When I was young I thought love was something that would be given to me by others, and looking back now, I have been on a very long journey searching for love outside of myself. It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.
I remember how I used to listen to a song called ‘The Winner takes it All’ by Abba, after a break-up with a boy. Phil Collins and Lionel Richie would also do the trick in times like these, as long as the song would make me feel even more emotional than I already felt. Love songs are great to drown yourself in sorrow and to highlight the feeling that nobody loves you.
Love equals doing and giving?
Love for me has always been a verb, a doing; and that’s what the women around me mainly reflected to me as a child. Love was a synonym for doing and about what you give. Love for me was being nice, polite, helpful, being good and being there for others. It meant saying ‘yes’ while I actually felt like saying ‘no’… and going along with a conversation, even if I wanted to say something different. This showed itself in a constant pleasing, showing sympathy, making time for others and definitely not expressing my truth because this might rock a boat or two. Love for me was about not having arguments or conflicts and keeping the peace, even though a bomb may be lying under the carpet, ready to explode. Most of my life, I have been on a big quest for people to like me.
Love for me, in a relationship, came with quite a lot of expectations. I thought I needed the other person to complete me, as I believed something was missing inside me and I needed a partner to feel better about myself. For a while I was ‘an easy catch’; anything, so long as I wasn’t alone. I was very needy and quite a handful for my partners back then. I had a wild time where I mixed up love and having sex, thinking that the two would go hand in hand.
Love for me was feeling drained after a day at work because I was always helping out colleagues and trying to keep everything in harmony. I hardly ever said no and I was feeling responsible not only for my colleagues but in a way, for the whole of Holland. Love for me was saying yes if someone asked for help, literally dropping everything out of my hands and doing what I perceived was needed.
Love equals ‘being nice’, ‘being liked’?
In my expression I would never speak my truth because I felt it could be perceived as not nice and people might not like me anymore – and I was craving for people to like me. I had this idea that nobody would want to hear my truth, so why make them feel uncomfortable? I felt special and loved because people always liked me and with all the different jobs I have had, I always left with a warm goodbye and I loved the fact that I would be missed.
I have taken pride in the fact that I have rarely had conflicts or arguments in my life and I felt that this was very special. If a situation got ugly I would hold back, not expressing what I actually wanted to say and I would start pleasing and/or pandering. As a family we were always great at hiding issues under the carpet and ignoring what was truly going on: I have played a glorious part in this.
At some point I had this crazy idea that I would find love abroad; so I started travelling, looking around for something, but in fact I was running away from the things I didn’t want to address and deal with. I have tried and done many things, but in the end I was still missing something.
What about Self-Love first?
So then… could it be that love has nothing to do with doing, helping or giving something, but that it all lies in my being and how I self-love…? Could it be that there is nowhere to go and nothing to search for, but that love is inside me and has been for all of my life…? Could it be that I AM love and I will always be, no matter what I do? I have to admit, it does feel quite new to me and at times, I can still feel insecure about it, as in – am I enough…? Shouldn’t I be doing something?
Over the last three years I have become aware that self-love has to do with me being all of me, no matter what. I have come to learn and I am still learning – big time – that love is about expressing my truth, regardless of how many boats I will rock. I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it. Ouch…
Self-love for me now is saying ‘no’ when my body says no; to really honour myself and the signals my body gives me. It’s a tough one for me, but I have also learned that I am in fact NOT responsible for the whole of Holland but only for myself, my choices, my life and how I live my life, in every single moment. Quite a bummer I can tell you, to realise that I don’t have to save anybody… Love has nothing to do with sympathy, doing good in the world, or being emotional.
Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing. In fact, there is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am. From that place, I can be love and reflect love. I am and will be a forever student of love…
I am deeply inspired by the work of Universal Medicine, all the students and all those amazing people around me who reflect to me that I am enough, that I am love.
