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The Greatest Love of All

from my website www.jloveaffair.com
Love and Relationships 101 Vol I Index 1

There are many phases we go through in our lives in relation to love. When we are infants to the time we are in grade school, the only love we know is the love we have for our immediate family. We loved our mother, our father, sisters and brothers, and all those family members that are apart of our life at the time. In grade school a lot of us experienced our first crush. It was the first time we looked at someone and got butterflies in our stomach. In junior high school some of us started dating. Remember your first boyfriend/girlfriend? We would tie up the phone until our ears were ringing because we had to relive the moments we shared all day before bedtime. High school came and we experienced what would be considered our first true love. That was the person we thought we would spend the rest of our lives with. It’s not until our adult years and four or five relationships later that we really start to get a grasp on what love really is. What is the greatest love of all? If I were to ask the average person that question I wonder who or what the answer would be. Would it be that first love in High School? Would it be the first lasting relationship we experienced? Answer is none of the above. The greatest love of all is self love. Sounds like a "no brainer", but self love is the most elusive feeling when we as adults think about being in love. We all tell ourselves on a regular basis that we love ourselves but do we? Let's re-examine how much love we really give to self.

When we love ourselves we will do any and everything to protect ourselves from danger and hurt. Up until now I always thought I loved myself. I was very vocal about that fact and always thought I took the necessary steps to treat myself with honor and respect. It is not until recently that I really have fallen in love with me. I spent so many years trying to please someone else and be who everyone thought I should be that I never took time to check in with self to make sure self was okay with my choices. From drugs to bad relationships, to unprotected sex (before the aids epidemic), I relied on self and God to always be okay no matter what choices I made. I guess I thought I was invincible. This was never a conscious thought, but I had to believe I was invincible to take the chances I took with my life. It is only by the grace and mercy of the almighty and my new found love for self that I realized just how much I never put self in the equation when making some of the choices I made. How many friends and family members have we lost to HIV only to have a one night stand because the person doesn’t look sick? How many times do we read in the paper or know someone who had overdosed on drugs, became an alcoholic, or is cracked out of their mind, but we say we have a stronger mind than to fall into that trap so we give in to peer pressure or curiosity just to know the feeling of escaping reality for a few moments. How many times have we heard about the students coming home from school break killed by a drunk driver, but we stagger to our cars after a party telling self we are capable of driving, only to have no recollection the next morning of how we made it home the night before. How many times have we been in a relationship and took "licks for love" believing our partner when they said it would never happen again. How many times have we stayed with a partner we know cheated on us because we have material things together? Through all of the scenarios mentioned, if someone were to ask us about self love, the answer would always be yes. However, when we become honest with self and take responsibility for self, the true answer to the question would be no. So what does it take to love self?

To truly love self, we must first take responsibility for our actions in any situation. When we can admit mistakes we can grow past them. We are in a blame somebody society so it is only natural that we blame our mistakes and misfortunes in life and love on something or somebody else. How many times have we blamed the other party for our relationship going wrong? Truth is we didn’t trust self enough to pay attention to the warning signs in the beginning of the relationship. A person is going to be who they are. If a woman/man leaves somebody to be with you, it is almost guaranteed they will do the same to you. If a person tells lies in the beginning of a relationship, they will lie through the relationship. If a person was abusive in their last relationship, they will more than likely be abusive with you.

The most common fallacy in a relationship is to believe if we just love our partner enough, they will return that love and be who we want them to be. Unfortunately we do not have that kind of power. This is where self love has to kick in. We have to love self enough to know when to say when. There is no amount of material gain, good sex, or memories to make a bad situation good. It only prolongs the inevitable. For those of you that have been in long relationships and survived the bumps, I applaud you. There is a difference however between bumps in the road and quicksand. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s what makes us human. How do we decipher what is forgivable and what is unforgivable in a relationship? That will depend on the level of self love we have. When we truly love self we are not afraid to be alone. Sometimes the thought of being alone overrides the misery in a relationship. When we truly get to a point of loving self, we realize that nothing is more important than the health and happiness of self. Forgivable mistakes in a relationship are those mistakes that come from lack of knowledge. If you are with someone who has no clue about pleasing you, that is a situation that usually comes from lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge mistakes can be repaired through communication and also through teaching. Unforgivable mistakes in a relationship are the mistakes that are made in the "heat of the moment". Infidelity is the most common "heat of the moment" mistake known to mankind. When two people make a verbal/written contract to be together, it is with the unspoken commitment that both parties will be faithful. When one party breaks that contract it is time for self love to kick in. We must love self enough to walk away because there is no respectable reason that anyone should ever go outside of their relationship to get something they already have. There is an old saying that "the grass is always greener on the other side" Contrary to that belief, when you are looking at a yard from a distance it will always look greener but when you finally get to that yard up close and personal, you will find that yard to be the same as your yard. It is amazing what your yard could look like had you taken time to cut the grass, prune the shrubs and gave it a little water. My point is, people who go outside of their relationship to fulfill a need or want, don’t have the guts to fix the issues that make them stray in the first place. It is their lack of self love that keeps them from walking away from a secure situation instead of pursuing their happiness, therefore it is easier to go for instant gratification and remain in their miserable security than it is to let go and face a world of uncertainty.

In closing, it is important for us to re-evaluate how much we really love ourselves. It is only when we really gain a true sense of loving self that we can control our life situations. It is only when we learn to respect ourselves and truly love ourselves that we can be in a healthy and satisfying relationship. Self love is the beginning of all positive things to come in our lives. This is why loving self is The Greatest Love of all….jlove