for love's sake

How many times do we do things for love? for a cry for love?

I read once that love was a choice. I didn't quite understand that at first, but as the years have gone on and I have meditated and contemplated love, I have come to understand what that means to me. One meaning is, I can either choose to feel love and open my heart or I can choose to guard my heart and feel fear. Both are valid emotions on the journey, both filled with gifts if we are willing to see them.

This day being the "official" day of love, brings these questions and contemplation to my mind. I know in my life when I have been motivated by my heart and when I have been motivated by my fear. The actions can be quite different, yet the desire the same...to have more love in my life. I believe at the core we all just want to belong, somewhere, somehow with a person or a group of people. We want to know that we are not alone and that we are cared about.

The problem, as I see it, with love is until we fully love and accept ourselves, it is difficult to receive love from another. We will continue to walk around feeling unloved and alone, even if we have many people in our lives. If we do not love and accept ourselves—all of ourselves, especially what we judge as negative or bad emotions—how do we expect to feel love from another? I believe all of who/what we are needs love.

One of the most profound experiences I have had on my path was at a time when I was filled with self-loathing and self-hate. I would even wake from dreams of self-deprecation. I judged myself mercilessly, including the feeling that it was so un-spiritual to hate myself. Then one night it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, my hate wanted to be loved too. So I sat down with it across from me, it in it's dark, heavy thickness and me unsure of where this was going.

I saw it and I opened my heart and I sent it love. I enveloped it in loving, divine light with no attachment. I didn't judge it. I didn't expect anything from it. I loved it. I listened and I learned. I learned more in that time about acceptance than at any other time in my life. I have to honestly say, from that day forward I do not feel self-hate the same way. I made peace with myself and built a bridge within.

On this day and every day, I wish the same for you...
May you build bridges of love within, so you may experience bridges of love with others!