Love starts with You
Happy Valentine’s Week!
Love comes in constant reminders these days: cards, flowers, gadgets, thoughts... And it is nice to have our attention so bombarded by a nice words like “LOVE”...
But do you really know what LOVE means?
I can guess that, like me, you have looked and you are looking for love everywhere, but probably never in the right place.
It took me years to understand this and I’m still working on it, but what I have found out is so revealing I can’t help sharing it with you.
To be able to express something, you should know exactly what this something is and it appears to me is that we are pretty confused about “what love is”.
Love is not sex, love is not possession of someone or something, love is not getting married or being in a relationship, love is not having a family...
Love can manifest itself through all of the above, but love should exist BEFORE that.
You should BE IN LOVE and BE LOVE in order to be able to express love through sex, through a relationship, through a family.
What does this mean? That you shouldn’t expect love to come to you through the persons and the events in your life. Love is not something that can come to you if you are unable to “talk love” and to infuse it into everything that you are and that you do.
Love starts from you. And for you to be in love the first step is learning to know yourself and learning to love yourself unconditionally.
Do you know, do you accept and honor who you are? Do you take good care of yourself?
We constantly ask for and pretend we have this kind of love and respect from the people around ourselves, but how can they succeed if we are the first ones unable to know who we are and what makes us shine?
Love starts in you. The first person you should love is yourself.
Please don’t confuse this with egoism or self-indulgence, to love yourself means knowing exactly what makes you feel in balance with you and you don’t compromise on that.
Before being in love with someone else you should be in love with you. This is the only way to be able to love anyone else fully and unconditionally.
How do I know this? Because I’m the first one to have made many mistakes in love. More than once I loved someone with my full heart and I expected to be loved in return, but in loving them so unconditionally I totally forgot to respect myself; in the name of that love I compromised my time and my values and I lost myself.
I’m learning now. What I’m learning is that resentment is a great adviser that tells you when you’re on the wrong track.
When I feel resentful about something that has happened, I now know I have done something wrong to myself.
Maybe I didn't honor my boundaries accepting to do something I don't like to do, maybe I was unable to say no and I'm stretching myself to cope with the situation, maybe I was unable to take a decision and someone else is doing it for me... Whatever the reason, the nature of the resentment that I'm feeling is in reality resentment against myself for not being able to respect myself.
Resentment is a clear signal that I didn’t love myself enough and I have to learn from that.
When you know, respect and love who you are there won’t be any space left for resentment.
Love starts with you. Loving you is accepting yourself the way you are and stopping being obsessed about perfection because you know you are perfect the way you are.
The moment you make peace with yourself and you start to really enjoy your body, your mind, your thoughts, then you are ready to love someone else and to be loved in return.
