Being Open

Love is an amazing feeling and comes from the very depths of our souls. When you feel love, you experience a reaction to it. When the reaction is open and loving it feels amazing, but when the reaction is guarded it suppresses love and that is not part of the gift, it is part of a distortion. You see....the saying, love can set you free is true, but you have to sort out all of the distortions first. What are those distortions? Well, those distortions are lies and defenses we have been told or decided for ourselves about love, like "love hurts." We have all been told lies since childhood about love that were wrong and based on other people's fears and distortions. Love is such a freeing emotion, but when your mind perceives it as a threat, then your mind has judged love. When you lack trust in love, have doubts or fear vulnerability, then the mind creates all types of defenses. The truth is that love is effortless and is the most joyful emotion. It is actually really easy to love someone. The fears from the mind twist things however and tell you to retreat because of old wounds. Love is not the problem, the fear of pain is. The mind builds barricades to protect, but those barricades cause more suffering. The mind actually causes the pain in it's interpretation of love. When you are free and enjoy the gift of loving yourself and eventually others, there is no more suffering. Love can teach you what your fears are. Do your wounds keep you in a cave, preventing you from sharing your love with others? If you offer love to someone and they do not give it back immediately, where does your mind go? Do you withdraw and question, "what have you done for me lately?" Do you get angry and blame, or hide and decide it is not worth the risk? Does your mind respond with, "They must not love me, because they are not giving me what I want." Those are just wounds reacting. When you love yourself, you offer love as a gift and expect nothing in return. Let your wounds teach you about your distortions. The journey is to understand your own lies about love, getting in the way of the greatest gift in life. When you love others freely, you feel honest and authentic in your emotions instead of hiding behind defenses. Remember however that others are walking around with their fears and lies about love. When you send love, their alarms may be firing off tons of warnings, based on their misperceptions and pain. People get into power struggles with themselves over love and then with everyone else. First individuals struggle with loving themselves. I keep addressing this issue over and over because it is so important. When you do not love yourself, you tell yourself many lies about how you are not worthy to receive love, or that love means pain and sacrifice. None of that is true. If you are suffering, it is because you are not loving yourself and perhaps staying in situations which reflect that. The suffering is authentic too and is trying to wake you up. Next, loving others is the over pouring of loving yourself. Change your view of love back to the beauty that it deserves. You know when you love....it is a feeling that never lies. You may lie to yourself about love, but love can never disappear. Stop suppressing, denying, distorting and fearing the power of love. It truly can transform your life, as I have discovered. Instead of requesting a box of candy for Valentine's Day, give yourself the permission to love and you too will see .....that love is the start, the step forward, the beginning of everything.