Ask Parvati 13: I Suck. Please Love Me.

I SUCK. PLEASE LOVE ME.

Self-Love and All That Fun Stuff

May 22, 2011

Dear Parvati,

I really want a life partner but just can’t seem to find the right person. I have been told I need to work on my self before I can find my life partner, but I must admit I don’t totally get why. Are we not supposed to grow with our partner? I feel like I need to be somehow perfect to attract the right person into my life. I find all this stressful so I thought you could shed some light on this. Thanks.

Thank you for the question. Most of us grow up with the idea that someone ‘out there’ will come along some day to fill us up. Mesmerized by fairy tale myths of a perfect prince or princess who will transform our lives into magic, we look (and perhaps are looking) for the one person who would make our lives perfect and bring us the happiness we feel we have been deeply missing.

Just like with all fairy tales, “real life” is something different. For the most part, what we commonly call love is some form of unspoken contractual relationships, where “if I act in a certain way, I will get this and that from you, and vice versa”. Contracts are not love but arrangements.

Getting real about love means learning to face our own lives and look at our values, our hopes, our dreams, our tender places, our relationships with friends, family and peers and most importantly, our relationship with ourselves.

THE CATCH

Trying to find a lasting relationship feeling lousy about oneself is like trying to catch rain with a sieve. We simply don’t have the containment to attract the nectar we seek to quench our hungry and lonely hearts. If we look within, we may feel a hunger that is deeply insatiable. This is a feeling that only we can satisfy. It would be impossible for anyone to do that for us.

Until we feel we are worthy of love, we are unable to sustain the true love we ultimately seek. When we feel incomplete within ourselves, our sense of partiality tends to attract partial relationships that last for some time and then dissolve. It is only when we feel whole within ourselves that we attract the wholesome love that provides the meaty sustenance to accompany and enhance our lives.

When we learn to love our self, we become like an open cup ready to receive the bounty of life. Perhaps, to some, that seems like bitter irony. You may ask, “If I feel whole, why would I want to find love?” Love is organic and infinite. It is not an end point, but an ongoing, alive, evolving force. Love does not arise though “wanting”. When we are “wanting”, we are identified as separate from that which we want. How can we attract something from which we feel disconnected? When we we feel that we are not separate from, but exist within, love, we are able to receive and sustain it.

Love flourishes as an ever-present force to be witnessed. For most, love is to be found, to be had or to be lost. But for the wise, love is to witness an unfolding. As we love ourself or as we love another, we learn not to grasp or to control, but to appreciate with inner spaciousness the blossoming, the evolution of this moment as it is.

It is not someone else’s job to make you feel loved, but up to you to tap into the love within yourself. Friends, family, lovers, spouses can amplify that connection within you, but they are not the source. To put that job on someone else would be to sidestep your own spiritual responsibility.

Feeling disconnected from love can be a deeply unconscious thing, due to wounds we carry from childhood and/or from past lives. There may be a very young place within us that still feels unmet by our mother, our father or both. From this place, we tend to express a wanting for love. We may be feeling unconsciously, “I want daddy to make it all ok,” or “I want mommy to love me in the way I need”, which then gets projected onto any potential partner we may attract. How could a partner fill that void?

A mature, lasting love relationship is not two halves making a whole, but two wholes dancing in the infinite. We must do our own inner work on our deeper issues before we can have a lasting and meaningful relationship with another person.

WE ARE LOVE, WE ARE LOVED

It is up to each one of us to realize that within us exists an unbroken tie to the universe, an unending tap that flows with love. The problem is, most of us are standing on the ‘cosmic hose’ that is pumping love our way, while we scratch our heads bewildered, wondering where all the love has gone. When we are developing self-love, we need to look within at the ways in which we are blocking the flow to feel love, to feel loved.

Love is all around, within, always. The very fabric of the universe pulsates at the frequency of love, of joy, of abundance. In each moment we are loved beyond what we could ever imagine. It is our own distorted thoughts, wounds and attachments that make us believe otherwise. So why do we hold on to feeling disconnected, searching for love ‘to fill me up’ from ‘out there’, rather than within?

Perhaps it is habit, socialized patterns, a sort of cosmic amnesia that keeps us asleep rather than truly empowered. Perhaps it is easier to blame than take responsibility. There is a subtle power we get from feeling powerless, from feeling like a victim. It is scary to let go of blame and take responsibility for our happiness, because we have to look within and change things that hold us back from growing. Stepping into the new, the unknown, is scary, when we are attached to things being as they are. That involves being accountable for our life and letting go of blaming everyone, even our parents, or the universe, for our wounds. We each chose our parents and every aspect of our lives. Everything that exists in our lives is a reflection of our thoughts and beliefs and provides perfect support for our growth. There are no mistakes, only opportunities.

In order to embrace change, we need courage. Self-love takes courage to develop. It is only when we have the courage to welcome ourselves into our hearts that we find the love we seek. In welcoming our full self into our self, that is, in opening ourself up to the totality of who we are, we learn to welcome the love from the universe, and then from others, into our lives. When we love ourself, we discover how to co-create with the love from another. Our life then becomes like a house built on a solid foundation.

Without self-love, we tend to graft ourselves onto another person’s energy, because we are not rooted in who we are. Our rootedness comes from our personal relationship with the cosmos, the divine and the reality (not the myth) of love. One’s relationship to the divine is a deeply personal thing, something no one but oneself can truly understand.

WHAT IS SELF-LOVE ANYWAY?

Self-love is different from self-confidence or having a good self-esteem, though they can be related. Self-confidence is when one feels certitude in their ability to discern or act, whereas self-esteem involves a quiet assurance in
one’s place within the whole, a feeling of being a valuable and welcome part of the universe. Self-love involves the ability to treat oneself with understanding, kindness, patience and gentle perseverance. Deeper still, self-love involves one’s ability to know that one’s true nature is love and that our human destiny is to embody that love and express it in all we do.

The notion of self-love conjures images for many of being overly indulgent, narcissistic, egotistical, vain or selfish. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. It is only when we love our self that we learn to truly love others.

When we love ourself, we begin to look at life not as something happening ‘to me’, but as a reflection of who we are. We don’t feel separate from people, places and things, but we see our self in our surroundings. We feel closer to, even a part of, everything. There is a gentle sense of containment, or embrace, that surrounds us at all times, no matter what. In this, we feel rooted, vital and expansive, able to participate in life and follow our true joy with openness and courage.

Self-love is not about being overly attached and fascinated with the notion of “mine”. Self-love is a sacred thing. It brings us close to the divine. It allows us to see our Self as a reflection of the sacred, a part of a much greater whole. Self-love requires a paradigm shift. It involves being able to feel connected at some level to something greater than our ego.

When we allow ourselves to be wholly who we are, we embody the Divine. Our deepest joy is our way into the realm of possibility, a guiding light into our true, infinite nature. I have often contemplated on the meaning of the phrase “It is God’s Will”. Does that mean that some force outside of me could potentially disapprove of my choices? What I have come to realize is that there is no force ‘out there’ that is separate from my true self. The will of the universe dances to the rhythm of love and is supported by joy. In essence, my true joy is the universe’s joy. I know without a shadow of doubt that so it is for you too. We are all beings of love. Let us remember our true nature and set ourselves free. Love, love, love. It is all about love.

May we each remember our true nature, embody love and set the world’s heart ablaze.

Love,

Parvati

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