A Two-fer topic on love

Do you wonder at times what is the purpose of life? This life? Your life? I have been reading, asking, pondering what is it all about? It is to love and be loved. This is the foundation of our being and growing.

People have one or the other established. The other one, not so much. When we can show and embrace both, we are in balance, peaceful and in harmony. As I delve into my growing up history, I have learned more about my mother’s and father’s self-hate which was passed down to me. Their hate was so encompassing, I never knew or believed I was a lovable human being. Just a product of disdain. So, in a way, I inherited self-hate as a being who felt worthless, unlovable, pained, someone who takes away resources from others and more. Feeling like this, we wear this look for the world to see even when we try to smile through that pain. How can I feel love for me when I wasn’t shown love?

Abuse challenges us to find the love for ourselves. When people say, “just learn to love yourself,” that is not the panacea. Self-esteem is really about loving ourselves. How many times has someone implied that when we love ourselves, or are trying to, we are met with resistance? Or brushed off as self-indulgent?

Grace can help us as we unpack the lies; not only were we told that about ourselves, but to unpack the lies we’ve kept up and reinforced. I participated in a program where I told and retold some stories that happened to me that I felt ashamed, embarrassed and wounded. She was non-judgmental which was a big help along with refraining from having “tells” (facial tics) as I shared those stories. Each time I told the story, I gleaned more information about what happened to me and what the wider implications were that I struggled with and could finally name. One of the things that was helpful was putting these stories and feelings into perspective and sorting out what belonged to who. This lifted me further out of believing I was the sole source of blame and fault for all the things that went wrong in our house growing up. I began to see I was a child who had parents who were unable to parent and let their emotions and whims be in charge resulting in a chaotic life.

What gets skewed is in the ideal world, parents would be showing us love so we can learn to love ourselves and others. Throw in trust issues, too. If we aren’t shown that, how would we know? How would we know as we grow what love really is and feeling safe in that? Remember how we asked how we would know when we are in love? What love is? They would reply that we would just know. I learned early that “love” hurts. A lot. After digging into my parents’ early lives, love hurt for them, too. Doesn’t make it right. Just perpetuating false actions. Loving hurt for me as I was a young adult. My first marriage was abusive. No matter how I tried to make it better, fix it, anticipate what would keep the peace, I couldn’t. My own self-hate sabotaged me.
Underneath it all, few people learn about our histories. The back stories. When we look at most everything through our filters, we see things with our own experiences and put them in our own shoes. We are judged and we judge the judgers as well as ourselves.

So along the way, we can learn to give ourselves more grace. It’s not a perfect straight line to get to love and trust, both directions. We stumble, we get back up, we try again. We look more closely at what works and what doesn’t. Tenacity is a wonderful asset to have. From abuse, we can plug along, trying to find our way toward living instead of existing, some days barely, and making progress. Whatever that progress is. Early on, I felt successful when I made the bed and did the dishes. Little victories.
When we have something positive occur, what side do the people in your life take? “Yay! You go. I am so happy for you.” Or, “It must be nice (sad panda). How come I don’t get any breaks?” Something positive that happens to people doesn’t take away your opportunities and doesn’t diminish you. Oftentimes, we do not see the work that goes into creating the opportunities that come our way. Sometimes a bit of luck, mostly planting seeds. Positive reinforcement helps us learn a new way of living and loving.

As a child, I tried to “manage” the chaos with my toddler brain. I learned to cope based on my baby mind. As I grew, I learned to not ask for help and still processed how to keep alive based on limited skills. My emotional quotient was also stunted.
Vowing to not ask anyone for assistance was my hallmark decision. Historically, I would ask and I would be hit, denied, dismissed, belittled and hurt or it would cost me. It helped me in some ways to become staunchly independent. When help would be offered, I would dismiss it and there were times I felt betrayed. As an adult, I would get help when I needed something repaired. However, I tried to make sure I paid money for it so I wouldn’t owe anyone anything. A struggle was getting offers of help and discovering how high that price was or not trusting it was an altruistic gesture.
Therapy helped me a lot. I forged healthier friend relationships. Trial, error, corrections and a bruised heart, a healing heart. Being brave to change the outcome and asking for help. It is not a do-it-yourself job here on earth.

I practiced asking for help. If it came with strings, I passed on it. It was one way for me to love myself. It has taken many years and I am much better and more confident about asking for help. I would help others when asked. That was my way of loving others.

Sometimes, the challenge was to discern if I or another person when asking is a rescue or actually help with their participation. It is a joint working together for a resolution. I have been a fixer for a long time. I am much, much better because I ask more pointed questions like what is it you are wanting help with or how can I be of best help? Clarity is an important aspect to get more of what you prefer. The important part of loving yourself is spend time figuring out what you truly do want and to ask for what you want and need. It takes practice to trust yourself to know. Asking for help is also a way of loving yourself.

A book that helped me was The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I thought the way I wanted to be shown love was what he wanted. After taking the test, I discovered one of the ways of love for him is when I do a chore he usually does. I feel loved when he does acts of service for me. We both like affection like holding hands.

Even though I am still guarded, I have been blessed with wonderful friendships of friends who love me and share that with me and I with them. My husband tells me he loves me, every day. My son tells me how important I am to him and that he loves me, too. It has taken time, asking for help and unwavering commitment for me to heal more and let that seep through the cracks in my heart. More and more, I am finding comfort in that. May you take the steps for loving people to love you, too.

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