Deserving of love

We deserve love in our lives most especially the tender love of our own heart for all parts of us.  As I wake to look upon nature I see the love in the earth and in the sky, in the force that gave birth to clouds and windstorms and rainbows as well as moon beams.  When we are in a dark and loveless place because we have never really been taught about love or learned to love ourselves at times it can be hard to see this beauty. I notice when my perspective shifts and I see fallen autumn leaves as a ‘mess’ that needs to be cleaned up, then I am not in that open expansive space and I can be similarly rejecting of my own or of another human being’s ‘messiness’ because I am not loving the wholeness of them.

In the home I grew up in nothing was out of place, if it was we learned to look for flared nostrils, it was a sign of disapproval that may start up a cleaning attack.  It wasnt all bad and my Dad was a gentle soul (although distant and overly authoritarian at times) somehow he survived in this climate of perfectionism and as I posted my post yesterday on co dependency and not being allowed to just express healthy protest and of the fawn flight response I did feel so sad for my Mum’s OCD around the housework and the injuries it led to for me, one of which was third degree burns on my foot sustained during one of her cleaning sprees on a caravan holiday.  She left a boiling bucket of water under my feet at the table where I was drawing and clumsy me stepped in it.

Anyway I have digressed.  These days I am more open to seeing the beauty in the ‘mess’ or chaos aroud me, perhaps I am not as fearful any more of what I came to consider my chaotic messy emotions and my rejected sensitivity which for many of us includes an openness to, love of and deep connection with nature, art and beauty.  I was reading in my book Strength in Sensitivity last night how art is a very important form of expression for emotional sensitives as it helps our natural empathetic love energy to flow and not be banked up, if we are lucky enough to sneak it past the inner critic/perfectionist/judge that can haunt many of us sensitives who have also been scapegoats and taught not to trust or love our own impulse for self expression.  We were born to bring and express our beauty in the world even at times if it is dark and full of real soul torment and pain.

To close I just wanted to share these words from Nikita Gill’s collection of poetry.   This is just the final two stanzas of her poem The Sun and The Moon.

You deserve someone

who adores you

on the days you are

in broken fragments too

You deserve someone

who lets you glow

in every way

you need to.

Most of all we need our own love on the messy days when we don’t feel as ‘together’ or bright and on those days when it is harder to see the light.   Luckily today was a day when I saw both the dark and light sides of my own life, history and journey, these days so often follow other days when painful traumas of my past reise up to be seen, felt and understood.   It is a day on which I realise how far from perfect it all was but also I can see some goodness coming out of all the suffering contained in it.  I also know that even the hard and messy parts were all part of the learning, all part of developing compassion, wisdom, love and understanding even of those things that really hurt or did me harm.