Part 3: Love
Once again thank you to my new followers. We are continuing with my Eat, Pray, Love journey. Where I share how I developed a healthier relationship with food, reaching my goal weight, going to the gym and EATING lunch. We went on to talk about gratitude and the idea of keeping a gratitude book, and saying “Thank you” prayers to God.
Now my favourite and most important of the trio. Is LOVE. Yes, the beautiful word LOVE. Firstly we should know that love isn’t just a feeling it’s an action word. I think we should experience love in these three ways. This time I want to talk about receiving love. The first love you need to know is that you are loved by God. Well I realised that God loves me. It humbled me.
The second love I had to receive was love for myself. Yes, healthy, non selfish, non egoistic self love. Why? What do you do when faced by a world, a people who do not love you. I once lived in a very small town, that had no people of colour. I encountered episodes where someone would hate me intensely because of the way I looked. Sometimes it would be moments of deep, stares that made me feel so uncomfortable. Sometimes I would look back and I would be then confronted with false accusations. I lived in a town where if as a person of colour you speak out, confront an individual about something, that individual you have confronted, would team up with other people who looked like them and they would punish you aggressively by some passive aggressive behaviour. It would be either by telling a lie or isolating you. Sometimes people would start some of the most hurtful rumours. Because, this town already had closed minded people they would believe anything they hear about a black or brown or mixed person.
I was faced with so much hate that I cannot even dare process. How did I heal? Firstly I realised that self love was important. I had to love myself. I had to be kind, patient with myself. I had to believe the very best about myself. I had to know that I am beautiful, worthy, honest, amazing and intelligent. Words have power. I had to stop comparing myself. I had to appreciate that I matter and I am a woman of purpose. No matter what anyone says or believes about me, their words have no power, neither do they matter, hence I didn’t even repeat some of the horrific words I heard about myself in this article. When you repeat evil words spoken about you by someone, when you repeat those words you are creating trouble. You are giving these words life. You are planting seeds.
So why not best finish this article by 1 Corinthians 13: 4–7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonour others. It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered it keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…It ends by saying God is love.
Jesus showed love during his time on earth. He said love God, love your self as you love other people. So yourself love is not cocky, it’s not saying I am better than all of you. No it’s just love flowing from your heart to other people. It’s horizontal.
So if you ever want to love yourself, start of by practising this towards yourself. Then pass it on to others. If there is someone or people in your life, if you want to know whether they love you or not where there is the word love, put their names. Ask yourself is X patient? Is X kind to me? Does X envy me? Do they boast? Are they proud? Because proud people cannot love you well.
This test works no matter what your religious views are. We all want the people that we interact with to be kind to us, we want them to be patient, we want them not to be envious and jealous, because jealousy will make them cruel, and ugly.
Even if you are in a romantic relationship, especially marriage, check if your spouse treats you with this definition of love. You will be answered. Check it with your friends.
I dedicate this article to anyone who has felt hate. I want you to heal, heal through love. Know that God loves you. But it’s important to LOVE yourself, to forgive yourself, to keep no record of your wrongs and drown in regrets. When you have love growing in your heart you can love and forgive people easily. Because you want your tree of love to grow and expand. You cannot love other people if you don’t love yourself.
If you love yourself, you can be in a room full of people who hate you and it will not ruin your day. You put yourself in a glass , you will be protected. If you love yourself, you will not allow people to abuse you, emotionally, physically or even sexually. You will not want to share your body by someone who doesn’t love you, someone who is cruel or unsure about you. Only when you understand love, can you love other people well. You love where there is racism, false accusations or discrimination. Because you do not want to be tormented by hate.
And this marks the end of My own Eat, Pray Love journey. It’s a circle. I invite you to join and create your own.
