Being Loved Right
Being loved right will change your life. For the better, yes. But not in the ways you might expect.
Being loved right will change your life. For the better, yes. But not in the ways you might expect.
Being loved right will make you love yourself more. It will make you love others more. Your heart will crack open and you'll find you have even more love to share. More patience. More compassion. More forgiveness and positive regard. Even for those you couldn’t stand before. This cannot be helped. Just go with it.
Being loved right will heal you. In Love's safe and unconditional embrace, old heart wounds will crawl out of the shadows. Some you didn't even know you had. Some you thought you were long over by now. Love will coax them closer. To wash them, fill them, mend them. Let it. Even when it hurts.
Being loved right will make you believe in your dreams. Safe and free to be yourself, the inner whispers of your most authentic life will grow louder until you cannot ignore them any longer. You will want it more than ever before, because Love wants you to be happy, and because you want to give Love the best you've got to give, and this is it.
After all this, being loved right will raise your standards. A lot. You will no longer be willing to give your time or your heart to those who are not ready to meet you on this level. You will expect, no require, basic decency, kindness and communication. You will require reciprocity. You will require accountability and repair. Not everyone will be willing or able to go there. And so...
Being loved right will result in losing people. You may walk away, or they may see themselves out. However it happens, let it. And then let the good love in your life soothe your aching heart. That new space will be filled by even more good love in due time.
Being loved right will bring about grief for all the years you settled for less than good love. For the ways you settled, made excuses, or held out. All the years spent not loving yourself right, and then allowing others to do the same. You will grieve, because now that it’s here, you can’t imagine loving any other way, and you never want to go back. Don’t.
Yes, being loved right will show you who you really are. The you that you were before you got hurt, before you hung up your hat, before you made yourself small. The you that you long to be, and Life wants you to be. Even the parts you are absolutely sure are unloveable. Even the parts that are so brilliantly bright, loud, and big. Love will hold up the mirror, and then hold your hand when you finally let yourself be You. All of you.
Real Love is a journey of passion, discovery, courage, quiet beauty, refuge, and trials. It is not for the faint of heart, but it is what we were made for, and it is worth everything it will ask of you.
And in case you got it in your head that this Love can only be gifted by another, that some other human holds the key, let me tell you now that this Love is free. It belongs to nobody, and to everybody. It is not something given, it is something you open yourself to. It grows on trees. It is in the night sky, in the light reflecting off the pond, in a peanut butter sandwich, in the eyes of a lover, and in you. This Love is what you are. Sometimes, if you sit very still, and quiet, you can feel it there, waiting for you. Waiting for to come home all along.
xxD