Love Light from one little thought

It all started with one tiny little thought.

First, a little background:  For a while, I had been realizing that so much of my thinking and perspectives had been negatively skewed from early childhood experiences.  There had been a considerable amount of grief in that what I had seen and experienced was often in not such a positive light.  Underneath years of smiles and friendliness, there had been an undercurrent of low self-esteem, judgment of myself and others, and perceived judgments that I felt from others.  Although I have had a fabulous life and am still having one, I would occasionally have deep spirals of depression triggered from PTSD and the PTSD triggers themselves.

The freedom and beauty in this is that now I know it.  I can re-write my mental history.  There isn’t much I can do to change the actual historical events, and even the terrifying ones I cannot undo.  However, I am fortunate enough to be able to recall what shaped my mental life from early beginnings and from that I can change my perspectives of subsequent events from that point.  The PTSD triggers after that that caused so much pain and anguish now can be viewed in more tenderness, gentleness, and compassion.

We are not that personality so much as who or what is beneath that personality.  If I focus on what I am not, the feeling is very painful, but if I focus on the me who is doing the focusing anyway, then I feel a boundless and eternal something.

However, throughout my life I’ve never truly felt loved.  I’ve felt that I was loved, but I didn’t feel love coming in to the space of the being that comprises me.  I didn’t actually feel love for others until I was in my mid 20’s.  I used to tell my parents I loved them but that’s because that’s what I was taught to do.  As I grew older and older, I actually did feel a love for them.   Learning to love came later in life for me. 

Actually writing this is painful for me as I realize it sounds like I was a very unloving person and perhaps I was – but early trauma can alter brain formation drastically.  It can cause developmental issues that make one that way and the interactions they have with others.   I loved but in a cerebral way – not in an authentically emotional way.  How can you love when you have divided and lost threads of yourself?  I was an anxious, depressed, play-acting child parading for the right responses.  I wanted to fit in.  As I grew older, I learned to love more and more emotionally, but I never actually felt loved emotionally – only cognitively.  I believed that I was loved, but never felt the love.

So, the thought:  I told myself, that it was entirely possible that I had been loved more than I realized.  My parents might have loved me more than I knew or felt:  my siblings, my friends, my lovers.  Simple enough of a thought, right?

Oh, the beautiful unfolding of such a thought!  My boyfriend John says he loves me all the time.  I love him and I feel it.  I feel love for others.   I feel love for my cats.  One night while I was holding my cat in bed, the neighbors set off a fire cracker.  Gaia was startled, and I held her and settled her down.  I could feel how she relaxed in to my embrace and it seemed that she felt protected and safe and loved.  It felt so good.  Although I had learned to feel love for others, I hadn’t learned how to feel the love they had for me.

 

The thing that started this whole awareness of “feeling loved” is this book I’m reading by Dr. Eben Alexander entitled “Proof of Heaven.”  In it he describes how loved he felt in the nether world.  It struck me that I hadn’t really had that feeling: receiving love.

So I decided to look at the possibility that I was not opening myself to that feeling because I know now I’d been bracing myself in various levels my whole life in my responses and interactions. 

Last weekend with headache issues, I was resting on the couch and John held my head and “kissed me and hugged me and I could actually FEEL his love.  It was intensely exquisite and I felt a little dizzy and a tiny bit nauseated, but warm and good.  After this huge chemical rush, I felt light turn on inside of me. 

Since then, I’ve been experiencing life differently.  I’ve actually felt love coming from friends more intensely and I’ve felt more love towards them.  I’ve felt more resilient.  I’ve belt better “in my head” and I’ve wondered how many of us need more of this and less antidepressants.  I’m walking stronger and taller.  I’m not skewing things towards the negative as much.  I’m more playful.  I am lighter on my feet.  This new channel of receiving “felt love” hasn’t been open constantly, as neural networks don’t change overnight.  However, I can mindfully choose to re-open it time and time again and I’ve been doing this practice as I feel that it is just as important to allow the feeling of love coming in as it is to feel the love going out.

 

So my question to you is:  what little thought will you have today?  It is possible that…  ?

 

Best of luck with love and light.  Blessed BE.