Bottom Line.....Love yourself.

Do you "get it", that you truly do need to love yourself in order to love someone else?

I didn't for a long time.  But now I do.

Sit with it.  Come from your heart space.  See what you find.  Let me know your thoughts. :)

Love and Light!

Hurt

Been a little down lately, heard this song come up on Pandora and it was a little freaky how much I could relate to it.

What is Love?

So as I've been walking down the path of my life I've begun to contemplate the question, What is Love?  I have obviously fallen short on many levels or I wouldn't be where I am today.  But that is life, an on going process of learning!  I think I have gotten it right on many levels too.  And I think the most beautiful part of my latest journey is being forced to stare it right in the face.  I am so completely not perfect and I am so completely okay with that.  I think I am doing the best I can in the moment.  Some moments I am so much stronger and kinder and more loving and other moments I fall way short.  This is where I have to be kind to myself so I don't slow my progress.

So Wikipedia says this of love:

Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment.^[1] Love is also said to be a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection —"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another".^[2] Love may describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals.

I also just heard it put like this,

Love is a verb.  It's not a feeling you get from another PERSON; it's an experience you receive as a result of DEEDS YOU DO for another person.  -Mort Fertel

Wow, you know I already knew this but for whatever reason it hit me hard seeing it written down.  I had a friend who passed away when I was in college.  He was one of those old souls, who seemed to really have a clue about life.  On the back of the program for his funeral was a quote by him that said, The keys to life are service and love.

Perhaps service and love are the same thing?

So now the question is how to put LOVE into action?

How to fall off the selfish band wagon and serve those I love?

Will someone please just push me off that wagon? ;)

Get over your hill

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

Somewhere....

 

Somewhere there has to be the other half of me.

The Bitter and the Sweet!

 

The hardest moments for me are also some of the sweetest.  It's no lie that my kiddos are suffering.  They put on a good mask most of the time and I'm so proud of them for that.  I try and reinforce that it is OKAY for them to have FUN, to ENJOY LIFE.  That's what I want the most for them.  I tell them it's also okay to be sad.

In the quiet moments, usually the quiet moments of the night,  sometimes they will crawl into my bed in tears.  I just put them to bed with laughs and giggles so I'm always somewhat surprised.  They are so lonely for their family......to be whole.  All I can offer is that we will all get through this.  In time it will get better.  We will establish a "new" family and we will THRIVE because we are STRONG!  Of course we will have our moments of tears but in the end LOVE will win.

I'm the product of a divorce.  I've spoken to many many other people who are products of a divorce.  The one thing that almost all of them have said is that they wished their parents would get back together.  It was their wish on a star, their Christmas wish.  I wish I could take away their pain.  But since I can't I hope that I can teach them to be resilient.  To give them tools to learn how to cope with the big things in their lives.  I've heard it said we as parents are sure to mess up our kids lives, but if we can give them those tools to cope then we have done our job.

So the bitter moments where I wish my kids could just be kids and not have to worry about any of this crap.  Well they do have some sweetness in there too.  The clinginess equals snuggles & hugs, the sadness equals some pretty good talks.  

I am SO BLESSED.  Motherhood is amazing!

Forgiveness

Working on Forgiveness.

Last night while at my Sangha (meditation group), we listened to a guided meditation on forgiveness.  I always laugh a little when the universe sends me these lessons at exactly the right time.

The meditation was on forgiving yourself and forgiving others.  I think both are very important.  Especially forgiving yourself because without that the other won't work.

The beautiful thing that Tara Brach said in this meditation was that if we are not ready to forgive, that we just don't have it in us at this time that we can say "I have the intention to forgive."

So while I am still hurting like crazy and have forgiven in some ways, today I have to say

I have the intention to forgive. 

Check the guided meditation out here,

http://www.tarabrach.com/audio/2011-10-10-MonPM-Forgiveness-Practice-TaraBrach.mp3

I peeked at her site and it looked like she had a zillion things I could listen to that would help,

http://tarabrach.com/