Well, next month is valentine's Day, so we are inundated with hearts and flowers and notions of romance. But really...what is love? It's much bigger that the brief romantic encounters we have- deeper than the sentimental Hallmark movies, and ultimately, more important to us than anything else in our lives.
We long for
it. We fear it. We fall into in and out of it. We withhold it from ourselves,
and seek it even though it’s around us and inside us. It is the force that
creates and sustains the world. What if,
just for a moment, you stopped trying to feel worthy of love, quit wondering if
you were loved, stopped seeking love and simply allowed yourself to have the love
that is already always waiting for you? Let the appreciation that others have for you wash over you like a gentle breeze. Let yourself feel the embrace of the sun above and the ground below you. Love is vast and ever-present.
What if you
stopped idealizing, sentimentalizing and romanticizing love just for a minute?
You might begin to recognize that we are all ‘in love’- much the same way that
fish are in water. It surrounds, supports, nourishes, penetrates us. It is
possible, when we stop striving, seeking and obsessing, to notice that love
simply is.
When we try to
put love into words, we end up with categories…romantic love, familial love,
brotherly/sisterly love, parental love, self-love…and we have made up plenty of
rules and stories about how all those relationships are ‘supposed’ to look. Yet, when we feel loved, whether by a friend,
a spouse or a dog we are ‘ourselves’ no longer putting on an show or trying to ‘win’
love.
The common
ground that all forms of true love share is acceptance. To be seen and known
and accepted as we are- warts and all. This is one reason we gravitate towards
having pets. We are free to love and feel loved by a dog or cat no matter what
we do or don’t do. No matter what failures or faults we may have. Love is a
level of acceptance in which we identify with the ‘other’ as part of ourselves.
When we love, we overlook faults, get
mad and get over it, and feel at ease and connection rather than longing.
So…the more
willing we are to be kind to ourselves, and to let go of the harsh critical way
we talk to ourselves, the easier it becomes to know that love has always been
patiently waiting for us. As my friend
Mark said, “We have to stop being Shouldaholics”…to experience Being in Love. So
stop a moment, and allow Love to catch up.
My experience
tells me that we are made from the love that we seek, that love is a conscious
thread connecting everything and everyone, and that we can experience all the
wonder and brilliance that love is, any time we choose. Living in Love is
freeing and healing. And I don’t mean feeling agog with sappy sentimentality-
on the contrary- the Love we are in is a potent, fierce, powerful, creative
energy which burns bright with clarity and purpose.
Just for the
next few minutes, I invite you to pause, and let yourself feel that you are
Seen and Known. You are Accepted and Valued as you are. You are
loved.
PS: If you’d like to experience what I am expressing
in this post, check this out.
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