A Little on Healing

There is absolutely no doubt that love is complicated. One learns at an early age their own definition of what love looks like, and it adapts through real life experiences as we proceed through life.

These definitions of love morph and change, building a base that launches the next, and the next relationship. Pretty soon one becomes a train wreck of preconceived notions, tainted expectations and trauma.

After a lifetime of let-downs, various abusive/toxic relationships and so on, I finally decided it was time to get to the root of these issues and focus on love, in the best way I can - loving myself.

It is a hard thing to do - to be able to love yourself when everything in life points to you being "unlovable." From an early age, I was convinced I was not lovable. I was convinced that I was "Ugly" on the outside and the inside. This came about by various sources; taking me years to sort out and tear down the lies that I had believed about myself.

After two failed marriages (one turned into an alcoholic, the other started selling drugs) and multiple bad decisions in the world of boyfriends - it was high time to take a sabbatical.

I am hoping that my process will help others to heal and learn from my own self-growth. I am hoping it will motivate the broken-hearted to keep on keeping on. Ultimately - not to give up, but to take the time to define love so that you can be love, when love is found.

Love has many faces, but ultimately it is the attributes of love that define it, as it is. Love can be attributed as: kind, patient, forgiving and tender-hearted - to state a few. I have found that the easiest one to start with is patience, as that is the one I struggle with the most. If patience is a virtue, then one is building virtue by building patience. The key is to love yourself by having patience - first with yourself, then with others. You can not love others if you don't love yourself first.

Bring patient with yourself can take many forms. When you goof up at work, taking a deep breathe and not beating yourself up (goes along with forgiving yourself) As you build patience, the other attributes will come more naturally. Forgiving yourself will become easier (though it is never truly easy) if you can be patient with the fact that you are human. Humans fail. As long as you are doing your best- that is good enough.

Can you believe it took me seven years to come to this conclusion? Granted, there was a LOT of process that went into it, but the basics are still true. You can not heal others if you are not healed yourself. You can not love if you do not love yourself. Most people will believe that they do, indeed, love themselves - but is it a selfish love, or is it a genuine love that they love themselves with? Do they need drugs to escape their past, or do they recognize that the past is the past, forgive themselves and move on to the future?

I have found journaling, asking yourself the hard questions and listening for your heart to reply is the easiest way to resolve the need for "resolution" It is additionally, the easiest way to forgive yourself, when your heart is telling you the beautiful truths that contradict the chaos in your mind. A beautiful journal, good flowing pen and a cup of tea can do wonders for the healing process.

Then there is self-care. Never under-estimate self care. Maybe that looks like a night in- wine and facials with your bestie. Maybe that looks like a hike and solitude by a waterfall, but this pertinent for healing.

Change happens little by little, healing seems to happen even slower, but once you find a routine, you find the "heavy" lifting and the joy returning. Once you learn to love and show love to yourself, your happiness can began to be whole. We are not intended to rely on another human to be our source of happiness - that is on us, individually. Another human, in a relationship should make our happiness complete. If it does not, it is not the correct human, and when you love yourself, you can recognize that and getting back into the "dating game" becomes a lot less intimidating.

I hope this blesses you.