"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." Rumi
Early in my (work-in-progress) spiritual awakening, when I had no clue what awakening was, I knew that I wanted to feel different than I did. Or, more specifically, I wanted to understand why my relationships weren't working.
As I realized later, it was self-love, unconditional love, or just love that was the missing ingredient. It's not that we don't have it, we do, all along, we just need to learn how to uncover it or accept and let go of the barriers as Rumi stated above.
As most of us do, we have those memories that seem to have been pinned for us to learn from later. This was one of my pinned moments that led me to want to know that self-love or unconditional love within me:
Around 2011 or so, I was suffering from a low-level depression. I was taking a low dose of depression medication, which I couldn't talk much about because the culture of law enforcement didn't support this at the time. There was so much shame around admitting I was sad and I was taught this was weak or that something must be wrong with me. I was lying on my bed in the daytime with the lights off, blinds closed and crying. I felt lost, scared, confused, hopeless, powerless and all I wanted was to run out of my life as it was. I believed that if my outside circumstances were different, I would feel better. My partner at the time came in to check on me, and in the conversation, I recall her asking, "Do you love yourself?" Love myself? I don't know what that means.
A few years later, I knew one of my purposes was to find out what unconditional love is, what loving myself means, and what it feels like.
As I journeyed...another pinned moment was:
Around 2005 or so, I was driving with my partner at the time and I don't recall the context of our conversation but I can recall clearly where we were when I said, I don't believe in unconditional love. The only connection to unconditional love I had was if anyone hurt me, I wouldn't love them anymore. It was something outside of me, other things, other people that gave me this love, and this is where my suffering stemmed from.
What is unconditional love or self-love anyway? To me, as I know it now, it's accepting and loving all that is. Loving every experience, everybody, everything. And this starts with accepting and loving yourself, loving your body, loving the scars, loving the fears, loving the shame, loving the anger, loving the sadness, loving the whole mess.
Letting yourself be a mess, is unconditional love and creates healing in the body, mind, and spirit.
Not letting yourself be a mess turns into disharmony or disease in the body, mind, and spirit.
Now I can say, I'm grateful for this mysterious and miraculous path to uncover the love within me. Is it still unfolding, absolutely, yes! Every day I'm getting to know who this unconditional loving Self is. It's is me. I AM it. I couldn't find it because it was me all along. Not anywhere outside. Not in a girlfriend, house, dog, car, clothes, hair, shoes, none of where I was trying to find it...can those be byproducts of recognizing the love that we are, yes. Are they our source of love, no.
Like I've said with everything, this is a practice. It's like going to the gym. For you to reap the benefits of the gym in a healthy way it needs to be consistent. Practice, practice, practice...
If something you read taps on your heart but are not sure what it is, reach out to me, I would love to connect with you and see if I can help you uncover the love within you.
XO, D
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I am a master-in-training for being the space for myself to learn and grow and know the absolute truth of who I am. I am whole, healthy, abundant, love, and free…so are you. I forget this sometimes and that’s perfectly okay. I get to remember and forget and remember…for the rest of my life. So far I've played the role of an athlete, police officer, health coach, and nutritionist and mostly I desire to help others on this amazing journey called Life.
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