Who Do You Love?

On a rainy autumn afternoon at the Lincoln Park Alano Club in Chicago, I got a spiritual answer to a lifelong problem of mine. I was at my favorite weekly CODA meeting and it was a pure a-ha moment. The light bulb in my brain went off immediately. Jean was speaking. “All my life,” she said, “I’ve been wanting someone else to give me the one thing I wasn’t willing to give myself.” Jean paused for a moment, then continued. “And that one thing was love.” A bittersweet mixture of tears filled her eyes. “I’ve searched high and low for the right person, for anyone or everyone who could give it to me. But this week I finally realized that no other person could give me the one thing I first needed to give to myself.”

Like most everyone I knew, Jean wanted that really one special person to love her into being good enough to love herself. I had wanted it my whole life, too. And like Jean I had also searched high and low for a savior. I didn’t know how to save myself from my self-loathing and I wrongly thought I needed to find someone else could love me enough to make me feel good about myself forever and ever. I was the proverbial prince who had been turned into a frog and needed someone to rescue him with an eternal kiss. Like Jean, I was always looking outside myself for the love I needed and I never once thought to look inside.

All things essential to our spiritual lives come from within us. We need to look inside ourselves for the essentials (love, empathy, compassion, kindness, et al) and we need to look outside for support. People are placed in our lives to support or compliment us. When we are feeling weak inside, they provide a hand to hold. But we must first believe that our hand is worth holding. We can believe that by learning to love ourselves with kindness first, and then we will be able to allow their love to compliment the love we already possess. Once we develop a pure love for the reflection of the image and likeness of God that we are, no one can ever take it away from us. But others can always strengthen it by loving us as we love ourselves.

Jean went on to make a further point as she was speaking during that Saturday CODA meeting. She said “I asked myself ‘Why should I expect anyone to give me what I’m not willing to give to myself?’ And it only took a few seconds to realize that the answer was obvious: I shouldn’t expect anyone to give me what I’m not willing to give to myself—including love.”

It doesn’t make any sense at all, when we think about it logically, that any of us should expect someone else to give us the love we are withholding from ourselves. No one has a magic wand to wave over us that will instantly make us love who we are. There are no Love Superstations with love attendants who can connect us to their pumps and fill us up with Premium Love. No one is responsible for loving us before we do. Self-love is a one on one session we need to have with God every day. So make an appointment each and every day with God for your own personal Lessons in Self-Love course. It’s never too late t sign-up and God is anxiously waiting because God wants us all to love the creation that He has fashioned into being us.

Remember, if we don’t think we’re worth loving, no one will think we are worth loving. When we believe we’re unlovable, we act like we’re unlovable. People pick up on our negative self-vibe. They sense we don’t love or even like ourselves, and they too often decide we aren’t even worth getting to know, much less love. We have to love ourselves first if we ever want to be loved by others.

So, next time someone asks “Who do you love?” Simply reply “Me first, baby--Then God, and, if you’re really lucky, maybe you next!” Give yourself the greatest gift—love. Then share that love with God and others and allow your soul to shine!

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