Finding Love In The Mirror
What’s the definition of love? Before I would say "I don't know". The easiest way that I knew how to define love was from my Christian teachings. Basically that it was part of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Now I can honestly say, to me, it means infinite possibilities. It means holding space for others. Allowing yourself to see through your fears, to be constantly forgiving of yourself, of others and learning to let go. Allowing others, to become who they truly want to be and respecting that. Even if you do not understand it. It means going deep into exploring in order to find parts of yourself, that you never even knew existed. Love doesn't have judgment and that's a tough pill to swallow. We are naturally inclined to judge whether we consciously acknowledge it or not.
In order to find and understand love deeper, one needs to experience loss or be broken. The reason I say that, is the strong ones, usually do not want the same thing they experienced. Especially, if they have experienced rough seasons.Thus with the loss of love or craving of love, they create awareness. Show up. Speak up. Give. Try to get through the day. Sometimes doing these activities allows them to heal. On the other hand, it can be draining.
Giving for some people is easy, but for others it’s like pulling teeth. While for others, taking is easier and they relish in taking and never give. Love involves giving and receiving. It can’t flow from a source of fear, jealousy or anger.
One thing I discovered during the process of finding love, was the idea of love placed upon us is unrealistic. It is for lack of a better word conditional. I love you because you do this for me, but then you stop performing this action, I stop loving you. You become a pariah because your love is not the kind of love they wanted or the kind of love they expected to receive. From the beginning, you probably experienced conditional love. So, when you find someone who treats you better than the previous person who loved you. You settle. Blind to the toxic nature because it is , better than the previous one. We silently accept abuse as normal and then start acting out on the other persons insecurities by behaving exactly as they do. When we silently vowed, that we would never become them. You conveniently forget that in the beginning, their actions made you feel small. You chose to forget about how it made you feel. You became numb and started to normalize their version of love.
Relationships could be parent- child, significant other, friendships and communities. We have seen greatly; how community has shifted. Instead of offering counsel, they offer harsh words especially, when you utter something people do not like. You are considered an anomaly. Woe unto you if you try to be different. The different will be beat out of you, till you just settle to live life from a conditional space.
Love can be elusive for some, those that have lots of love to give tend to be filled with self-doubt, carrying the burden of their experience with them. When really, it is looking to find the love within yourself. We are an example of how we want to be treated. If you tell yourself everyday you are not enough, ugly, not smart and all the negative lies that float in your head. You become those very things you hate. Love starts from acceptance, accepting that your body may not be perfect to you, but it’s perfect right now. That every inch and piece of you is significant. The other day I caught myself thinking summer means extra epilation. Hairy legs don’t look becoming. Then I saw someone jogging on an artificial leg. I realized that they may be wishing they had a leg but, was doing the best they could. It was as if, I was being reminded that that's an insignificant thing to worry about. A light had been shone to me. I made the decision to love every inch of my body and acknowledge it. We take so many things for granted. Breathing. Walking. Running. Stretching and just the use of our bodily functions. When our body does so much for us than we give it credit for. We keep telling ourselves, if we lost a certain amount of weight or got some procedure done our life would be better. What if we just loved what we had now then built on it? Figure out what is the healthiest option for us, so we could sustain ourselves for longer?
Maybe lose the friends or people in our lives that constantly try to put us down. The people that have their own insecurities to deal with but, project it on us. Move, from a place that spews negativity and makes you feel like a second -class citizen, where you question your existence. Where you feel like there’s more that you can do, but you keep been given limits. Maybe just maybe, seeing the peace in our lives without the constant drama May be what we need. Fall in love, with discovering who you are as you, not the roles you play.
“Love is the sea where intellect drowns
”
At first that didn’t make sense but after my conversation with John, it did. Sometimes we use our intellect to determine what it is we deserve but, forget that the secrets we keep in our heart are our greatest desire. Love may be elusive, what if it has been within you all along?
Rediscover what love means to you, but know that it is infinite and full of possibilities.
Ps: My book Monversation: a journey to healing is available on amazon for pre-order. The ebook will launch on 20th of June. The rest will come out later.
Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash