LOVEABILITY
What is Loveability? It sounds like a cheezy self-help term. It is not.
It may be cheezy but it has also brought me to understand a little more about loving myself and therefore, loving others.
Loveability is a guide to unlearning the ways of fear and choosing or being love instead.
"Love wishes to be known, completely understood and shared. It has no secrets, nothing that it would keep apart and hide"
I'm going to share with you what I am learning about love. I'll go pretty deep and also bob on the surface in this. Do your best to not judge and see if you can find some bits of gold in here.
It is said in the Bhagavaad-Gita that love is recognized as a spiritual path that leads to self-realization and real happiness. That love is the mind of God. Love is what you experience when you join your mind with the mind of God. Love is how you think with God. Therefore, and this is a big therefore, love is your real mind.
When you really let yourself feel love and you let all other thoughts drop away, you have contacted the consciousness that is the mind of Unconditional Love.
Let that sink in for a minute.
"Love is the door, both to the mind of God and to the heart of who you are."
Our true self is unconditional Love. The self we judge is not our true self; The self we love is the real us.
Your unconditional self has never judged you. It is not it's nature to do so. Your Unconditional self has the vision to see who you are because it does not judge you. Self -acceptance is how your real self feels about you. The word acceptance is defined in the dictionary as "belief in goodness, realness of something." To accept yourself is to make contact with and see what is real about you, not just judgements, concepts, and beliefs.
Whenever you don't feel lovable it's because you are judging yourself.
Fear projects itself onto everything it sees.
Fear projects itself onto you. When you think the thought I am not lovable, you are not seeing who you really are; you are seeing a fearful image of yourself. Fear tells you you must be better, more beautiful, smarter... to be loved. Love sees you are, and loves all of you.
"Love brings up everything unlike itself for the purpose of healing."
Love and fear have an opposite effect on you. The principal effect of fear is that it prevents you from seeing where love is present, whereas love helps you to see where you are afraid. Love makes you conscious. Love does not judge, so nothing is hidden. Love exposes the fears you identify with, the secret shame you haven't forgiven, the old wounds not yet released, and every other unloving thought that blocks the awareness of love's presence.
LOVE DOES NOT HURT
" If it hurts, it isn't love."
Love and pain are not the same thing. Love is always love, therefore, the effect of love is always only love. Pain, is just an unlearned lesson. It's not the love that hurts, it's the mistakes or lessons in love that cause the pain.
"Love cannot create hurt; it is the healer of hurt."
This may be hard to swallow. You don't have to believe me. Love does not hurt. it's the fear that hurts us.
There is a True love checklist to see if this rings true for you.
1. Is this love or fear? The basic fear "I am not lovable." is the primary cause of all suffering. When you identify with this fear, it causes many tears to fall. The fear is not true, but if you believe it, you will turn away from yourself. You will behave in ways that are unloving.
2. Is this love or dependency? Healthy dependency allows you to ask for help, and can cooperate together. Unhealthy dependency arises when you feel unlovable and see others as your source for love.
3. Is this love or attachment? Connection feels boundless and timeless, with attachment what you feel is mostly fear, anxiety and pain. Pain arises when the conditions of attachment are not met, or when things change.
4. Is this love or do I have an agenda? Expectations are fear based. They are an effort to grab what you want instead of letting it come to you. Love doesn't have an agenda, because an attitude of love is really based on being rather on getting and receiving.
5. Is this love or am I trying to get something? You can't feel hurt unless you are giving to take. When you give love to get love, it ends in tears, either right away or eventually.
6. Is this love or am I in sacrifice? There are 2 kinds of sacrifice, healthy sacrifice or what I call choice, and unhealthy sacrifice. Healthy sacrifice is willing to sacrifice fear for love, independence for intimacy, resentment for forgiveness, and old wounds for new beginnings. You do not have to give yourself away or play a role. You can be who you really are.
7. Is this love or am I in a role? Taking on a role is a strategy to get love that prevents you from being able to give and receive love. Your homework is to find out what roles you are playing, and also consider what good things can happen if you stopped playing this role.
8. Is this love or am I trying to change the person I love? You can't love someone and want him or her to change. The paradox of love is that when you stop wanting each other to change, you are changed, and this change enables you to love each other more.
9. Is this love or am I trying to control this person? Control is a form of fear. Control stunts growth and kills the aliveness.
10. Is this love or am I trying not to get hurt? If you believe love hurts, you will be afraid to love and be loved. This fear of love makes you want to protect yourself against love. Your ego creates an arsenal of defenses. Still you get hurt. Eventually by some act of grace, you consider the possibility that these defenses are the cause of the hurt. Fear keeps you stuck in the experiences you are trying to escape from.
Until you realize that love does not hurt, love will always appear to hurt you.
"The love in one of us is the love in all of us."
