Heartbreak and loss knock the best of us onto the floor. We become humbled by the absence of those who made our lives full, who lifted us up, who helped to us feel loved, desirable, and worthy.
That deep loving connection and acceptance is the greatest gift of loving relationships. To be the focus of someone’s heart, to feel like the most special person in the world, is a deep longing many of us carry. It is one that we are conditioned to expect to experience with parents or love relationships.
And it may also be a hook that keeps us tethered to a bad relationship. In abusive and controlling relationships, the giving of that kind of loving attention may inflate us with euphoria. And then, when the abusive partner withholds that love, it may feel like an existential threat. After several cycles of inflation and withholding, we lose our autonomy and ground.
The fear is, if this person is not in my life, I will never have this feeling again.
Much is said that “you have to love yourself before you can be loved by another,” and my colleague Maria Turner-Carney points out that we learn we are lovable by being loved.
What I am learning, and remembering, is that once we have this experience of being so deeply loved and accepted—it is ours. Our body learns and remembers that feeling. We can return to it and access it and nurture its expression.
It is perhaps much like a campfire. If you are building a fire in the woods and have no matches, flint, or lighter, it’s not impossible but it takes a lot of effort. You have to work hard for that first spark, scraping wood against wood or stone against stone. It is far easier if a kind and helpful person who already has a strong fire burning brings over a coal or lighted branch for you.
Once your fire is burning, though, you can continue to feed it. You don’t need that person to keep bringing you new wood.
Take a moment and, if you have ever had a moment of feeling deeply loved, deeply seen, deeply valued by another person, remember that moment. Remember what you were wearing, where you were, what the person smelled like. Remember what led up to the moment and remember the moment itself.
For some people, that feeling of love and admiration comes not from a lover but from somewhere else, even pets. That is totally okay for this exercise.
Sometimes these moments of deep love get tarnished by painful events that occur with or immediately after. For this practice, keep your memory at the moment of feeling that love and connection.
Notice what happens in your body as you sit with that memory. Imagine that the love and attention you received from the other person emitted from them as a color, as an energy, as a sensation that fills your body. Imagine that to be like a spark of energy that you can grow with slow, steady breathing.
Breathe into that feeling and imagine it saturating your body. If there are parts of you afraid or unwilling to take in that experience of being loved, acknowledge that. Imagine that feeling can surround and support these parts, and let those parts know they can take it in if they wish, but do not force it.
Spend a few minutes being with this. Know that this feeling may have begun as a gift given by another but it is yours now. Your sense of love, admiration, worthiness. Thank yourself for showing up, and go be in love with yourself.
