Discovering the Love of Your Life
Please love me…
I need you…
Don’t you see that I love you?
Maybe if I love you more…
Maybe I’m not enough…
No, I just have to love you more.
Do you think of one special person when you think of the love of your life? Do you imagine what life would be like if only you could find the love of your life? Do you dream of the life you would share, the incredible love you would experience? Do you think that you would be complete if you could just find that special love? You can have that dream because you have the love of your life with you right now… the love of your life is YOU.
If you just thought, “Yeah, right,” you are not alone in thinking that. A few years ago, I would have echoed that same response. Like you, I thought that the love of my life had to be someone else. Since then, I have learned the most difficult lesson of my life… and yet, it is perhaps the simplest… I have learned to love myself.
I want to share my story with you because if it is possible for me to learn to love myself, it is truly possible for you to do the same thing. And I promise you that if you can begin to believe that you are lovable, that you are worthy, that you are wonderful just as you are… you, too, will begin to experience life in a whole new dimension… one in which you embrace life and experience all the goodness and love and happiness that this world has to offer. Does it sound too good to be true? I can assure you that it’s not. Learning to love myself has turned my life around, and change is possible for you, too. It can be your reality because the change is in you… and how you see yourself.
Loving yourself seems simple enough… on the surface. When you were young, did you learn that you were to love your neighbour as yourself? Did you learn the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” Did you embrace these teachings as I did, and believe that they were fundamental to your life and to your worth in the eyes of the world?
Like me, did you concentrate on the first half… the love your neighbour, the do unto others parts? As I matured into an adult, I learned to give of myself to others. In fact, I learned it so well, that even when it seemed that there was no more to give, I dug deep and found more. Sound familiar to you? I gave of myself to my students. I gave of myself to my family, and especially to my children. Oh, I was the consummate mom; I was absolutely in love with my babies. My whole world revolved around giving all of my time and my energy and my heart to them. Have you wanted to be the perfect parent, the perfect partner, the perfect teacher, the perfect friend, the perfect person… just like I tried to be? To do that, did you have to give all of yourself… and when that wasn’t enough, did you feel you had to give more? Have you ever thought to yourself, “I have nothing more to give?” and then the phone rang, and someone needed you for something and you said yes?
Have you had friends or family tell you that you needed to look after yourself, that you needed to make time for you? If you were like me, you listened to them, but you did not hear the wisdom of their words. Did you tell yourself how selfish it would be to make time for you, how egotistical it would be to put yourself first? And when people talked about loving themselves, was that a completely foreign concept to you?
Perhaps you are a better listener than I was. I kept loving and giving of myself, believing that if I loved enough, I would be good enough. I couldn’t even begin to conceive that I had to be worthy in my own eyes to be worthy in the eyes of others. I refused to consider that I needed to learn to love myself so that I could truly love others. I didn’t realize that my loving was really trying to find my own worth mirrored back from those I loved. I didn’t realize that I was giving myself away.
It took me many years and much heartache to realize that under all of my loving and giving was a belief that was fundamentally incorrect: if I could love enough, I would have worth in the eyes of others. I began to realize that by searching for validation in others, I released my power to define myself. I gave everyone else the power to define my self-concept, my identity. I drew to me people who treated me badly, who took my love and used it to control and abuse me. I know now that I gave others that power because I didn’t love myself. Have you ever thought to yourself that if you just loved someone more, they would love you in return?
I tried to do just that. As my marriage unravelled and I became the target of my husband’s anger, it seemed everything was my fault. The same message played and replayed in my head. “I just have to love him more. Then things will be better.” His anger meant something had to be wrong with me. I had to love more so he would love me back. Everything I did was wrong; everything about me became fuel for his vicious attacks… until one evening when it seemed that all was lost, that there was no hope, that my only release would be death.
I left my home that evening intending to die. I drove my car, blinded by tears, wrapped up in my misery. I couldn’t see the road; I didn’t want to see the road… I just wanted to find oblivion. As I dared death to take me, the thought of my two young children at home without me jarred me. I believed, without a doubt, that their father would destroy them, as he had tried to do with me. I could not leave my children. I had to go back.
