Open
to Love
“I
found a kind of serenity, a new maturity...I didn't feel better or
stronger than anyone else, but it seemed no longer important whether
everyone loved me or not—more important now was for me to love
them. Feeling that way turns your life around; living becomes the act
of giving.”
Beverly
Sills
Most
of us feel wounded when someone doesn't like us. We worry about what
we did wrong; how we offended them. Some of us work very
hard to make others love us. We try to say and do all the
right things to earn everyone's approval. When any person dislikes
us, or worse, is indifferent to us, we suffer. Sustaining that effort, and
the anxiety that goes with it, is exhausting
Truth
is, not everyone is going to love us. Some people will out-right
dislike us, and some will simply not register our existence. There
are people I truly don't care for—don't you feel the same? The real
question is, “How well do I like myself?” If the answer to that
question is, “Not very well,” then I may come across to others as not likable. As with everything, we need to turn the whole thing around
and bring it home to roost. When we focus on doing what is necessary
to feel good about ourselves, to like and even love who we are, then
strange things happen. One is that we care far less that some folks
don't especially love us, and two, we find our own hearts opening to
them in spite of it.
There
was a time in my life when I could name on one hand the people I
honestly loved. They were few and far between. As I became more
accepting of myself, I found I was more accepting of others, too. I
began to love more people, even those who were very different from
me. When we open our hearts to ourselves, others are drawn into its
wake. In the big scheme of things, especially in terms of our
physical and mental health, it is far more important to love than to
be loved. But you may find that they go together.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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