Thursday, 31st March, 2016
Hey guys!
Yesterday, a friend of mine shared a piece of writing with me. It was about loving yourself in the simplest and most primal way; without society’s influence. It got me thinking about just how much we allow society’s invisible rules to guide the decisions we make in the love department.
The piece I read talked about how it wasn’t necessary to be in a relationship to be ‘loved’ or feel ‘loved’. Whoever wrote this, shared with the world their insight on how society claims that the only way you can say you’ve experienced love is by being with a partner, and how much that isn’t true.
There is love in everything we do, there is love in every friendship we’ve made, every hug we’ve given to our parents, every kiss we’ve placed on a sibling’s cheek, and every ruffle of a dog’s ear.
There is love in every smile we’ve tossed a passerby, every penny we’ve given a thriving artist busking on the street, every meal we’ve bought a stranger in need.
Love is in our humanity.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The piece I read emphasised how misinformed society is and how plagued we are by the expectations we place upon ourselves. We do not need ‘the one’ standing beside us in the form of a partner. The only difference between the love of a partner and the love of a parent is that you are sexually intimate with one and not the other. And doesn’t it make it all the more precious that someone can love you, for all that you are flaws and all, and not require anything in return? In a relationship, or when you’re dating, it’s expected that at sometime you need to show your love to the other by way of sex. It’s such a 180 from the purest love of parent and child, or siblings, or the first relationship we forge of our choosing; that of friendship. Neither of these relationships is perfect. I’m not saying that. I’ve fought with my sister countless times. I’ve gotten angry with my mum and dad for the silliest of reasons. But that’s what’s so beyond brilliant about Love. True love. It’s that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I could mess up in the worst possible way with my parents or my sister and they’ll love me. They my be angry at me, disappointed, hurt, annoyed, or indifferent to what I’ve done. But they will also love me. That won’t go away.
So when we have a love like that, why do we seek a validation of our self-worth from the presence of a partner or significant other? I’m not saying don’t be in a relationship. I’m not saying that at all! Nor am I saying that it’s a bad thing to be in one. A lot of the relationships people have with their partners morph into the most beautiful, soul-deep love we’ve ever known.
But a lot of the relationships also go very bad. We insist on striving to achieve the ‘perfect’ life by the unseen but ever-present timeline of love set my an unseen but ever-present societal council. By twenty-two you should’ve had your heart broken at least once. By thirty one you should be married and thinking about children. But forty-five you should be well into married life, living in a house with a dog and three children. And those that don’t conform to the mould are disregarded or hounded, depending on who around them ‘cares’. Why?
We need to love ourselves. We need to dig deep and find within ourselves the courage to be content and feel loved whether or not we have ‘the one’ standing beside us. We don’t need a partner to convince us that we’re beautiful, that we’re worth love. That we ARE loved. We never needed it.
Marriage and sex was simply a way to ensure we weren’t lonely and that the human race survived over the generations. But then we loved. We’ve always loved. And, while we may not ever fully understand the complex emotion, we do understand that it is vital but we’ve only just began to realise to what extent.
Shut yourself from all the societal pressures if you need to. Take a day off. Go offline. Find a way to cage yourself, throw away the key and learn all that makes you wonderful and free. You are the only one in the world that limits yourself. You are the only one in the world that will always love all that you are. Find a way to do that so that you can love another the way they deserve when they walk into your life, and so that they can love all that you are without having to really figure out why.
Be free.
Until next time lovelies 🙂
xo