On this February 14th, Valentine’s Day 2013 remember these words from Iyanla Vanzant’s book UNTIL TODAY. Love is simple. We make it hard with our trappings, expectations and demands. We make loving difficult, painful, hurtful and regrettable because we keep trying to figure out how to do love, give love, and get loved right. We place limits, restrictions and conditions on our loving and those we love. Sometimes it works. Usually it does not. Then, when we don’t get the right kind of love, we feel hurt. We blame love.
Love does not hurt! Falling into the traps we set to get and keep love makes us hurt ourselves. Love is! It is the experience of joy we have when we have the courage to tell the truth, when we have the courage to be exactly who we are and when we allow those we love to do the same. Love is not what we have been told it is by others who have been hurt. Love is not what we have seen in pictures. Love is not a tool or a weapon. Love is the key. It is the key that allows you to see more in yourself, for yourself, and about yourself than you would ever dare to show to the world.
Love is simple! You simply give love for the sake of love, or you don’t! You simply know love and share love, or you don’t! You simply are love without demands and expectations or you will continue to fall into traps and hurt yourself because you fail to acknowledge yourself as the love you keep trying to get right!
Until today, you may have believed that there were things you had to do to get love. You may have demanded that others do things to prove their love for you. Just for today, be devoted to evaluating beliefs you hold about love. Take this opportunity to ask yourself whether or not you believe that you are loved, loving and lovable.
