I recently came across a challenge in a hotel room in London. I was questioning myself, my worthiness, and was caught in a vortex of seeking emotional validation.
It was all in my head. I could see that these programmed ideas and stories were deep and from childhood and that I had told them to myself. As I became aware of it all, I suddenly realized that I was making decisions and taking actions based on a desire for approval and love from another person. Realizing this was like being struck by a lightning bolt right to my heart! I could see how I really thought that if I conformed to the desired behavior I would be loved and if I did not then, I would not be loved. I was fulfilling the needs of what another person expected of me, rather than what I expected and needed in order to love myself.
That model of love was not, and is not, love. True love has no borders or boundaries. Love is just love. Breaking this pattern inside of myself was deep because it had kept my idea of love, and my fragile ego, alive- to a certain point. However, while it may have kept me safe for awhile, living in the conditions of love, based on my behaviors of being a ‘good and loving girl’ were starving me.
My heart ached when I realized that my story of love and worthiness was intertwined with a behavior that I felt I needed in order to meet to receive the love of another. A wave of heaviness and grief filled my chest like a storm cloud. That storm cloud was obscuring my actual reality which is that no matter what my action is, whether I meet the request of another or not, love is there. Love is always there. This is nothing I need to do, or work for, to gain love. Love is always there. In the field of love, there is no worthiness or unworthiness. It just is that—love.
All of a sudden, my mind settled, and my heart rested back into a state of balance and okay-ness. The cloud lifted. And love was not polarized. Love encompasses all the colors of a rainbow and is vaster than anything that I could ever conceive of. Seeing this detangled the good and the bad, the negative and positive and love just became love. It is neutral. It is not pulling or doing anything. My beliefs around love were my attachment to thinking that I needed to do something in order to receive love. In reality, there is nothing we need to do. As Ram Dass teaches, “You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don't have to do anything to earn it.”
Love cannot be earned or gained. Love is available to us in each and every moment. Being here, at this time, is enough. You are worthy exactly as you are. You are love. I am love. We are love. This is love. Love is like this. Love is Love.