This is the most difficult step in Love

To fully experience love comes from a choice we have to make.

“LOVE” is a term that we see and hear often—even daily. We see, read, and tell stories of heartfelt relationships and heartbreak. We experience highs and lows of love throughout our lifetime. Yes, the experiences with love are challenging and somewhat difficult to comprehend due to its facets of deceit and shame, but love is also euphoric as we feel intimacy, warmth, and connection with others.

We are all told to love and be loving, but there is a key part that we must do in order to really experience love to its full potential—this part is the most difficult step.

We have all been hurt, traumatized, and heartbroken through love, but what we do with this pain is a choice we have to make.

HOW WE FIRST EXPERIENCE LOVE 

We first experience love right out from our mother’s womb. From the time we are born, it is the duty of our parents or caretakers to love us. It is their obligation to love us by showing acceptance, understanding, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, self-control, and patience. We learn these traits from our upbringing—or we can learn the opposite.

As children, all we want to be is validated, heard, seen, and accepted by those in our home and community. How we receive love is all different due to the history of the upbringing of those who take care of us. The most common languages of love are words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time, and physical touch. Some of our parents or caretakers give all, some, or even just one. The sad thing is that some may even receive none.

How we first experience love is crucial in how we project love in life. If we aren’t aware of our upbringing and how we were shown love, we subconsciously project our internal experiences of love to our partners, friends, and those around us. 

FEELING VALIDATED

Our sense of validation is set at a young age through love. When we are listened to, accepted, validated, and understood is how we gain this feeling of worthiness.

When we are emotionally or physically hurt by our parents or caretakers, we question our sense of validation. We ask ourselves the questions of “What did I do wrong?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” when in reality, we never did anything wrong to begin with. We have to understand that when we are young, all we are trying to do is figure out life and its challenges. We may fail and make mistakes along the way, but our intention for making these mistakes was never hurtful—for the most part. If we know that our intentions for our actions were never hurtful, then we have to tell ourselves “I did nothing wrong.” Yes, our actions may have been selfish, but our parents or caretakers must understand that all children are born with selfish behavior simply to survive. Our parents or caretakers must patiently and gently correct selfish behavior to become more selfless.

The root of our sense of validation stems from these early moments of childhood that many of us are still not aware of.

PAIN CAUSES WALLS

When we are hurt, this pain questions our sense of validation. We question why things happened to us and worry about similar circumstances happening again in the future. When we become depressed, we constantly replay the experience in our minds trying to understand why it happened. We also become anxious with the constant thought of the situation happening in the future. Both patterns of thought cause us to put walls up.

What many of us do when we become hurt by others is one of two things:

1. Avoid situations similar to it

2. Overcorrect the invalidation

Both paths are fear-based moves that create emotional distance from others—a wall to our true, confident, loving selves.

This wall is what prevents us from experiencing true love as we don’t allow others to understand us—to truly love us.

THE MOST DIFFICULT STEP

The most difficult step in love is allowing ourselves to be loved.

The reason why we won’t fully allow ourselves to be loved is simple—the person or people who we first allowed to love us hurt us. We never worked on accepting that the situation(s) happened and never learned to forgive the person or people involved.

By not accepting and forgiving, we hold on to this pain and project it to others in life. We believe that “If I let my walls completely down, I will get hurt again.” We create a lie believing that most people or even everyone will do the same.

When we allow ourselves to be fully loved, we are consciously doing the effort of putting our walls down, being vulnerable, and letting those around us see who we truly are—a confident, curious, courageous, happy, and loving person who is trying to understand life and our purpose.

We should all be loving to others, but we can’t experience true love until we allow others to fully love us.

- Lloyd Sarte