The Limits of Love

I've been thinking a lot about love.  As I reflected a past post, we have been given a working definition of what love should be.  However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that vision of love is the ideal.  It would be really great if we could all love each other with the selflessness and purity that the Apostle Paul lays out, but that is an exceedingly rare thing.  Does that mean, then, that if we cannot achieve this ideal, that we do not love?

Absolutely not!

As I look at how I've grown over the course of this project, I can see changes in myself.  I'm more comfortable in my own skin and more forgiving of my mistakes and shortcomings.  I'm kinder to myself, less critical. more accepting.  And as this kindness has grown, I find it much easier to extend it to the people in my life.  It's easier to be around the people in my life - especially my children.  My relationships are more relaxed, less forced, and more comfortable.  It seems that as my self-love grows, so too does my ability to love others grow.

It seems that we love others the way we love ourselves.  If we love ourselves with contingencies, qualifications and strings, then that is the way we will love others.  If we love ourselves wholly, then we can love others wholly.  Our self love sets the parameters for the love we can give others.  Those are the limits of love.

Suddenly, it makes sense to me!  Rumi writes, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."  Our self loathing, harsh judgement and fears are the barriers.  They are the things that keep us from truly being able to love.    If we do not feel ourselves deserving of a whole, complete, and unconditional love, then we simply cannot accept it.  Loving yourself - for the messed up, flawed, awkward, selfish, petty person you are is the key to everything. 

I consider this truth, and realize that I was mistaken about those past relationships that I had determined to not be love.  Just because we didn't live up to the ideal doesn't mean it wasn't love.  We did the best we could at the time.  (We ALL do the best we can with what we have available at the time.)  The love I was able to receive was limited by my self love, just as the love my partners could accept from me was limited by theirs.  It wasn't premeditated or intentional; we just ran up against the barriers we had within ourselves.  This realization helps the lingering hurt and bitterness to just dissipate, and brings me so much peace. I don't have to be angry because someone didn't love me the way I needed to be loved.  And I don't have to punish myself for not being able to do the same.  I can acknowledge the experience, learn from it, and add it to the wisdom that I am collecting with age.  I can accept it for what it was, be grateful for the opportunity, and use that to open my heart just a little bit more.

And that's one more barrier removed.