Learning about Love
March 15, 2011
“Bring me a Higher Love. All We Need is Love. Love conquers all. “
All familiar lines and songs and how do we understand them?
In the past when I have been asked,” Do you love yourself?” I would respond almost indignantly, “Well of course I do.”
As I learn and grow and experience life, I see it differently. I recognize that I searched for love outside myself. If there was no one outside myself to “love” I would feel as though something was missing in my life. My relationships were a form of validating my existence. If you remained worthy of being loved and you could fulfill that need in me, it was all good. As it was never a state of internal love flowing from source there was never any real satisfying, lasting relationship with self or otherwise.
On my journey of life and the desire for fulfillment I have found a space of love I have never known. I knew it existed and so I sought it but did not capture or understand and so did not know what I was seeking. I just knew and ached for something I did not have.
About a year and a half ago a friend of mine on the same journey of seeking said to me and I paraphrase; I have come to realize that my seeking of that relationship I desire, outside myself can never fulfill me. That desire is truly that of having a relationship with God, spirit, higher self or whatever you would feel comfortable calling it. That is the only relationship that can satisfy this need.
I take that a step further. Connecting with that love, that spiritual love is the flow, but if you miss the self love aspect, you’ve still missed the boat, for then the seeking never stops. For there still seems to be this outside of self, greater than self, separateness. When the self love can come from the same well of endless love, everything changes. Then the love you have to give does not count of specific behaviour. You can love regardless of that. Think of Mandela and Gandhi. Do you think they had self love and were connected to the ocean of love that is available to all of us? How else could they have walked through the persecution they endured and come out and delivered peace and love to the world and had the kind of impact they had.
Does this love mean that you stay in a place or relationship that is destructive? No it does not, but leaving it does not mean that love cannot be present. If being in an environment is destructive to your health and well being then you choose the action that is necessary. And you can still love!!
A great book I have recently picked up with the recommendation of Mike Dooley is Love for No Reason by Marci Shimoff.
I breathe in love and and breathe out gratitude, is my mantra to centre, ground and open and see the world in a whole new way!
Namaste!