By Mariette Reineke, Amsterdam, Holland
We have been sold such a deep lie about love what it means and what it is. To me it feels as though religious sects started this disassembly of what love is and turned love into something that has no resemblance of the truth. it is absolutely disgusting in my opinion that they took something that was so pure, so absolute in its knowing and twisted the meaning so that what we say is ‘love’ today has not an ounce of true love in it. And yet I know from my own experience that the truth will be known because our bodies are the marker of truth and it cannot be stopped from returning to love because all our particles within our bodies are made of love which is the love of the universe and when we come back to this understanding the perpetual unrest in our bodies will come back to the stillness we all come from.
“This showed itself in a constant pleasing, showing sympathy, making time for others and definitely not expressing my truth because this might rock a boat or two.” Wow, your blog could also be my story Mariette, I am still seeing and clearing from my life the deep patterns of saving others, getting involved, wanting to be seen as a nice person, disregarding myself to put others first, etc, it’s quite a deep one and I remember being encouraged to be like this as a child – to be a ‘good girl’. I have also noticed that this way of behaving has its payoffs, not just in being liked, but also it dulls down our true essence so there isn’t jealousy or other aggression.
We enter this world full over flowing with love but in many cases we are not met with love, and this is when we feel that what we are feeling is not what anyone else is. So what to do with the love that we naturally are? Well for me it got deeply buried because I could not bear for the love to be spoiled or soiled in anyway, I felt I needed to protect it. I did not understand as a child that love cannot be touched it does not need protecting but expressed so that everyone can feel what they are actually missing in life. The more we express love in everything we do the more people we remember their own love and start to build the bridge back to it.
Will have to start with self love when it comes to love as if we do not truly love ourselves then how can we love another?
Thank you Mariette, true music by Glorious Music and other performers who remain connected, as they have no emotional lines to get us excited or emotional so we can stay connected to our essences.
‘It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.’ This feels key, so often we are taught that love is outside of us and that we need to find ‘Mr or Mrs right’ to make us happy and complete, but this for me simply doesn’t feel true anymore. We can all have a steady, constant love in our life and that is the love we have for ourselves, which then allows us to truly love others too.
Mariette, this is a great question; ‘could it be that love has nothing to do with doing, helping or giving something, but that it all lies in my being and how I self-love…? Could it be that there is nowhere to go and nothing to search for, but that love is inside me and has been for all of my life…?’ This feels absolutely true for me from my experience, I also spent a lot of time and effort looking outside of me for love, what I came to realise was that true love was loving me first, and this started with taking care of and honouring myself.
My-lost-ness was so far away from the Truth that starting with being Gentle was the bridge for me back to starting of me being self-loving. And being gentle started with the Gentle Breath Meditation;
http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free
http://www.unimedliving.com/search?
Unfortunately many people look for love outside themselves, thinking it is something that will be given to them instead of knowing it comes from within, ‘I thought love was something that would be given to me by others, and looking back now, I have been on a very long journey searching for love outside of myself. It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.’
It seems to me, that when a woman’s Love is all about doing, then there is very little room for equality in the relationship.
Gorgeous we need more examples like these: feeling the truth of what you share and how it is our very basis to love and care for ourself by starting and never ending.
Coming back to the love that I am is a continuous self-discovery journey in which I feel lighter whilst I let go everything that is not love in my life
How crazy it is that we have created a society that does not foster in our children, that love is everything they are in essence, as such we grow up seeking love outside of ourselves. We know what love is, such is why we seek it, yet we are seeking in all the wrong places, that which already resides within. In developing an honoring relationship with our love within, we discover the stupendous richness, magnificence and joy that is to be lived and soon realise that this is the only true foundation for living love in any relationship.
Mariette we could quite possibly be twins 🙂 Thank you for the honesty expressed here, I could relate to much of what you have shared about how you have been with people before returning to self love. It’s a huge process unlocking the behaviours of being nice, accomodating and helpful, which can come with the agenda to be liked and thought of a certain way. Love in it’s true expression is very different in how it interacts with people, it being more a quality of being rather than the many ways I would in the past “do love”. It’s been such a supportive read, thank you.
