Love, actually… is
Even before February rolls around we are smacked in the face with red hearts, pink teddies and chocolate. And for most people this is very cringeworthy.
When I was a young adult the need to have someone during this time was like a trophy. All the girls at the office receiving their flowers or chocolate covered strawberries; gushing over their partner's words on little card from the florist with some cliche saying or poem. On many occasions, I thought about sending myself flowers just so I can be a part of the whole thing, the band of what I thought was the “love crew,” but I never did.
The early years of my first marriage, I would go all out. Leaving chocolates and strawberries around so my ex-husband could find them with rose petals and cards with cologne. Booking the dinners, making sure the evening was what I saw on TV or what mainstream told me it should be until it wasn't reciprocated. To only to be constantly told, Valentine's day is every day. For some reason I didn't get that. I wanted fantasy, I wanted to be like the other girls. I wanted to feel loved and appreciated and at that time I somehow equated those things with love because that seemed like what everyone else was doing.
Until one day, I woke up and everything I thought was love was gone. The marriage, the new love, my father, my grandparents... sitting in a hobbit hole of an apt looking around sobbing from deep grief and loneliness I heard, “love comes from within.” Huh? Within? What does that mean?
Now, believe me I have read every Iylana Vanzant book, prayed, watched Joyce Meyer and TD Jakes, thought Oprah was my mother, but this concept of love being within... was not hitting. I heard God is within. Spirit is within. My higher-self is within.. BUT LOVE??? How? Isn't love an emotion that you must have an equal person showing it back to you? SO you can feel it and experience it.. I love my children. They love me. Doesn't love have to be reciprocated to be experienced???
And then I saw this quote for Master Teacher Eckhart Tolle
“There is FREEDOM in going within and seeking God, God-Self, HigherSelf, Higher Consciousness and gaining fulfillment, love and validation from yourself and only yourself.” I wanted to be free. Free from pain, Free from trauma, free from playing small, free from what people told me I could or could not do, free from my own negative thoughts and insecurities. As Tolle says, "a treasure within" and I wanted that treasure. The treasure was Freedom and Peace.
And then it hit me. God is Love and so therefore I am love. This love I seek is myself. My own self -love. How can anyone give me the love I need, if I can't give it to myself first. How dare I ask someone to love me if I am incapable of giving it to myself.
And that is how I discovered where I needed to put in work & effort. Self Love. There needs to be a radical change in how we view love. We have to give to ourselves what we expect from others. We have to show people how we want to be treated. So… I bought myself flowers, I took myself out, I rested when I was tired and I said No to things and meant it... I placed boundaries and I also trusted that I KNEW what I needed... best of all I knew how to forgive myself, showed myself grace and ease for perhaps not honoring myself.
Now here's the thing... All that work on ME has opened doors for others to see. Now, I get the flowers, and the chocolates and the hugs from other people because they see how I treat myself and they (Family & Friends) know how much I like those things, but it doesn't matter because I fill my cup first so that everyone else can have the overflow.
So love actually is.. how you treat yourself. Love starts with Self. How you honor yourself, how you respect yourself. and most of all how you pour into yourself.
So the next time you cringe at the stores blasting your senses with red & pink explosions of hearts, cards, flowers, stuffies, cards.. say this.. I love myself right where I am. I forgive myself for treating myself badly and I know that Love, real love is within and my relationship with my Creator/God/Source/Universe... and then buy yourself some chocolate or a massage or do whatever makes you happy. You deserve it!
I love you, Cloves!
Melissa