Have you ever had the thought, “What’s wrong with me? Why did _____________(he have an affair, leave the relationship, stop wanting me OR stop wanting to spend time with me, stop paying attention to me, stop talking to me,… fill in the blank with whatever it is for you).
We’ve all had experiences and situations in our lives that have in effect, forced us to build protective barriers to guard our hearts. When built, they may have served in protection, but the trick is to know when to allow your walls to collapse and let the old stories go. Once this happens, love pours in.
And the truth is everyone deserves to live a life filled with love and loving connections. So how can we intentionally create and experience more love?Although many of us look for love on the outside, the path to love really begins inside. This Rumi quote describes it perfectly:
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~ Rumi
Too often, the lack of deep love in our lives comes from a lack of self-love and self-compassion. Many of our love barriers were created to protect ourselves from our own inner critic. Most of us are incredibly hard on ourselves. When faced with our flaws the negative self chatter starts: “I’m not good enough. I’m worthless.” “I’m not interesting enough.” “I’m too old – who would want me?”
And of course, the goalposts for what counts as “good enough” seem always to remain out of reach. No matter how well we do, someone else always seems to be doing it better. The result of this line of thinking is sobering: Millions of people suffer from insecurity, anxiety, and depression, and much of this is due to self-judgment, to beating ourselves up when we feel we aren’t measuring up.
So what’s the answer?
To stop judging and evaluating ourselves altogether. To stop trying to label ourselves as “good” or “bad” and simply accept ourselves with an open heart. To treat ourselves with the same kindness, caring, love and compassion we would show to a good friend.
The secret to feeling more love is to practice staying open to love.
Develop a compassionate heart for yourself and others. Jesus of Nazareth talked a lot about the importance of compassion and having compassion for yourself is just as important as having compassion for others. From a spiritual point of view, you have to care about yourself before you can really care about other people. This has nothing to do with being self-centered, it has everything to do with being Self-centered. There’s a big difference between the two. When “self-centered” you think only of yourself and your needs continuously. When Self-centered you take the time to connect with your Diamond Power (the Power breathing you) and do the things that nurture and bring peace to your soul, so that you can show up 100% for your loved ones.
When you feel safe within yourself – knowing you are never alone -that God is always there with and for you; others will be drawn to your light and open heart. The opportunities to both give and receive love will be abundant.
Love is one of those things that it’s so expansive and infinite in nature; we will never have “too much” of it. We can only acquire more. Which is kind of the whole point isn’t it? When we heal ourselves more and more we can receive all of life’s blessings and love.So get in there, work it out. Remove any and all things that may be getting in the way of you experiencing MORE LOVE in your everyday life. I hope and wish for you the healing and the experiences for your container to hold this magnificent gift to grow and grow, and grow with each new day.
Sparkling love,
Sherri
