Accepting Love

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi

 

In spite of being surrounded by other humans, a pervasive sense of loneliness seems to be a common human experience.  It can be frustrating to try to form deep connections that feel fulfilling, to feel like the other person sees who you are, and accepts you for that person.  In return, our own expectations and personal ideas about what love and true understanding look and feel like can keep us from seeing the love available to us.  Everyone has the same desire to love, to be loved.  Think about that.  If every person in your life feels the same ache of longing for love and understanding you do, what does that mean for our relationships?  I have been thinking about this idea, of working on learning to accept the love that people have to give, not the love I think they should give.  If I hold it against someone that they can't "love" me the way I expect them to, and in return if I close myself off to receiving the love they do offer, I am the one keeping myself from love, not the other person.  I am working right now at listening to myself as though I am my own beloved (because I am!), and if I struggle daily to give myself the kind of true love I want from someone else, how can I be surprised that I don't receive that love from others?  If I judge someone else and find something lacking in the level and quality of their love then perhaps what I am looking for is not something in them, but something in me that needs my own attention and love.  Love is patient.