Realising that we are not responsible for anything other than to reflect the Truth of who we are (love, joy, stillness, harmony and truth) is a big step away from the ideals and beliefs laced upon us by the rules and regulations of society that offer the false illusions that being nice, good and sympathetic constitutes love. What is tough is seeing how we have fallen for the big fat lie that this is!
“Self-love for me now is saying ‘no’ when my body says no; to really honour myself and the signals my body gives me. It’s a tough one for me, but I have also learned that I am in fact NOT responsible for the whole of Holland but only for myself, my choices, my life and how I live my life, in every single moment. Quite a bummer I can tell you, to realise that I don’t have to save anybody”
I love this Mariette – the simplicity and truth of love – no doing required, simply BEING is everything.
“could it be that love has nothing to do with doing, helping or giving something, but that it all lies in my being and how I self-love…? Could it be that there is nowhere to go and nothing to search for, but that love is inside me and has been for all of my life…? Could it be that I AM love and I will always be, no matter what I do?”
It certainly takes away all the pressure we place on others, including children and pets, to love us. Returning to the truth of our being and the essence of love we truly are exposes so many of the lies we currently live in society. The versions of love that are based on emotion, sympathy, doing good, and saving others. Underneath it all we are all amazing beings of immense love simply living disconnected to ourselves.
I know that one very well, wanting to save people. It is like you say not about rescuing people but just living the love you are. Reflection brings true change, not doing or trying.
Yes, I too knew this one very well, wanting to save or rescue people, it is so refreshing to know that all we have to do is to live who we are in full, to live the love we are and reflect this to others.
Adding to what you have shared Mariette, reflection is our greatest from of communication!
Something for me to reflect on Greg! 🙂
The beautiful thing is that if you fully claim your love and amazingness for yourself you can only but be there for others. It won´t be a belief you follow what love is/ what you need, but the purpose will be felt instantly that this needs to be shared with everyone.
And wouldn’t it be great if babies were confirmed in their innate self-love as they started to step out in life.
We get so lost searching for love outside of ourselves and for me being like a chameleon constantly adjusting to what I thought other people wanted me to be whereas at any time we can actually chose to turn the spotlight on ourselves and choose to be more self loving. Choosing to take loving care of myself, to the best of my ability, means that I no longer rely on others to make me feel better about myself which is a very imposing way to be and put huge strains on my relationships which then gave me trust issues. Now that I am learning to love and trust myself I can feel how this frees me up to have more loving relationships with others.
It is so true that love is not just about the doing. I had this belief for a long time, and it really drained me – that I had to be a certain way and do certain things to win love. But the truth is it is a holding and a quality.
It is a surrendering to yourself and our bodies first to then access the love that is on offer. We cannot love “more”. We can only surrender more to the universe that then gives access to the magnificence of the love that we are.
yes, great sharing, it is a holding and basically just being you, with yourself and in connection with everybody. The world does not teach us this and I am so greatful that I have been reflected this by Serge Benhayon. Learning about love every day!
Love provides such a different perspective. I remember having a conversation with Serge Benhayon and realising that from how he was being with me that love needs nothing from the other person and expects nothing, and I was being met for the grandness of my essence without the slightest imposition to live other than what I was (which was pretty far away from my true essence). It’s so different to the rescuing, taking on others stuff, and trying to fix or make things better for others – love sees you for all you are and gives you the space to come back to that in your own time.
I can relate to this, of looking outside of myself for something to give me approval- whether that be a work project, attention from a potential partner or even recognition from not doing well. It is all a distraction from outside.
Yes, this is a biggie, I also want approval and recognition from outside of myself. It is changing, but it is there. It’s great to be aware of it so when I feel this need, I can just come bak to me and see that there is nothing out there to get.
