Is it Love or Longing?
When we experience the emotion love in its purest form we feel whole and complete, totally fulfilled wherever we are and despite whatever is going on in our outer world.
Do you ever get that feeling of emptiness within, longing for someone or something to love within your life? The holiday season may illicit feelings of loss or longing. We often feel like our happiness depends on it and even may feel our lives can not move forward until we fill that void. We think that the love we are looking for will set us free and give us a reason for living our lives in a fulfilling way and in a way, yes, we are correct yet the love we seek resides within us not outside of us even though the illusion tells us otherwise.
A sense of longing is actually inauthentic to our true selves. Longing says something is missing when the truth is we are whole and complete at all times. Love is who we essentially are. We came into the world with a sense of unbroken love radiating within us. As babies we felt connected to that endless love. It just is. We just were being pure love at all times. Yes, we needed our basic physical needs looked after but our energy was pure love until we reached the stage of development were there was a break in that sense of belonging – of feeling whole and complete.
“Somewhere along the line we lost the connection to the love we are. It’s still there even though we may not experience the connection to it. It never went anywhere, we just need to re-connect to it.”
Practicing self-love by cultivating and nurturing it within ourselves helps us to bridge the gap that got created. Experiencing love for what is around us connects us to our authentic love-filled selves. Providing us with the satisfying experience of being fulfilled, fully alive, grateful – all aspects of love being expressed.
Ahead are tips for cultivating and re-connecting to self-love, the source of living a fulfilling and happy life.
Distinguishing self-love from narcissism:
Simply put, self-love places focus on the inner and outer worlds connecting the two.
Narcissism is focusing on oneself with the exclusion of everyone and everything else.
Accessing self-love:
- Practice gratitude for everything
- Finding the beauty within yourself and outside in the world that surrounds us
- Paying attention to and taking care of your needs and wants, physically emotionally and spiritually
- Acknowledging and appreciating all that you are, not all that you aren’t and all that you do, not all that you don’t do not matter how insignificant it appears
- Honoring and speaking up for what works for you and what doesn’t
- Creating boundaries when it comes to what and who we let into our lives whether it be a distressing news report, negative people, or unhealthy consumption of any kind
- Allow your self to keep growing and view challenges as opportunities for breakthroughs
- Being keeping your promises whether they are made to ourselves or others
- Taking responsibility for the way our lives are is power. So if something we created in our lives isn’t aligned to what we are truly up to experiencing we are free to create something else and make different choices
- Be kind and forgiving towards yourself yet make an effort to learn from your mistakes and hold yourself accountable for improving
- Give yourself a safe space to express and experiencing your emotions by letting them flow through you without holding on to them