As a child, I never liked Valentine’s Day. It was an unsettling time. As anticipation of the day grew, I was ridden with anxiety as feelings of worry began to build in me. I was afraid that I would not get enough Valentines from my schoolmates. After all, the more Valentines you got, the more you were liked. Right? I never did get the most Valentines, just some; I felt bad for a while and soon got over it — or so I thought. What I didn’t know is that deep down I made it mean I was not worthy of another’s love. I didn’t know it at the time but I was looking for love in all the wrong places.
Love In All The Wrong Places
Even as adults, many of us are still looking for love in all the wrong places. We carry these hurtful yet innocent experiences of our youth with us as beliefs. We expect children and spouses to do certain things and if they don’t we make it mean that we are unloved or that they don’t care. This behavior even extends to friends, co-workers and bosses.
This kind of love is conditional — when you do what I want, I’ll feel okay. When you don’t do what I want, I won’t feel okay.
Many people use this to manipulate others and it is the prime cause of most of the drama and discourse you experience in your life. I was masterful at this technique and used it often in the early years of my marriage. It led to Pat and I separating; I moved out of the house and it almost led to divorce. I was looking for love in all the wrong places.
Love cannot be found outside of oneself and be conditional on another. If conditional love is not the answer, then maybe the answer lies in unconditional love.
On Earth As It Is In Heaven
If love cannot be found outside of oneself conditional on others, then where can it be found? The answer lies within the question itself. Unconditional love can be found within one’s Self. This is the meaning of, “as within, so without.” Perhaps you know the more familiar version from the Lord’s Prayer, “on earth as it is in heaven.”
The seeds of unconditional love are love of self. One cannot truly love another unless one chooses to love themselves first and unconditionally. It is not possible to give love if you have nothing to give. You have nothing to give if you don’t first love yourself.
SourceFulLiving.com embraces the energy of self-love and has created an entire body of teachings around this concept.
They explain …
“Often Self Love is found in forgiving ourselves empowered by the energy of love. Through the Love of Self, we recognize the divinity within ourselves and each other as a fractal part of All That Is – the Universal Mind, First Cause, God or any other term you would assign to the ultimate Creator, the Source of All, Life and Energy. Not love from the outside in, but love from the inside out. Love of work, love of play, love of others, love of everything you do and encounter in your life. In fact you are the vibrating energy of love, literally. By re-membering this, you will become a light to others letting your Soul light shine through in just how you live your life, and through this, we can change the world together.”
What The World Needs Now
Is this not what we all want, to be loved and to love and to feel joy in all we do? We cannot experience joy in what we do if we do not first experience love of what we do.
SourceFulLiving sums it up nicely, “What the world needs now is simply what it has always needed – LOVE, and to provide it, you begin with loving yourself first so you can truly love others without needing them to do, say or be anything other than who they are.” Amen to that.
So by all means, treat your Valentine this Valentine’s Day, make it a big deal, but make it a bigger deal to treat yourself to some self-love as well. Infuse your Valentine’s Gifts and Greetings with the energy of love from within and watch the miracles unfold.
Please join us and our guests, Mike and Lucy, from www.SourceFulLiving.com for this months FREE meditation on Self Love, Tue., Feb. 3, 9pm EST on www.BodyMindSpiritRADIO.com
Dave Krajovic