‘Shouldn’t I be doing something?” That is a question I’ve often found myself asking.. the feeling of guilt in the background if I’m not relentlessly doing and completing everything on a to-do list. But living like that is draining and soul-less – it feels empty and no amount of boxes ticked every really satisfies. Starting to drop that, and just enjoy being with myself, no matter what I am doing, feeling what to do next from moment to moment, feels odd – I’ve been in the doing for so much of my life that it’s not yet a familiar feeling – but amazing: there’s a feeling of stillness and space that feels beyond the limits of time. There are still things to be done, but the pressure I put on myself to do them is far lesser – and with that, there’s more space within and around me.
Love what you share here, I am also great in doing a lot, I could win an oscar for that. I am learning to move through my day and really feel what is needed, instead of me thinking and making a list. Huge change.
Self love is the biggest hug you could ever give yourself and more. And what’s more, it opens us up to receive love from others so hugs with them are even deeper and more intimate too!
The power of self –love is the grandest of reflections for all. There is no end to what we can go to with our self care that innately brings a reminder to others that they too can tap into this.
Self-abuse shows itself in so many ways and layers. When I used to think of the word ‘abuse’ I thought of about as agression, violence atc. but abuse is so much more. We abuse our bodies every day, the moment we don’t listen to what it says and override our own needs/feelings. We can only love ourselves, when we start taking care of ourselves and like you mention: say no to self-abuse. There is quite a lot to say “NO” to….
The ultimate form of self love is saying no to self abuse and hence yes to everything that is truly love
It is very true Joshua – the more we say no to self-abuse the more we re-claim the love we are to simply be present and be the quality that guides us more and more.
Everything in life gets so complicated and needlessly so, when we pursue ideals outside of ourself. When you live in the simplicity of what your body feels life gets easy and crystal clear.
It does get very easy and simple. So simple that at times I like to make it complicated again because my mind thinks: it can’t be that simple, lets bring in some complication! It’s a strong belief that life has to be hard and complicated and that we have to work hard and push to make things happen. I notice that the less I do that, the more life shows itself. Complication and control go hand in hand.
Yes complication and control go hand in hand, I see this more and more. When we let go of the ideals and beliefs we have around how it ought to be or how we think it should be then the space opens up for us to feel what love would do and we can do it….we are it (love) and life unfolds.
Love literally is everywhere…We don’t actually have to do anything at all for love and that love simply holds us always is what humanity needs to know, experience, and live… And then true healing will start
We don’t actually have to do anything at all for love and that love simply holds us always is what humanity needs to know, experience, and live
‘Love for me was about not having arguments or conflicts and keeping the peace, even though a bomb may be lying under the carpet, ready to explode. Most of my life, I have been on a big quest for people to like me.’ You have described how I have been living for a long long time until I discovered that love is not about doing but about being, that it is all there waiting for us to connect to. And what I now know is that it starts with the relationship I have with my body, how am I with myself 24/7 and this is a forever deepening, a process that requires honesty and honouring my feelings, embracing the innate qualities of preciousness and fragility. What a joy to be me!
Thank you for the honest blog about your journey with love, I could relate to much of what you shared. It’s been a strong belief with me that love is what you do for others so it’s been quite a turnaround to feel for myself that love is a quality that I reconnect to within that comes from my own self love. Once I am reconnected to love it’s then something that my whole body expresses, and that others can feel and are held by.
It is beautiful to realise and feel that that true activity of love is one that naturally emanates from within, from who we already are in essence, and this quality shared through all we do is what confirms not only who we are but who we all are. This is what we are her for – to reflect the love we are.
” It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love. ” Its quite funny when one thinks about it , that most have been looking for love and trying to find love , when in truth they have it all already, it just needed to be activated by self care and self love which brings about the emanation of love.
