Despite how open, peaceful and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you, as deeply as they’ve met themselves. -Kahn.

I love this quote. We often feel when people don’t treat us in a loving way or can’t meet us where we are, that we often feel there’s something wrong with us. Likely we are experiencing our own childhood wound and we don’t realize that their reaction comes from their own experiences and often mirrors how they feel about themselves and their world. Often the insecurities they are carrying deep inside arose through interactions with people in which they themselves loved, but had been so mindfucked into believing they weren’t good enough or blamed for the other people’s insecurities and unhealed damage.

How sad it is that this has happened to someone we care for. We want to help their healing but they aren’t ready to move through that because it has now become such an engrossed part of their psyche that that’s all they know. They want to have more, they want love, they want to move through, but have no concept of what good and calm feels like. So when they experience it, it causes anxiety, waiting for the other metaphorical shoe to drop.

In many cases when we happen to be around people who make us feel challenged, or question our worth, our instant reaction is to fight for OUR reality. I find it so interesting in that doing exactly the opposite, which is so unnatural for us, offering love and connection, understanding and compassion, providing an ear that listens and trying to understand where they are coming from, may totally change how we perceive them and how they perceive us. We hope by providing calm compassionate energy, their energy would reflect ours. But sometimes it’s just not about us. Not that they don’t want to meet us in that safe space we’ve provided, but they’ve been so conditioned that they aren’t worthy of happiness, and therefore struggle to heal.

I get it. Throughout my life I would generally try to avoid situations where conflict might arise because conflict meant I wouldn’t receive love. I was taught to not rock the boat and other’s feelings were more important than my own. This behavior caused my side of the demise of my marriage. I own that. These days I feel that interacting with people that make me feel challenged is one of the most beautiful opportunities to connect deeply with another human. And provides a truly safe experience for them to have an opportunity for growth in their own journey. Not in a fixing way, because people need to do the work and move forward for themselves. But to hold that safe space for someone, is one of the greatest honors. Judging and attacking doesn’t allow space for growth. When we allow that between our partners, we give ourselves and the other person time to gain more understanding, trust, and find compassion for each other.

If there’s a way our world can change to be a more peaceful place, it is through our interactions with other people. You may not change the perspective of every person that crosses your path, but by being open, loving and vulnerable, there’s a chance that your beautiful energy will touch some hearts along the way. A mantra I have always aspired to is “May my life, touch your life, always for the better.” If we aren’t providing that to our connections particularly the loving intimate ones, the damage we don’t heal, just seeps into every other connection. Even if we don’t mean it to.

There’s a bitter clarity that tinges upon the edge of love that prevents us from falling any deeper for another soul, than when we have ventured within our own. We can’t understand the depths of another if we have chosen to not traverse our own, and no matter how much we love someone, we still can’t love them beyond our own limits.

This is why it’s so important to not only love ourselves, but be willing to get lost within our depths. Show up and allow yourself to be seen. Yeah, often times vulnerability is messy and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes letting go of that hurt, means closing a chapter of a book we didnt finish writing. But if we make the choice to only swim on the surface, to never look at the whys and the how’s of who we are, then it will become impossible for us to do that for another. Whatever type of love we do share will only end up with us dipping one foot in the shallow end. In order to receive deep love, we need to dive in head first.

We are all evolving. Many of us are transitioning from the type of love and relationships that have been role models to our societal norm for decades, (those who just swept shit under the rug instead of healing their wounds) into a new and different sort of union. It’s not enough to just care for someone because we are craving physical connections. We want and need to feel inspired and transcendent when we are in the midst of our lover and know our hearts will be protected.

Yet, we can’t ask another to fill us up or provide for us, what we are unable to give ourselves. In the best types of love, there is balance, an equanimity that comes from each person. Not necessarily by being the same, or being completely healed because there’s always room for growth, but complementing the other in such a way that both souls, and lives, are enhanced and strive for compassion, grace and understanding within the union that also allows for mistakes, forgiveness and growth. Because we’re human.

So the task then becomes being bold enough to venture within our own depths, to swim around in the murky waters of our subconscious learning who we really are and what motivates us. We have to become acquainted with our darkest demons, because the reality is, if we haven’t yet made friends with them, no potential lover will be able to either. Our loves want to support us in battle. It’s up to us to give them the armor to help. Remember it’s rarely the case that we’re afraid to love. We’re just afraid of old pain.

If we dont do this, and withholding unconditional love, acceptance, and trust from ourselves, then we will also do the same for any potential partner who comes into our lives. We then hold their love hostage from connecting deeper and relaxing in their care. We will constantly be anxious, searching for the way out because time has told us that keeps us safe from pain. So, in order to be able to have that crazy, deep love, we need to learn how to accept it.

We are meant to live, to make mistakes, to hurt others, to fail miserably, and to sit and cry in the dark about where we went wrong, and what ifs. We are supposed to face our shadows because it is only though offering them love and acceptance that we will truly be able to heal ourselves enough to actually move forward. If we still cringe when we think about things we’ve done, poor choices we made, heartbreak we’ve experienced, or created, then we haven’t yet forgiven ourselves for being human. Carrying the past can get heavy, give yourself permission to put it down.

In order to love deeply and be in the place of accepting healing love, we need to be actively attempting to heal from all of the times that we didn’t receive it or give it to ourselves. Fuck anyone who continuously attempts to keep us in that dark place because it serves their purpose to keep you in the shame spiral when they themselves can’t take account for their own shadows.

The truth is that love is why we are here. Seriously, there is no greater reason, no big surprise at the end of life. It simply has and will always be about love. Yet before we realize this, before we can live it, we need to learn how to practice it. Love isn’t just about words, but about action and chosing that action every day. It’s about the ability to show, not just our lovers, but ourselves the act of love.

Our partners are not our salvation but partners who help us learn more about ourselves and who we are once everything negative we believed we were has been stripped away. Then we can grow safely together and heal past wounds without judgement but acceptance, compassion and forgiveness.