A Bit About Love
What’s love got to do with it?
Everything!
Unconditional love is the gold standard. Something everyone claims to be seeking, but only a select population can say they know what it is and have experienced it. We seek it from partners, friends, parents, family and for most come up empty or at least lacking in fulfillment of our perception of unconditional love.
Do you give unconditional love? The answer for almost all of us is, “wellllllll yay, but no.” We have expectations, unfulfilled needs that we believe someone outside of ourselves needs to provide. People must/should behave a certain way. We find them lacking and more importantly, we often find ourselves lacking.
That is where the real trick comes in. Do you love yourself unconditionally? Are you content and at peace with yourself right here, right now. Just as you are – young/old, thin/fat, healthy/unhealthy, rich/poor, smart/stupid, married/single? The list can go on because finding yourself loveable seems to be quite illusive. So, we realize that we are not “perfect” or at least acceptable but then we want someone or something outside of ourselves to convince us that we are wrong. Very few fellow earth campers are willing to help us out, mostly because they too are seeking perfection and somehow helping us find ours is not on the agenda or is too confronting.
I was lucky. I had a mother who I knew and felt adored me. As I aged, I would put conditions on that love as I perceived her approval or non-approval. I attempted to be the person I perceived she needed me to be which came at a cost, but then all of life is a series of checks and balances, decisions and consequences. Then I married a man who truly loved me unconditionally.
As I review my 26 plus years with him, it is interesting to note how I tried to prove him wrong. I was happy to provide him with all the evidence of how I was not worthy of the love he willingly gave. The non-judgement of my behavior, looks, beliefs and foibles. He loved all his family in the same way, but I do not believe any of them ever knew it. He had no expectations. If he loved you, he loved you. He might not have felt a need to express it to them repeatedly, but he never stopped loving them based on any of their behavior. Most people would have. He took everyone as they came.
I am grateful to him, but more importantly, I am grateful to me because I finally got what he was modeling. We are all worthy of love, but if you do not start with yourself, how can you expect to ever believe that you are loved.
So, this Valentine’s Day try not to wish you were someone’s Valentine, be your own. It costs nothing and you lose the reservations.