As I learn to be connected to and live from the love I am I find life is becoming so simple, it’s all about be-ing and discarding the many reactions I go into, including helping others or wanting to change how life is. Thank you Mariette as I can relate very much to your journey back to the love within via self love.
Comprehensive and well-covered Mariette about the truth of love. It has been the catalyst to build truth in my life to know the difference between what is love and what is not love. It then is your responsibility to live the abundance of this truth of love all around you and within you. What I appreciate and rockets my awareness into being more love is my own self-appreciation of how much love I am feeling. This can be just how much you let another in especially if you do not know them.
And of course there are so many songs about love, lives, career, Nations, so many things have been launched with this ersatz condition that has forward humanity for so long, which has truly, nothing to do with love.
This is a great example of how we search for love on the outside using our pictures of what we believe love to be.
If people stopped being nice and started being true we would have a very different societal situation in our hands. Perhaps there would be more understanding, less resentment, more openness and certainly a more equal playing field for everyone because truth unites us all to the same point – niceness panders to emotions and makes us very individual.
Great point Rachael, that if we stopped playing nice we would have more understanding. It took me a bit to sit with this but in playing nice we can not really know how others are feeling, it can also at times be a manipulation to get what we want and it can also be a way to hold back what we actually feel. If we expressed honestly it does allow us to build understanding.
Love stems from me loving myself and holding myself precious and dear. Definitely needed this reminder. Thank you Mariette.
When we are stuck in the doldrums doing, thinking and listening to the same old melancholy and dejected ways we will just stay trapped there and never lift out of them.
Living life searching for something is exhausting, whenever I find myself searching for something I know I’ve dropped some of the foundational ways I care for myself and my body. It’s super simple maths: look after yourself and all aspects of your life + deeply care for your body = massively loving your life and not needing other things and other people to fill in the gaps.
Nothing is there to search for, as it all lies within us for us to bring out.
I have come to learn and I am still learning – big time. I love this, because as along as we are learning, there is nothing to ‘fail’ at. One of my strengths is my willingness to learn, and what I am learning is that is it always my choice to choose love or not. It is that simple. Love is my way forward, and when life presents those challenges, it is an opportunity to surrender ( and not go into fight mode, or harden, two of my old habits) but to deepen the relationship with myself and open up to allowing more love to flow through my body.
Thank you Mariette and a great big Yes to being a ‘forever student of love’. I love exploring my developing relationship with being more self-loving and letting go of looking to others for love and confirmation that I am enough.
Love as we know it in general society is a shadow of what love truly is.
No wonder we can never find love outside of ourselves because that version of love generally is not it, hence why we are literally chasing our tails to find it out there. And the ironic thing is we are taking the very thing that is holding what we are seeking deep within as we are doing this. Mmmmm, are we really an intelligent society?
Ah Mariette – this blog is so beautiful. At times it can seem very real that you feel that people should behave a certain way or offer you care. But who put this in our contract in life? I checked the fine print and it is not there. What I did see is that we are asked one important thing – which as you so beautifully say – is for us to be caring, nurturing and cherishing each and every day. Whether we like it or not this is the ‘way of the world’ we live in.
Most people have this belief that another person will complete them and I lived with this same belief too.
But everything you have shared has absoluteness thank you for sharing.
This blog has highlighted that love can be more than what we have been led to believe. Love has been presented by many masks by parents, family, partners, films, music, cultural, religion and many more things. But as you so rightly presented ‘Love starts with me and how I self-love.’ There is so much importance to self love it is often misunderstood. Why would we search for love outside of ourselves when it is within us all and as already mentioned before it begins with responsibility.
Oh yes Shushila, how I agree with what you have said about what we have been led to believe and how wonderful it is to be able to remove those masks and know that love starts with me, that self love is the way and that it is not selfish to self love – another mask removed!
Searching for that something, that special spark, that you know is somewhere if only you knew where to look is exhausting. It is magic when you stop searching everywhere but reconnect to the true untarnished love of your own essence in your inner-heart and there is an unbounded love to share with all.
