A Gift & Privilege
Today I am thinking this on repeat about my beloved: You are a gift and I want to celebrate you for as long as you are mine to love.
What a privilege it is to love someone up close. Considering that love with gratitude prompts me to action. How can I show this person more love? How can I express my love to them? Is there a new way to demonstrate my affection and commitment?
In doing so, my love grows. It becomes a feed forward loop when the love is reciprocated. I notice the love. I receive the love. I feel the love. Paying attention to the love brings gratitude and once again I'm contemplating what would be a meaningful way to show this person love in this moment in time.
This is contemplation. This is being in the now. This is being present. And it's wondrously beautiful. It is such a privilege to love someone up close - physically, vulnerably, intimately.
We humans are incredible, each and every one of us. To have a person who sees us more than any other, because much of it can only be seen from up close, is freeing, empowering, and remarkable. What a marvel is this two-way street of seeing and holding space for the other to be and become.
This kind of love allows access to capability. We can't fully achieve what we are meant to achieve without this kind of up-close love. We aren't meant to do life alone. We aren't meant to be isolated. Seasons of isolation are necessary, but they will occur, and we must learn from them. We must do our own work to have the potential to not only give love, but to receive love. Receiving such a profound, seeing, abiding love requires great risk and vulnerability - something that many of our life experiences work against.
We must love ourselves to be able to receive the love of another. Loving ourselves isn't a vain or egoic journey. We all bear the image of the Divine. If we can't see the Divine in ourselves, we don't believe we are worthy of love from anyone and so we will fight and posture to earn love, and hide and retreat from the lack of control that comes with love. To love, we entrust ourselves to another and it is wildly terrifying and exhilarating and the depth of joy will bring you to your knees with tears in your eyes.
Once you have sat in stillness with yourself and the Divine long enough and received that love and agreed to let that love flow through you, you are ready to receive the miracle of love from another and then, in turn, to give love. How awesome it is participating in this recipricrocity. Life becomes lighter, brighter, and more simple. Why? Because you are here. You are present. You are participating. You are calm. You are content. You have found a peace that extends beyond your own reasoning. It is astonishing and you will struggle to find words, but you will try, because you want to participate. You want to be fully alive. You are choosing love above all other circumstances.
Wow, what a gift. What a privilege it is to love someone up close! Cherish it, beloveds. Lean in.
What is keeping you from leaning in to love?
Have you taken the time and space to love yourself?
Are you able to sit in front of the mirror and tell yourself how loved you are?
Are you cherishing the love of those whom you have the privilege to love up close?
Beloveds, may you always see the blessing.
-esb