February 14th is the day dedicated to recognizing love around the world. And as the stars would have it, the date was perfectly aligned with Day 19 of the 21 Days Deepak Chopra Meditation challenge which just happened to be focused on love. The Affirmation was: “Today I remember to love everything and everyone I come into contact with.” This was my second time doing this 21 Days challenge and I remembered that the reading on day 19 had a profound impact on me. And I quote, Deepak Chopra thoughts shared, “LOVE is the most powerful force in the Universe, it can heal, inspire, and bring us closer to the Higher self. LOVE is an eternal never-ending gift to ourselves and others. When we truly experience love we find ourselves… At the core of your being, you are pure Love.” These sentiments resonated deeply with me every time I read the words.
While I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day the traditional way, it is a day that causes me to reflect deeply on love — how I love, how I receive and embrace love. In my opinion, every day is a day to embrace and express love. My philosophy is, tomorrow is not always promised and we should never allow too many moments to go by without expressing love to those we care about the most. Especially to the people in our inner circle, we must be mindful and should make a consorted effort to let our loved ones know that they are appreciated.
Everyone loves differently, don’t expect every love relationship to be the same, it is an individual thing that would be based on several factors. Past experiences, personality, temperament, and how one has dealt with their healing from their past all the way to their childhood traumas. Even the encounters with our children, siblings, and friends, will vary, it’s a unique personalized experience.
I dedicate this post to all my loves, my parents, my siblings, my offspring, my lovers past and especially present, and my friends. All of you collectively have introduced me to the most intimate parts of myself that I would have never met had I not allow myself to have some of the experiences you brought me.
In my latter years, I have been embracing lessons brought to me so I can understand and embrace the true essence of unconditional love courtesy my son and my life partner.
Unconditional Love in its purest form will most certainly introduce you to the most intimate parts of yourself. We will meet the good, the bad, and the indifferent parts of our personality.
Here is a random list of 19 things I have embraced from my encounters with love:
- When love is truly present you can’t help but feel it. It’s everywhere, we are constantly surrounded by love. You can experience the bliss of love from the miracle of a sunrise to the sunset, or just relaxing and being in rhythm with your own heartbeat, to laying in bed and appreciating the excitement of the early birds cheerfully starting their day.
- Love will teach you about patience, patience with yourself, and patience with others.
- Everyone loves differently, don’t expect every love relationship to be the same, it is an individual thing that would be based on several factors. Past experiences, personality, temperament, and how one has dealt with their healing from their past all the way to their childhood traumas. Even the encounters with our children, siblings, and friends, will vary, it’s a unique personalized experience.
- Love will temper your understanding and your ability to communicate clearly and effectively.
- Love will never give up on love. Love, Loves.
- Not all romantic love relationships will end in “together forever” or a marriage.
- You can love someone deeply but it does not necessarily mean you have to be together in a relationship.
- Love alone is not enough to sustain a romantic relationship.
- Unconditional Love in its purest form will most certainly introduce you to the most intimate parts of yourself. We will meet the good, the bad, and the indifferent parts of our personality.
- Love is a choice we choose every day when, why, what, where. It’s a decision we will make regularly whether we continue to move forward or walk away.
- Love is just what it is when you are with the person that feels right for you, you will continually work with all their flaws and their indifferences because it will usually shine a light so bright on yours that you will want to keep at it so you can collectively work through all of your stuff.
- All relationships are connected to your purpose even the ones that don’t turn out well. If you did your work, you would have the evidence of, had it not been for that experience you would not be who you are regarding your future-self. Every experience we encounter is meant for our personal growth.
- For a romantic love relationship to truly work the ego has to take a back seat.
- Romantic love relationships has the power to shine light on your dark spaces. The purpose for this is for your healing.
- Love will humble you to your core not in a way that feels degrading but in recognition of who we truly are at our core and why we are connected to the people we are connected to. In a healthy relationship both parties will walk away being better versions of themselves.
- The most powerful lesson I learned about unconditional love is observing my parents they epitomized their wedding vows, “For Better, or for worse, in sickness and in health”. And also from my brothers, the way they care for our father who lost his independence.
- I had to add this one, the quicker you can release the notion of ‘how love is suppose to be’ and embrace it the way it presents itself it is the less friction you will encounter in your connection. Everyone will bring you a unique experience. If you are honest with yourself you will also discover that you do have a tendency to love differently depending on the person and or situations you will encounter.
- All love relationships requires work and effort. None is ever a walk in the park. You have to be willing to navigate your challenges together. I do my best to remind myself and my partner it is always US against whatever will come up to challenge our connection.
- Communicating when things go wrong or even honest open communication about the things that may cause discomfort has a two-way impact; it is an opportunity for personal growth as well as an opportunity to strengthen your bonds.
At the end of the day where and when love truly matters it shows up in all its glory. And I’m so grateful for all of it.
Your best experiences will be had when you are willing to do the work necessary to heal so you can allow yourself to experience love in it’s truest form. Many walk into relationships guarded and unprepared to trust and this only robs you of the best experience. HEAL so you don’t bleed on others. Take a break between relationships and take stock of what you have learned from that experience and make a note of what you can do differently so you can give and also possibly receive a much better experience. Love is truly a beautiful thing, all of it.
Refresh, Rejuvenate, Exhale, Reprogram 