“Love songs are great to drown yourself in sorrow and to highlight the feeling that nobody loves you.” We do have to ask, are such songs as you’ve referred to Mariette truly ‘love songs’? To me they speak nothing of the true nature of love which holds no ’emotional wallowing’ whatsoever. That a song aligned to in such a way can have the effect of amplifying if not adding further complication to an emotional state we are already in, is actually deeply harmful to our being.
A song founded in the true nature of love offers a point of reconnection to ourselves, thus potentially inspiring us to step out of the difficulty we may find ourselves in, if we so choose, and never, ever imposing another’s emotional state or issues upon us.
There is just so much for us to unpack around false notions of love, and the extent that the falsity has been allowed to permeate our societies…
I love what you’ve shared here Mariette, particularly in your nailing of the belief that says we are loving when we sacrifice ourselves for others / feel we need to save others: “I have also learned that I am in fact NOT responsible for the whole of Holland but only for myself, my choices, my life and how I live my life, in every single moment.”
The true power of our love is founded in the knowing and lived relationship of love within ourselves, isn’t it… From this, we never hold another as less or in need of saving – for we know that all are equally capable of the same.
This does not mean that support for others cannot occur, but the way in which it is offered – from the knowing of our innate equalness and the love within all, accessible to all – changes completely, and we no longer stand in the arrogance of thinking that we are more than another and that we are effectively ‘doing good’ by taking on another’s woes…
Universal Medicine opens us up to the awareness of what true love really is… And if this was all that was presented that would surely be enough… The thing is there is so much, so much more.
Saying ‘Yes’ to another to keep the peace when the body is saying ‘No’ is not love. True love is when I am being true to myself, listening and honouring what I feel is true and not allowing others to influence me in making decisions that are not based on love; this way of being I am finding is based on the love I have for self.
Reading this blog after the day I have had really brings things back to basics. Working in a restaurant I found myself today being pulled in what felt like 100 different directions and believing that I had to be everything in all those different tasks but all at the same time. It doesn’t work and the stress I experience in these moments is huge. Coming back to being responsible for myself first and foremost in any moment brings back a simplicity that is not so overwhelming or stress-full.
I am also someone proud of how I never had any arguments or would get frustrated etc. Yet I am finding now too that I got very used to backing of and not saying what I actually feel is true when I sense someone is going to get angry or frustrated with me. I got very tired and I am noticing that it is because I am nice and not letting myself be me and express what I feel is true. So keeping the peace is not something to be proud of per se as it makes my life flat and dull instead of full of the expression of love and truth – of me.
It is quite ironic we go looking for love out there somewhere when it is inside of us, and all around us waiting to reconnect to.
‘Love starts with me, and how I self-love’. How come this simple truth eludes the majority of humankind. All of the world’s pain and suffering could be erased if we were all taught to deeply love ourselves.
Yes, if we truly connected to the love within us, it would be impossible to harm ourselves or others.
What is love is always respectful of oneself, but equally open to all others.
Not holding back expressing truth is love—when love is what is expressed, we may hear someone come up with a reactive response or with no response, but what we feel is they have heard what was expressed. I would rather speak the truth and be told I am too much, than not expressing what needs to be clearly said. In holding myself when I do so, I am being held—literally so, when expressing truth with love. Love can only always deepen.
Great sharing- I too have entered relationships out of need and wanting to be ‘filled’ or made complete by another. This was a recipe for disaster as I dishonoured what I felt so the sake of having a relationship and then later regretted it.
I can very much relate to wanting to save others. This behaviour has been so ingrained in me that I would do anything to save another. Although less obvious this pattern does arise from time to time and often without me realising until later. I have an investment as I want and need to be recognised as I can feel hurt when I do not get the attention and recognition that I feel I rightly deserve. This way of being is the opposite to true love which many live and call it love. We have much to understand on the true meaning of love which I have found out begins with loving the self first.
