Love

Wars have been fought, people have died, all over this simple but complicated “four” letter word … LOVE! Throughout time, people have proclaimed their love for their gods, for God, for their countries, for their fellow man, for nature and for each other. Love has become a very deep involved word and often a misused one. Love is said to come on all levels and all forms. There is the love you have for a parent, which is not the same as the love you have for a spouse. Nor is the love of a spouse the same as a love for a child. Then we love our children differently than we love our grandchildren. We have love for our close friends, which is nothing like we have for our neighbor next door, and the love for our neighbor next door is not quite the same as the love we have for our neighbors across the ocean.

Why have we complicated such a simple beautiful thing, like love? Boy, as human beings we can certainly “take simple and make it complicated”.

Anyone have an animal or a newborn baby? Watch how innocent and pure their love is for you. I had a physical therapist once who use to say all the time “Love is Love”!

When you think of it, how true is that statement? Love is just that …love! If we kept it simple, pure and true then love at its simplest form would be the same all around. How we express our love, how we practice our love to our spouses, parents, children, friends, families and acquaintances is different and should be different …of course it is. Yet the foundation is the same. A bonding, a respect, closeness, a oneness a feeling that cannot really be put in to human terms because it is a feeling beyond full human comprehension.

If we think of love like an onion (nice analogy) and peel it away layer by layer in the center of our love for all things, for all people must be the simplest of all loves.

Yet on the other hand, it is the kind of love, which gives most the biggest problem of all. What is that you might ask?
That kind of love is “Self-Love”!

Self-Love is at the core of true love. How do we begin to love, if we cannot love ourselves? Oh, I can hear the roar out there and read the emails already …relax. I hear you and I have been where many of you think you are.

There was a time when I knew I loved my wife and adored my son but I would swear there was no self-love for me. I would have argued that I could love others without loving myself …but I was wrong!

I was wrong, not in the fact that I loved my wife and son of course I loved them, I was wrong in the fact of loving myself. I did love myself, I always loved myself and not in a narcissistic way but in way that love counts. The caring, the important way.

The problem was it was so long since I felt hope, so long since I really did anything good for myself, so long since I showed myself any love that I actually forgot that I did love myself.

The fact is we all love ourselves, we may forget that at times, sometimes for very long period. So long of periods that we think it is the truth …we do not love our selves but we do!

What one needs to do is something to spark that Self-Love. Something that really counts.

It is okay to love yourself; it is not selfish to have “Self-Love”. A little more “Self-Love” might help you to be happier, healthier and live better.

Allowing me to love me has been a positive thing. It has given me the strength to not give up, wanting to live, to want to be a part of the lives of those I love. Allowing me to love myself just intensifies and secures the love I have for all in my life.

“Love is Love” and let it begin with you.

Have a happy and loving day

Love
Mike