I pulled over to the side of the road and sat there in silence. As I sat there, the tears dried, and a resolute calm descended on my body. I turned the car around, and I returned home… to my children. The only thing that had changed was something within me. It was a tiny change, but it was the will to survive, to go on for my children. At first, that’s all it was.
I concentrated on protecting them and looking for ways to get out. Within three weeks of that night, I left my marriage and my home to begin a new life. I lived every day to turn things around for my children, to find healing and emotional strength for them. My love had to be enough to help them adjust to the traumatic changes in their lives. I had to love them enough to help them heal.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to realize that if I could not love myself, I could not truly love them or anyone else enough. Because I believed deep within me that I was unworthy of love, I had attracted exactly the kind of treatment that I believed I deserved.
Day by day, over a period of years, I began the process of changing my belief system about myself. What had seemed so difficult was really so simple. I needed to love myself to truly be able to love others freely and unconditionally. I needed to love myself to attract the love of others that I deserved. As I began to love myself, I began to live, not only for my children, but for myself. And that was the beginning of my journey to healing and the story that I want to share with you… to show you that if I can do it, you can, too!
The lesson is a simple one, but changing my internal belief system has been anything but simple. Most days, I can honestly say that I love myself and truly believe it. However, there are still days when I fall into my old belief system and begin playing the self-doubt, self-blame tapes inside my head again. I fall hard on those days, but I am learning how to pick myself up and play the new reels of self-talk in my head, the reels that tell of self-love and self-worth.
Even when I fall and have to pick myself up… again, I do not second-guess the path of learning that I am on. This is the right path. Learning to love myself is the best thing that I can do to truly love my children unconditionally. I no longer look to satisfy my own needs in what I see reflected back from them. Loving myself allows me to truly love and care for my students. Loving myself allows me to open my heart to truly give to them and to work to make a difference in their lives. I no longer look for my worth in my interactions with them. Instead, I help them find their worth.
I am more at peace within myself than I ever have been. I know what it means to be happy and contented on my own. I have experienced more joy and fulfilment than I ever thought possible by learning to love myself. And the more I believe in my own worth, the more I embrace the freedom and joy of being my own person, the more I am able to begin each day filled with excitement and anticipation… and best of all, the more love I experience. That which I worked so hard to get comes so easily. I experience love because I can truly love.
I look at the teachings we learned when we were young, and I realize that loving our neighbour as ourselves also asks us to love ourselves. I realize that “Do unto others as we would have them do unto us” teaches us to treat ourselves well, too. I couldn’t see those teachings before; I only saw what I needed to do for others. I now embrace these teachings in the fullness of their message. But I know that my worth comes from within me and that it doesn’t come from the eyes of the world… just as YOUR worth comes from within YOU.
You, too, can learn to love yourself. You can find the happiness and joy that so many people search for all their lives because it is there within you… it is there, waiting for you to begin to love the person you are. Begin by telling yourself over and over that you are worthy, that you deserve to be loved, that you are wonderful just the way you are. Keep telling yourself that… until you believe it. If you are like me, this will feel weird at first. Persist. Keep practising loving self-talk. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen, and you can make it happen. Begin the process today, and keep doing it every day. Look in the mirror and really look at you. Tell yourself that you love YOU; tell yourself that you are worthy; give yourself a hug; and be as good and caring to YOU as you are to others. Before long, you will begin to feel worthy; you will begin to feel lovable just as you are, and you will learn to love yourself. You will discover the love of your life!
I changed my belief system. Why don’t you try it too? It will work miracles in your life.
Please love me…
I don’t have to ask anyone else because I love ME.
I need you…
I have all the love I need right here within ME!
Don’t you see that I love you?
I look in the mirror and see that I love ME!
Maybe if I love you more…
No, I just need to love ME.
Maybe I’m not enough…
I am more than enough. I am lovable. I love ME.
As I embraced life as an adult, I tried on many hats. I discovered that my teacher hat is one that I was born to wear, as is my mother hat. I do like to wear my writer hat, and sometimes I pull out and dust off my editor hat, but my favourite hat has become my learner hat. Above all, I seek to learn and grow personally and spiritually, and I want to share the priceless treasures that I have discovered with the hope and prayer that you can find and experience them too. I invite you to read more of my blog posts.
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