Every once in a while I think about the one thing I wish that everyone knew. It’s something I almost take for granted, until I meet someone who doesn’t know it, and I realize with a shock that so much depends on this understanding…
I am loved.
I know it, I know it as a bedrock part of my psyche. No matter where in the world I go, I know that I’m loved. Not to be trite, but that’s all that keeps me going some days.
Not everyone shares this knowing.
They fear their imperfections mean they aren’t lovable, or that being flawed qualifies them only for flawed love. They are fearful, occassionally bitter, or timid, and keep a strict accounting of who owes whom what.
I fear they never learnt the mechanics of love.
Love does not depend on perfection. Or chemistry. Or sex. Or power.
Love depends on love.
Let me put it to you this way: When you love someone, you love all of them. You love their good traits, and their bad traits, and everything about them, because you can’t take away even the smallest thing and still have them be the same person that you love.
Love does not depend on your ability to get along.
It does not mean you will spend your life together, or that they are able to be a partner to you.
Love means that you see who they are at their essence. And that in that essence, you see yourself as well.
At the core of a person there is a child.
An open-hearted child who wants to be loved, to have concern shown for him, understanding, sovereignty, independence, challenge, triumph, hugs, and companionship. You can relate that, can you not? Can’t we all?
And from that point, you can see that everything that person has ever done was to fulfill those longings, however badly they may have bungled them. And you can love that child while deploring the action, and while loving that child, you can show understanding, and teach them forgiveness. Because of course, you yourself have caused terrible hurt in your own pursuit of these desires.
Have you forgiven yourself yet?
It’s from this space that contentment and joy flow. This is where you feel your sturdiness, your sovereignty, where you feel whether or not you’re living congruent to your values, where you navigate your life most ably from.
Love, and learn to love yourself
[ssbp]
