It's Love on the table

Let’s put love on the table for a moment. Let’s measure it a little, weigh it, and give it the kind of infant wellness check you’d have at a clinic.

Let’s feel the way it waters our deep need to be loved, a need without which nothing can truly flourish.

Maybe it’s already clear to you that something is missing, something difficult to put into words. Not the endless arguments about the trash someone didn’t take out for you, or the hug you didn’t receive, but a quieter, deeper absence. 

So here’s a small question for clarity:

How clearly do you see the connection between the way you speak to yourself and the way others speak to you? How clearly do you see the connection between a mediocre-or-worse relationship and an inner life full of conditions and self-punishment?

Can you see how neglecting your own tenderness, beauty and brilliance is connected to a lesser kind of love?

After eighteen years in a relationship that didn’t nourish me, and after experiences even worse than that, I spent two years completely alone, no longer drawn to the company of men. I licked my wounds and learned what my own breathing sounded like when I’m alone. 

It was difficult, cleansing, and very intoxicating. I turned my world on its axis.

At the end of those two years, I found my partner, a man unlike anyone I had ever known before. The relationship, the family life, the love and friendship,

and yes, even the sex that flowed into my life all feel wondrous to me.

But this isn’t simply luck or wonder, it’s the fruit of something deeper.

The entire language of my love for myself is now reflected, brightly and clearly, in my relationship with this sweet and noble man.

So when I say that I teach unconditional joy for life, it’s not always clear what that means or how everything is connected. Teaching people the craft of self-love is the first step toward teaching them how to create love with others, love that becomes a center of healing and recovery for all the wounded and limiting beliefs they carry.

A reminder of your extraordinary ability to heal yourself and to help heal others. Learning to give, to receive, to trust, to let go, to connect and to truly merge with another person, these are essential skills for a relationship that allows the heart to expand.

And if you don’t yet have that kind of relationship, or if it seems to you that what you have can never grow beyond familiar patterns, then you really should reconsider who you’re listening to:

Your tired, skeptical, controlling mind, which knows nothing at all about love, or the quieter, humbler part of you that knows what truth feels like.