We are the happiest when we are being LOVING. It is a simple truth anyone can feel for themselves. Feeling love for others, and ourselves, we are being true to our nature. We are born in love, and we die in love.
But love doesn't come easy to many of us. Why is it?
The answer is surprisingly simple: Because we often confuse love with PAIN.
We think that abuse and disrespect is a normal part of a loving relationship. That manipulation, dishonesty and deceit, are inevitable. We make EXCUSES for their behaviour and believe they are being loving when they have clearly intended to hurt us or bring us down. We often confuse attraction with love, and think that when someone gives us attention they are being loving with no hidden agenda. We think that drama is healthy (or even needed!) to feel the love for each other. Typically we say 'Love hurts' when our relationship bubble bursts. Frankly, we have no clue about how true love looks like, blaming our confusion on love...
Yet, love was who we WERE when very little. At what point has this changed for us?
When have we stopped being loving, believing that pain is love?
Who taught us first hand about what love is? Our (emotionally immature and unaware) carers. They did not understand themselves (their mind and heart) hence, sadly, had no clue about how true love looks like. They had no clue because their carers had no clue either. And now we are up against KARMA - the cycle of pain which is carried over many generations.
When those who were meant to love us were less than loving towards us, we felt hurt. Our EARLY RELATIONSHIPS were shaping our perception of love. More often than not they were our 'pain teachers' , as they could only share what they knew. For a small child love is automatic like breathing air as it is her/his natural state of being. And we would have remained in our natural state if we haven't been taught to reject ourselves...
We have practiced the 'I am not good enough for them to love me' mantra when others failed to meet our needs and acted in less than loving ways. We stopped perceiving ourselves as perfect and practiced self-rejection, so we don't even remember how being truly loving and kind looks like.
Asking someone else to love us is like doing a shady BUSINESS: we are offering our ‘love’ which really is only our attention, buying their attention (or what they call 'love') in return. Selling our true desires and needs in exchange, we are willing to become who they like us to be. We pretend our butt off just to be liked by them. We become the chameleons who blend in to feel accepted. We pretend to be offering love, having practiced self-rejection for the most part of our life. Cheating one another right from the start we cannot be surprised in the slightest when our relationships fail. We say 'I stopped loving him/her.' No, you did not. You never did love them for who they were. Firstly you do not know what love is, and secondly you fell in love hard and fast with an illusion of them. This happened partly thanks to your wishful thinking, and partly due to buying into their pretending. Two chameleons in a relationship, one deceiving the other, none of them knowing how love actually looks like and feels. 'S/he was meant to love me! I trusted him/her!' our Inner Child screams in disappointment.
When you cheat yourself, showing others who you are not, they buy into your mask. And they will be pretty disappointed when your mask slips. You can forget about being true to your needs because all your efforts are being spent on keeping your mask up...
Continue to part 2.
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Copyright © 2017 Michaela Patel