Love SOS: Love Begins With Loving You

Love, in a way, is the biggest karmic lesson for us all. I was raised with the idea that there’s one soul mate, one relationship, one marriage – and then when you find that marriage and that relationship, you live happily ever after and everything is perfect.

Sometimes it works just like that.  But for many of us, we get involved in relationships where there is an imbalance of energy, where one person loves the other person more, or where one person wants one thing, and the other person wants something else.   At such times we can end up thinking, “hang on a minute! It’s not supposed to be like this! This is painful! This is devastating!”

It’s at those very times when we need to remember that relationships come along for many reasons.  When relationships don’t work, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a karmic connection with that person, and it doesn’t mean that we weren’t meant to have that relationship. It can mean that we have encountered a relationship the purpose of which was to help our soul grow, to help us expand and even to learn to love ourselves.

Having a good relationship with yourself is actually essential to loving someone else. Difficult relationships can shine a light on where we don’t love ourselves and reveal the work we need to do.

So if you find yourself in a difficult relationship, or coming out of one, ask yourself, how do you actually feel about yourself? What is your relationship to yourself, and your relationship to your inner-voice? Do you love yourself? Do you speak kindly to yourself? Do you treat yourself kindly? Would you fall in love with you?  Are you being loving towards yourself?

All love begins with self love, and many relationships come into our lives to show us that fundamental truth.