“I love you”.
“He told me he loves me and I want to tell him I love him as well” Alice implied. Eyes wide open and a heart as big as times square she was excited to have found someone 10x intrested in her as she was intrested in them. “What do you think I should do, should I tell him”, she asked. “I think you should wait in saying that” I replied. “I mean you never know if he just wants to sleep with you you really dont know his intentions”.
I was always helping Alice giving her advice on love and guy stuff. I was in a relationship for 3 years and eventually conceieved a child with the “love of my life”. Most often I was asked questions on how do I do it, how do we have such a strong relationship. I usually reply, “We work out our differences, and try to be honest with each other”. Alice was one of my good friends, she lived not to far from where I stay. We grew up together, knowing each other more or less. I knew she was beginning to fall again for these fellas and with that fall will come hurt, ive seen it a million times with her.
Alice was always looking for love, “Your looking for love in the wrong places” I suggested. A few weeks into her relationship, Alice was dumped and was never to hear from her crush again. “Im sorry, Alice try and take this time to focus on yourself”. As the days went by I noticed Alice was consuming to drown out her feelings. She was trying to fill her emptyness with external stimulation.
When these types of situation happen people seek a quick fix, something to lean back on. Its all understandable, we are only human and part of what makes us human is love, connection, romance, a sense of belonging. When we drown ourselves, we hurt ourselves and oppress ourselves much more.
I wanted Alice to see her worth first before she received the love she was always waiting for. Rejection was all she knew, and I tried to tell her that love doesn’t come when you want it, and sometimes the person you may want to be with could completely bring you down. She herself could be brining herself down.
Ive experienced that everything we do in life is directly affected by how much we love ourselves, how much autonomy we have or are capable of gaining.
As I go threw life, I like to see life circumstances as plain ol analogies. My analogy on love is simple. Full battery is receiving all of what love and life have to offer, and an empty battery, well thats self explanotory. But life is not at all that simple per say.
When thinking about individuals you know love and accept, make a mental image of their love battery. How fully charged do they seem to you? If you take this time and look at your own full battery, is it full or is it empty? Why?
Just like the seasons change our batteries have the potential to shift as well. How do we fill ourselves? As mentioned earlier many people go for the quick fix, finding some external source to fill their batteries.
When feeling empty most people head to the fridge, get a drink, hook up, smoke, anything that will give the person a temporary high and feeling of relief from their grief. This will only bring the persons battery wayyy wayy low.
The search for Meaning is important.
The struggle for a sense of significance and purpose in life is a distinctively human characteristics, its what sets us apart from other living animals. We are always searching for meaning and personal identity, thus raising existential questions, such as Who am I? Where am I going and why? What gives my life purpose and meaning? As we struggle in a world that often appears meaningless, we challenege our values we never challenged before, and start to discover new facets of ourselves we try to reconcile conflicts and discrepancies, and in doing so we start to create our meaning in our world.
Do you like the direction of your life and love? If not what are you doing about it?
What satisfies you the most?
The answer is usually in front of you, but for me, the answer is: LOVE, self acceptance. “Alice needs to start to accept herself and get to know herself much more before she looks for love again”.
This answer is not at all obvious to many individuals, for they may not know or understand what love is or begin to learn how to love themseleves. (Sociopaths, and Psychopaths are incapable of empathy). But why is love so hard to do, our school system doesnt teach us self love, our media doesnt portray self love, this eventually becomes harder for a person to love themselves, why, because we are not fully educated on how to love ourselves, we focus to much on other individuals and how to love them.
Do you believe you are lovable, worthy of being accepted?
Why do certain people feel as though certain parts of them is what is most important? Most girls believe that having a huge ASS is what is going to make a guy fall madly in love with them. Another example would be feelings, a kind loving person is lovable but what about when they have their off days, will they accept that part of them as lovable? We have to view love as a whole, loving the person for who they are completely accepting them, so to speak loving them unconditionally. When we hide our “bad emotions” our “bad sides” we begin to self hate, thus the “love battery” starts to deplete. Thus, our defense mechanisms arise.
What most people do not realize is that we do this unconsciously, everyday.
Freud once said, “Life is not easy!” The ego — the “I” — sits at the center of some pretty powerful forces: reality; society, as represented by the superego; biology, as represented by the Id.
Freud stated that the ego employs a range of defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms operate at an unconscious level and help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e. anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.
The ego, driven by the id, confided by the superego, repulsed by reality, struggles greatly to understand and master harmony amoug the forces and influences working in and upon it. If the ego is obligated to admit its weakness, it breaks out in anxiety regarding the outside world, moral anxiety regarding the superego, and neurotic anxiety regarding the strength and passions in the id. “This is some trippy stuff to understand” lol. In short we develop defense mechanisms. We start to bring negativity into our lives or project our unahppyness onto others.
Each of us have different types of mind chatter (and feelings), because we all had different life experiences that created them. Taking the time to learn about the chatter of our minds is what psychology is all about, and something I highly recommend we all do for ourselves.
But at some point we need to learn how to get beyond that chatter and get it to chill out. Through the practice of self observation we begin to see and understand the chatter of our minds; and with some work, we can learn how to better deal with it, which ultimately is the process of self love.
So here are a few practices of self love that I find to be helpful
Validate our feelings, “It’s okay to feel bad sometimes.”
Refrain from judging or placing negativity on our thoughts or feelings.
Give ourselves a little extra comfort and soothing.
Listen to and respect our inner experience.
Reassure ourselves that what we are experiencing will pass.
Remind ourselves of all the wonderful things that we are.
Be grateful for the little (and big) things in our lives.
Take action towards improving elements in our lives that negatively affect us.
Commit to our physical health — cut back on drinking, improve eating habits, and exercise regularly
Invest in our psychological/emotional/spiritual health.
All of these things of course take all the time needed, and they definetley don't happen witout some inner world, but its worth starting.
SO if you can a day or two take some time, to say softely to yourself the words “I LOVE YOU”.
Jessica ❤
If you enjoyed this small reading, please PRESS the LITTLE CUTE HEART BUTTON. ❤
