Learning to Love

There is a part of us, that knows we are good people. There is a part of us that is always on our side. There is a part of us, that always tells our story in a way that makes us out to be the hero or the victim and the fault outside of ourselves.

There is a part of us, in our relationships, when things are going wrong. When we feel we have given our all and our best, that it is the other person's turn to step up to the plate. There is a part of us, that becomes bitter and withdrawn when that other person doesn't seem to be stepping up to the plate in the way that we feel they should be. There is a part of us that starts to believe the reason they aren't stepping up to the plate is because they don't love us as much as we love them. Or even worse, that there is perhaps something inherently wrong with us, that they cannot just love us in this way. And if we were any other human being, that we might be good enough for them.

We believe that the villain is out there. Doing these bad things to us. And sometimes they are. And sometimes there is little to nothing we can do about it. But 99.99 percent of the time, and sorry I have no research to back this up, our minds have slowly become to turn on ourselves and we didn't even notice that it happened.

We have become so focused on what the other is doing or not doing. We have completely lost ourselves. We have lost who we are. We have lost our joys as well as our own sorrows. We have given up sovereignty of our bodies and our minds. We have given the ultimate power of our being to someone else. We have made up our minds, "If they do this, it means this, and if they do that, that means I am worthless and I am nothing." This is a lie. All of us, at all times, are acting out in the best way we know how. In the way that we have learned what love is and what love isn't. However, all of us received different training in what it means to love another person.

There is no empirical standard of what that should look like or could look like or ought to look like. There is no factual solid reality on love. It doesn't exist. It's the thing that religions are built around. It's the thing that spirituality aims to address, it's the thing that everything within our society is built, because we are all trying to express this thing in ourselves and it's called love. Perhaps love for our self, perhaps love for another, perhaps love for a project or an idea or a person or an animal or a land. The world is abundant with love. Within every fragment of our existence there are infinite things to love.

Sometimes we focus so much on identifying what we think we know of as love and not as love, we corner ourselves into a thought box, that can create misery for us. Because we think we have understood what love is. Yet we are wildly mistaken.

Love exists everywhere in all things. Of course there is love within your relationship, whether it's the type of love you have been wanting or seeking is an entirely different question that you need to address with your own heart. But is it possible to begin with recognizing that the beliefs you have had about love, has been based on your own bias? And instead of seeking someone else to commit those loving actions to you, can you be bold and brave enough to allow yourself to those loving actions for yourself? If they can't show you what love is, perhaps you can?

As we learn to care for our bodies and treat ourselves with respect, it allows us to become stronger to recognize that we are strong and bold enough to address our current situations with honesty, whether that means to stay or go, it matters less. What matters is fully embracing self, and the other as they are, with the current way they give love, and or loving and believing in self enough to trust that if you choose a different path that you will find joy and bliss in that direction too.

When you are on fire, anything you touch with catch a blaze, of course except for something that is full of water. How do we welcome into our being that which helps us recognize that what's inside of us, we often project onto the outside. When we are in love with our lives and with our small moments within our bodies, it's much easier to love the beauty and the special people in our lives. When we are hurting and drowning in self destructive thoughts, the world becomes that way, and everything that filters through our perception becomes... self destruction.

It starts small. It starts with recognizing where we are at. It's starts with appreciating just knowing that it's our mind... not life. Life of course has it's moments, but the way we address it, can help us navigate those moments a little easier.

Much love. <3 Namaste.