28 days of selfless love

Love.

I have spent the entire month meditating on what it means to really love someone and be loved back in return.  I have studied religious texts, famous ideals, love songs and examples from literature to help me really refine and purify my understanding of love.

I have spent the month sharing little snippets of this journey on my Facebook page because I like to share great things.  Looking back, my definition of love has already changed from what it was In the beginning.

Why love you might ask? Why do this? Why the interest? Well.. to be honest, things in my life have been pretty chaotic. A member of my family is actively dying and in trying to show her how to live a life in love, I found that I didn't have many great examples from my own life to fall back on.

I realized my love was given, but not in a pure state. I give love to feel better, or make someone hAppy which makes me feel good. I give love to have love returned.  I love to satisfy an extension of myself. It felt so dirty after doing so much meditating on the fact.  So this month while focusing on finding what love really was to me, I tried to put it into practice - which is really hard, guys.

To love unselfishly is damn near impossible. It's so hard to be continuously selfless for the sake of love. It's not like this for everyone, of course- let me explain.

Growing up, love was available but 70% of the time, love was given to me at the convenience of others. Love was not an easily accessible commodity and a lot of times what I thought was love was actually not.    This constant confusion and disappointment caused me to hide my heart from the world.  I built  walls of self loathing, fear, anger, depression - everything and anything to keep love from touching the most sensitive part of my soul.  I spent a lot of time pushing anything away from me to fortify my walls. I hid my essence behind jokes, sarcasm, and half smiles. But that is also how I defined love.

Through this process of trying to redefine love I feel like I have been begging the universe  to strip me of the walls I have built around myself and strip me bare only to rebuild properly.  In fact even in writing the admission of my walls, I feel uncomfortable because it does feel very naked.  I want to be genuine. Therefore I must be able to understand myself- to do that I have to be okay with being vulnerable- because in vulnerability  we open up our souls and touch each other. We connect. It is in this connection that I think I can change the lives of those around me for the better.  I want this to be a battle cry of sorts - be a revolutionary.  Choose to be love and in love help others also find love. Ahhhh... I have such a long way to go haha.

I have learned that this selfless love is hard- so hard because it means I have to put myself last and I just don't want to do that most of the time. But when you love someone - you have to put them first - especially if u want to live a life full of love. - that shit is hard.

I have found that to be selfless, you have to choose to sacrifice your own comfort sometimes for the sake of someone else's. I have seen that this love can be outwardly unrewarding and lackluster in pride.  Most of the time I was loving to someone who didn't deserve it (my definition), or wouldn't remember it.  My own logic tells me that you must have reward for the demand but I think that's backwards too. The reward isn't in the return, the reward is in the practice.  My heart has grown in ways I didn't think possible because I have attempted to put other people before me.

I have gained knowledge by listening instead of talking. Learned examples of love by watching instead of showing. By taking a step back and allowing others be be first, I have learned how to find love by allowing someone to affect me instead of me keeping my distance.  When I chose to put others first, I found love back.

Am I gonna be selfless all the time? Hell no. Im gonna try and I'm gonna fail a lot-but I'd rather spend my life trying to spread the love I want to see in the world than not, so I'll keep trying.
That's where I challenge you.
Try to listen when you want to speak
Try to see when you're being blinded
Try to speak when your pride has silenced you
And try to feel when your heart has been frozen.

I know this sounds like some ghandi, hippie bs and I've been a super big jerk a lot this month but when I actually practice choosing love - life kind of slips into a peaceful zen despite the circumstances around me. I have found an inner strength I never knew I had - every time I choose love, I am full of strength. And I like that. Just thought you might like it too 🙃
#28daysofselflesslove