“What you seek is seeking you” – Rumi.
It is often said that the way we can get closest to feeling complete, and being whole, enough; is by choosing LOVE. I have to admit; that this is a concept I so struggled with in my past. I grew up on a healthy diet of fear. Fear of what others may think (I’m British, so this is a national dilemma for my people). Fear of being too much; too happy, too shiny, too chatty, too honest. And fear of not being enough; not fast enough for the team, not creative enough for art, not coordinated enough for dance, not good enough to make choir, or, as it turned out, not enough to make my father stay.
I set out to seek LOVE and acceptance in the world as a way to compensate for my self-perceived flaws. I traveled the globe, looking for LOVE and finding what I had defined as LOVE in a multitude of experiences, yet frequently managing to come up short. I had great jobs, created a great business. I set up lovely homes and met amazing people. I fell in LOVE and married a man. But my subconscious fears of not being enough was mirrored back to me by my mate, and I would ultimately become someone else’s “more” to compensate for their “less”. We both fell short. From the outside looking in, you might think I was running a pretty awesome LOVE story, but my sense of dread was omnipresent and the burden of being responsible for another’s happiness had drained my heart to the point of collapse. It wasn’t until I was living the terrifying day-to-day reality with a partner who looked anywhere and everywhere outside of themselves to feel good inside, that I realized this LOVE story was missing one critical character; its’ heroine. For in the act of seeking LOVE, I had lost my true Self. I had done a spectacular job of giving to others, but not to my Self, and the experience had left me beyond exhausted and numb.
In times of adversity, there is much gold to be mined. And buried amongst the rubble of my broken heart, marriage and family; lay the shiniest, most radiant, yet simplest truth of all. That LOVE began with loving me. When I began to choose LOVE for my Self, my life would be forever changed. And I would finally feel complete, whole and enough.