I considered love as being the person who gave in and didn’t rock the boat. Prided myself also in the fact that I didn’t upset anyone with an alternate view unless I felt really passionate about a subject or I felt someone was being abused. I have changed dramatically over the past ten years since connecting to Universal Medicine and the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom presented by Serge Benhayon.
‘When I was young I thought love was something that would be given to me by others, and looking back now, I have been on a very long journey searching for love outside of myself.’ Not surprising you felt this way Mariette. Western society and a whole entertainment and media industry is geared to convince us all that this is how it is, Novels, films, music all focus on romantic love and finding that special one. Time to bust this myth once and for all. The song title ‘Love is all you need’ needs to be qualified. True love is universal, not emotional. It starts with ourselves, offered to all equally, not just one person, unit or like family.
Self Love is such a celebration in the body, I go to sleep with this feeling and I wake feeling the deep love I have for myself, which is so different to the empty, missing feeling I carried around for many years. Learning the concept of self love was the game changer and from there realising that love is not just for me but a reflection for everyone to feel they also can connect to the love and joy within.
” It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.” No one in all of my life had mentioned this aspect to me, until I came to Universal Medicine presentations by Serge Benhayon. On realising this it was a ‘duh’ moment. Of course! How can I expect anyone else to love me if I dont love myself?
A lovely blog exposing emotional love and all that goes with it, and then the difference with true love. Building a love for ourselves is fundamental and has so many benefits for all.
It is a revolution isn’t it,… that true love starts with self-love… this will redefine a few songs.
Reading this blog has reminded me of a conversation I was having with some friends about the words we can use when they ask whether someone is single or married. The common reply “She/He is on her own” is often down played as a feeling of emptiness or loneliness and waiting for someone to fill them up by being in a relationship. This blog is a timely reminder that the loving relationship that I have with myself is paramount in the quality I can offer to share with another in each and every moment of the day and that the loneliness that we talk about stems from our disconnection from within that is often projected on another.
I love this comment too Jane Kemp. The love story that has been searched for far and wide in literally right in front of us. The common element here is the willingness to take on the responsibility to stop the search and to get on with the most powerful relationship of all – with me!
Yes I did some very similar things Mariette, drowning myself in music when I felt ‘down’, almost revelling in sinking deeper into the misery I was feeling. Interesting that we don’t look for the things that will uplift us, out of it, but rather sink us further in!
Gosh! We are really thinking that we are searching but in fact we so often just run away and avoid what is already there.
Thank you Mariette, so self-love is saying ‘yes’ to how you feel and not saying ‘yes’ to what does not feel true.
“Love songs are great to drown yourself in sorrow and to highlight the feeling that nobody loves you.”
Great point Mariette, they are called love songs but they are in truth songs intensifying the emptiness and lack of love that we feel in us.
It is beautiful that you can come to a place where you realise you no longer need to search for something that has been within you all along just waiting to be felt and expressed… and that there is nothing wrong with you and nothing missing when you connect to it.
when it comes down to it, most of us are searching for what we think love is, and because true love always starts in the inner heart, for most people, the search is a never ending treadmill. From presenting the simple process of reconnection, Universal Medicine is offering always the opportunity to open the doorway to love, and then to truly start to heal.
Mariette the concept that we are given love by another is spread far and wide in our society, it was one of the more challenging aspects that I was presented with when coming to Universal Medicine, the fact that love is something we are and we re-connect to by our movement, not something we get from our partner. Now I reflection on the simple fact that if I had known this from young the turmoil would not have been there, if we all were taught this society would be completely different.
Yes, Mariette, It shows us how we are used to life in a way that pretend that love is outside of us – whilst it is only within and so also in others. Love is love and , nothing else can give us that but ourselves.. as we one day had chosen to walk away from it. Beautiful fact is: we are love still even though we might have lost our sight of it. So it was by Serge Benhayon this sight was reviewed and people made the choice to come back to themselves, their love, their essence – who they are – a love that has no end.
