Love Actually, I enjoyed this film, it was fun and humorous, but did it represent what love truly is?
For me, I used to understand love as being this ‘emotional thing’ when somebody supposedly loved you and would be ‘nice’ to you; this did not always make sense
For me, I used to understand love as being this ‘emotional thing’ when somebody supposedly loved you and would be ‘nice’ to you; this did not always make sense
as the way people behaved at times was not what I considered loving. Did I have a picture and image of what I thought love was, that wasn't truly it? And maybe earlier in my life, I had been influenced by reading romantic novels that portrayed how love was meant to be – love always had a 'happy ending'.
If I had been living with false ideals about what love was, and having love was important to me, then have I been trying to get this form of love from the outside (just like in the pictures)? Maybe seeking being liked, accepted and recognised from people, and becoming a nice, people pleasing good girl to win approval. In behaving in this way I was in fact giving up on the true me and instead being something I thought others wanted. What if we are love and that love is inside all of us, in our inner-heart, just waiting for us to re-connect to? What if this lack of connecting to and expressing our love creates a hurt, that sets us up to search for love elsewhere?
I recognised in my long term relationship that I placed needs on my partner, these needs meant he had to behave in ways to prove that he loved me, which was crazy as I knew he loved me, albeit in the old emotional way. These needs were coming from my hurts, and because I had no foundation of love for myself, I was continually looking to be filled from the outside, which was a vicious cycle I was trapped in.
I felt something wasn’t right with this way of being, and so I ended the relationship, thinking I would come away and work on loving and healing myself, and that we would then get back together and everything would be great, a bit like the novels.
What I have come to appreciate is that learning to love myself is a gradual process; it’s a stopping of bashing myself, of judging, and criticizing myself, and it is building a connection with myself so I know and honour the real me, appreciating my qualities and what I bring. I am building and deepening love of myself, and others, and that means what I want and accept in my life is now is very different.
If I had been living with false ideals about what love was, and having love was important to me, then have I been trying to get this form of love from the outside (just like in the pictures)? Maybe seeking being liked, accepted and recognised from people, and becoming a nice, people pleasing good girl to win approval. In behaving in this way I was in fact giving up on the true me and instead being something I thought others wanted. What if we are love and that love is inside all of us, in our inner-heart, just waiting for us to re-connect to? What if this lack of connecting to and expressing our love creates a hurt, that sets us up to search for love elsewhere?
I recognised in my long term relationship that I placed needs on my partner, these needs meant he had to behave in ways to prove that he loved me, which was crazy as I knew he loved me, albeit in the old emotional way. These needs were coming from my hurts, and because I had no foundation of love for myself, I was continually looking to be filled from the outside, which was a vicious cycle I was trapped in.
I felt something wasn’t right with this way of being, and so I ended the relationship, thinking I would come away and work on loving and healing myself, and that we would then get back together and everything would be great, a bit like the novels.
What I have come to appreciate is that learning to love myself is a gradual process; it’s a stopping of bashing myself, of judging, and criticizing myself, and it is building a connection with myself so I know and honour the real me, appreciating my qualities and what I bring. I am building and deepening love of myself, and others, and that means what I want and accept in my life is now is very different.
‘Love is simply a stillness. It is not a doing or trying. The movement of love occurs when we express or move with it. This can only occur – when we are in it to begin with. If there is no self-love, there can not be love in anything you do or say. No matter how much we think we can love, no matter how much we can ‘romanticise’ and or, ‘benevolise’ (make idealistically good) a word or an expression, it will not have love in it if there is no love in the vessel that expresses it. And, there can not be love unless there is SELF-LOVE.’
The Way of Initiation by Serge Benhayon page 721
