On finding love
Love is the real engine of the world cause it pushes humans to go beyond what they think they can be to experience even a bit more of it. But what is it?
I find it hard if not impossible to describe what love is, universally. I don’t know if it even needs any description, it’s enough to be able to feel it and say it’s there, somehow. I found myself many times wondering if I was really in love and I later figured out that if you don’t know, you most likely don’t love.
If love is something we either feel or don't, it requires the capacity to feel. It calls for an openness to experience life to its fullest, and the courage to dive deep and embrace every emotion—the ones we long for and the ones we spend a lifetime avoiding. People experience love only to the extent they allow themselves to.
How can we allow ourselves to love more and deeper? I guess we should start from ourselves.
It’s no surprise that if we are unable to give love to ourselves, we’re unable to give love to another human being. Most of the times what we cannot accept in others is something we cannot accept in ourselves. I had long conversations with T on the fact that I was so unforgiving on his mistakes and it all came down to me being overly harsh on myself first. The moment I started giving myself the chance to not be perfect, to make mistakes, to be wrong, to hurt others. The moment I started contemplating that possibility and still be loved, is the moment I tapped into forgiveness. And the moment you learn to forgive yourself, is the moment you set the other free.
The way we love ourselves is a way we learnt. We weren’t born with the ability to love, in fact we were born only with the ability to suffer. But someone saved us from suffering with their love, warmth and compassion—our mum first. We all grew up learning how to navigate the world by observing and following the example of our parents, siblings, extended family, teachers, friends, and early love birds. We learned to love by being loved and by witnessing love in the world around us.
So when you find it difficult to be kind to yourself, can you look back and reflect? Delving into my past is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, yet it has also been one of the pillars of my healing journey. Our ability to look back and reflect gives us the power to change, because to change something, we first need to understand why it is the way it is. That’s why understanding how we were loved, it’s the first step in our journey of learning to love ourselves more deeply.
Embracing who we are and treating ourselves with kindness and compassion means recognising that we are all, in some way, broken, hurt, imperfect, and vulnerable—yet inherently worthy. Our worth is not something we have to earn, it simply comes from the fact that we exist. If we weren't worthy of this life, we wouldn't be here in the first place.
Once we fully grasp our inherent worthiness, we may find true love.
