The Power of Love…

It’s Valentines Day. I was musing over what LOVE really means to me and I came up with a poem. I put it up on Instagram @the.impassioned.life. It came from contemplating all the different types of love and what they have in common. I realized at the very heart is a deep, soul permeating feeling of gratitude.  When I feel it, it’s like a little explosion within my chest. Time becomes irrelevant. There is no thought for yesterday or tomorrow. It is deeply rooted in the NOW. It’s almost like an ability to see just how amazing a person is, through their flaws and their idiocrasies, is this timeless soul before you just for a moment.

It made me think of the transformative power of love, “true” love. It’s nothing of roses and champaign. It’s a level of being seen by another. It’s a deepness that we all crave and so infrequently experience. We are afraid. Let me explain why.

True love requires at least the following three elements to be in place.

The Power of Acceptance.

This power begins with YOU. We have a cultural idea imbedded into our society about perfection. It’s particularly deadly in Mormonism. It creates shame around failure and not measuring up. It makes us afraid of our own humanity and overly controlling of others. News flash, like the infamous children’s book states, Everybody Poops. And everyone messes up. We act in ways that we’re not proud of. We can be selfish, judgmental, and catty. We can also be loving, compassionate, and giving. We can smell like roses or like dirty socks. Sometimes we dance gracefully, sometimes we trip on the damn sidewalk – or our own feet. Our teeth can be perfectly straight, white, AND have a piece of broccoli stuck in them.

This is life. If we can accept that WE are imperfect, it becomes so much easier to accept OTHERS in their imperfection. Learning to have grace with yourself is the first step in truly being able to have grace for other people. This doesn’t mean you have an excuse to justify being a jerk. It just means it might happen now and again, and forgiving yourself is critical to healing and becoming a … Well, less of a jerk.  

This ties into the next element and that is –

The Power of Worth.

When we learn to accept that we’re all on a journey of trial and error and begin to have grace for ourselves and for others, we can then begin to see and understand our deep unwavering worth.

That’s right. YOU have an immense worth simply because you exist. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to prove it. You don’t have to defend it, and you certainly can’t buy it. You have it because you are alive. This increases our ability to feel and accept LOVE. How often do we deflect compliments? Why? Because somewhere in there we don’t feel worthy, or we’ve been taught it’s selfish to accept praise. This robs us of joy and happiness! Allow someone to praise you (genuinely), do something for you just because they want to, or whatever feels uncomfortable. Face it and ask it: Why?  What part of me feels unworthy to receive this love? It might surprise you what comes up.

Last Element:

The Power of Overcoming Fear

Love is a risk. A child could get sick. A friend could slowly self-destruct. A lover could not love you back. Your most beloved gift could break. Your house could foreclose. The list goes on. Brene Brown talks about foreboding joy. It’s where we play out “worst case scenarios” in our head to try to predict the downfall of something that’s bringing us joy; to mitigate our possible pain. But in reality we just rob ourselves of being able to be present with joy and happiness.  We end up being controlling and anxious. We can’t predict what will happen in life.

In 2018 I had only been away from my children once for more than an overnight. I could have in NO WAY predicted that in a few short years I would miss over two years of their life. They WERE my life. The grief and the sorrow at that loss was and still is immense. My logical brain knows our separation is temporary. But to my energetic body, it is as if I have lost them. My body suffers the effects of the stress of unbelievable grief daily. It has taken a great deal of accepting my need for selfcare and releasing cultural shame around being “selfish” to mitigate the physical and mental affects. It has taught me how to love myself, ask for and accept help, and truly understand that we cannot predict the future - for good or bad. Living in chronic fear and anxiety will eat away at us until there isn’t much left. It robs us of the good and beautiful things that come our way daily, no matter our challenges.

Love is a risk. If we love deeply, at some point we will hurt for one reason or another. But to live without sorrow, is to live without joy and love. It’s to live in a gray space where nothing feels very good or very bad. It’s no way to live an impassioned life.

If something in this article resonated with you and you’d like to know more about my coaching services, please reach out and schedule a 30 minute chat. No matter where you are in your personal growth journey, coaching can help.

All My Love My Friends,

Reh