Why Don't You Change - Learning How to Love

If We Are Going to Love Well, We Have To Stop Seeing People As Problems or Their Situations As Problems

– Adyashanti

Learning How to Love

Our significant others can be our biggest button pushers and greatest teachers. We can see many ways that they could improve, especially when they are annoying us. When they finally learn how to listen, they will be perfect! I wish they would just get off the computer and take me out! Sound familiar?

If we can go a little deeper, one step further, we will realize the actual truth. They are us! They are a perfect mirror reflection, showing us where we can love more. They remind us of the places we have denied in ourselves. They are teaching us how to love and I don’t mean how to love them. Although, loving them will be a by-product of fully loving ourselves. Loving ourselves is the true gift in all interactions that annoy or even anger us. It is also a chance to get our power back.

We give of ourselves until we are empty and there is nothing else to give. Then, we expect others to give us love, compassion, acceptance, fulfillment. We even get angry if they deny us of this. The question is, why would they love an empty shell? Think about it. Most of us run from emptiness every chance we get. Can you remember being around someone that was needy and clingy? What is your first reaction? I know mine is to run the opposite direction. Unfortunately, this is the same dynamic that happens in relationships all the time.

Reading this may upset you. I know reading or hearing things like this would make me mad in the past. I’d walk away grumbling something like, “get out of my face with this fluffy love yourself crap! He is the one that needs to change!” Until I experienced it for myself, I would get annoyed and hit the reject button on this type of advice. I was more comfortable blaming others for my suffering… for my emptiness. This went on until I’d had enough. When I had one failed relationship after another and heard the statement, “you just need to love yourself” repeatedly, I gave up. I decided to surrender. The answer I didn’t know was how to love myself. I got the message loud and clear, “just ask.” Could it really be that simple? Isn’t this the message in all the relationship, self-help, and spiritual books I’ve read? I decided to try it. I finally just asked, “how do I love myself?”

That moment is when the door opened, revealing the answer. It wasn’t just one answer. It was a series of answers unfolding from one moment to the next. My life started presenting me with opportunities to choose to love myself. Now, it is an ongoing dialog, a relationship with Creator, Higher Self, and the Universe. All I have to do is pay attention.

Each time we find ourselves getting impatient with others or noticing the road rage escalating, it is a chance to choose to love ourselves. Each time we want our partner to be different, to act different, to feel different, we can ask a question. We can ask ourselves, “what am I feeling right now, inside my body? This is the fastest and easiest way to get really present so we can hear the answer. This is the first step to self-love. Then, we can ask ourselves, “What would it look like to love myself right now?”

Play with it. Explore and discover yourself, on new levels. Appreciate you as much as you would a new lover. When you do, you will realize it is not a selfish, self-centered, arrogant choice. It is fulfillment for you and everyone around you. When you are irresistible to yourself, you become irresistible to others as well. Then, miraculously others change right before your eyes.

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