of security better than any other policy in your desk drawer.
