2.8
September 29, 2015

Love’s Journey begins inside our own Heart.

Photo Credit: Juliana Coutinho at Flickr

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I had never allowed my heart to heal from the scratches of love.

I had never been courageous enough to allow my easily hurt heart to recover, anytime it ‘’fell in love’’ with a man.

I had never allowed my heart time and space to grow, get wise and become more aware, after every “failure” in my romantic relationships.

Worst of all—I had never truly listened to my heart when it came to love.

Even though it always appeared that I ‘’followed’’ my heart regarding a man, the truth is, mostly I followed my thoughts, imagination and fantasy about him. This always led me to living an illusion and eventually the “love” crashed down soon after it started.

This illusion began and it ended with me anytime I was in the ‘’falling in love’’ mood.

I never allowed my heart space to be truly rise in love.

I was lost in a dream, like a little girl who cuddles in her world of fantasy, filled with dolls and a prince with a white horse.

I abused my heart, embracing my illusions.

My journey toward romantic love has been an endless calvary of suffering and pain. My search for the love of a man has been my number one priority ever since I can remember. I have looked for this kind of love with the ferocity of a horse and the impatience of a bee.

None have been “good enough” for me and I was never “good enough” for anyone either, or so I thought.

I searched and searched in all the places, in all the “wrong” ways, with all the “wrong” thoughts and “wrong” partners.

I was so in love with the little girl fantasy of love, that I completely lost myself.

With all the “wrong” dates and lovers in my life, I felt the pain of not feeling connected to the people surrounding me.

So, I continued to date one after another, after another.

Every date with a new man was disappointing.

Every effort to love a new man was demoralizing.

Eventually, I realized that I was in love with my fantasy of love itself.

But, even after this realization, my inner fears and insecurities still existed. Suffering from vulnerability and low self-worth made me continue the furious ride in the search of love. The love of a man.

I felt like I was less of a woman without a man by my side. I felt I was unworthy without a man to love. I felt less sexy without a man.

All my self-worth was consumed with being in a relationship, of having a man in my life.

What did i not realize that time (or i did but was to afraid to accept it), was that i was looking for a man’s love to cover up all my fears, all of my insecurities, all those “demons” who broke me in many pieces, screaming in my head.

As a little girl I believed that all of my fears and insecurities would be erased by the “love of my life.”

I wanted to be rescued. I wanted a man to rescue me from the inner suffering of feeling worthless.

Although I was beautiful, I didn’t realize that I was choosing all ‘’the wrong ones’’ because I didn’t love myself.

My good looking/charming appearance and my fake self-confidence were my “tools” to attract a man.

Anytime I was “in love” with a man, I was finally ‘’happy’’ because now he was there to “rescue” me from myself.

“Love” would feel good in the first few days or weeks, then my depressed state would surface, again and again. Well of course there was a “cause” for this unhappiness of mine. I would always blame the men because, according to me, they were not being my”rescuer.” They would fail at saving me from my own insecurities.

Finally, my failed journey towards love with had to come to an end.

When all the love outside failed to fulfill me or “save” me, my only choice was turn my focus inside.

This month I have felt a big urge for solitude. I have been craving solitude persistently for months now.
I’ve had a huge calling to be in solitude and spend more time in my own company. Spending time in my own company has already turned my whole inner and outer world upside down, or should I say in the right order, after all these years. Yes, many things and people, from my past, are dissolving from the inner space of my heart and mind.

My burdens feel less heavy, now that I’m focused on the healing of my wounded and bleeding heart.

My heart had been crying for a long long time and I was not listening to it. I was to busy looking for love outside of myself.

Now that I have made the decision to quit looking for the nonexistent rescuer outside of myself, I can face all my inner fears and insecurities, allowing them time and space to heal slowly.

I have seen the depths of myself, my fears yelling in my face, as if they were little kids crying for my attention. I had been scared of myself for a long time—this is just the beginning of my journey towards the depths of my fears and insecurities. Diving inside my own mud has not been easy to face but I’m realizing this is the only way I can turn my mud into pure water. My heart is made of an ocean of water—pure, innocent, deep and calm.

I have also decided to listen to my heart, to truly listen to it, because it can never lead me astray.

As I begin to listen to my heart, it is receiving healing energy from the Universe. My openness to healing is repairing the wounds and the scratches, that my illusions of love caused.

My heart knows that it is the way toward true love.

I now know that true love begins inside my heart.

Then it can spread its wings like a butterfly and reach other people and eventually to that man who will have also healed his own heart. He is evolving towards more awareness—reaching and spreading true love and compassion for himself and others.

I can be the women I truly am if I start taking care of my self and become my own “hero.” I will fight my heart’s battles towards light and true love for myself and others.

Because love has no other place to begin its journey, but inside our own hearts.

If love’s seeds are not sown inside first, it cannot become a flower that can bloom on the outside.
It is as simple as that.

Start looking within to find the love that is waiting for you, inside yourself. 

~

Relephant:

This is What I Know about Love.

~

Author: Ilda Dashi

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: flickr/Juliana Coutinho

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