‘ Love has nothing to do with sympathy, doing good in the world, or being emotional.’ I love this Mariette, learning to live in a truly loving way has been an absolute game changer in my life and supports and inspires others around you as well.
Being love sometimes means not being liked….That is one of the hardest things I’ve had to accept. I too have been someone who has always had people like them. I too have pandered, been polite, put everyone before me, been a pleaser, said yes when I felt no etc. It doesn’t work. It all catches up with you down the track, always.
It does catch up and does not bring any truth whatsoever. Every time I please, I am saying no to love.
‘Love songs are great to drown yourself in sorrow and to highlight the feeling that nobody loves you.’ This is so spot on! How many years did I spend losing myself to emotional music. What a trap that is. None of it is true.
Exactly Elodie, I spent many years doing this too. Understanding what love is, and taking responsibility for our own feelings is something we do not get taught, or learn growing up (usually). Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have been presenting this for the last 15 years and I have not needed to listen to any such music since.
This idea of looking outside for love is something we are sold from early on. No-one ever told me love comes from within until I heard Serge Benhayon say this. I was always in this idea that it would come to me but I never believed it would so I lived guarded- I wasn’t connected to my own love and didn’t express this out I just pushed others away. I have now learnt to have love in your life, you need to know your own love and then be prepared to express this out.
‘Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.’ – beautifully said Mariette. And when I catch myself looking outside for love and approval I can lovingly bring myself back to the gorgeousness of my own holding Love.
It’s such a release when you realize that the love you seek is within you, and has been all along and that your own choice to make truly self loving choices for yourself is the key to then giving that love back to others, and that that is actually enough as it is everything.
Beautifully said Julie – it’s a game changer when we realise there is no game!, Looking outside for another to give us what we have been searching for is an illusion. To realise all those love songs play on the emotions – there is so much to release of ideals and beliefs and yet the answer is simple, self love is the way for real love.
To add to my comment, this is a blog to read again and again Mariette. Life and media can hook us in until we realise the illusion of emotional love. There is a whole new library of songs to be written as well as love stories!
A redefinition that truly breaks with the belief of what love is. ‘It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.’ This completely turns what we know love to be on its head. It’s no longer about finding someone to complete us or to stop us feeling the emptiness that drives us to look. Instead it’s about accepting ourselves fully, making ourselves the focus – very counter-intuitive – so that we can know and live the fact that we are already enough.
Our ability to self-love is the foundation to true love, I love what you have written about this simple, true and powerful Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine teaching. Love starts with me, pure and simple. Thank you Mariette for highlighting this and for the gentle reminder.
“Love starts with me” – It sure does and if we try any other way we are destined to fall flat on our faces. Without first a love for ourselves we are at the whim of anyone and everyone leaving us wide open to an illusion that will never let you know the love you seek is inside.
That love starts with self-love… this certainly doesn’t fit into the mould of all the romantic novels and songs does it! It simply brings it all back to ourselves… Where is the drama in that!
‘Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing. In fact, there is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am. From that place, I can be love and reflect love. I am and will be a forever student of love…’ Love this Mariette, it is such a clear statement of the fact that love begins with each of us loving who we are and living this love in full. Such a confirming blog to read.
Learning to love and appreciate ourselves is for sure the best education anyone can have.
I totally agree – it’s like it opens you up to what’s really possible in the world and in yourself too. You begin to realise you actually have unlimited potential.
Yes, there should be in fact lessons in life as part of education, where relationships is one of them. First the relationship with yourself, then with others. If we learn that from an early age, I feel we would have a lot less divorces, especially divorces where there is a lot of fighting going on.
‘It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love’ -this is profound and once I came to observe it everything about my life started to change in the most beautiful ways it confirmed this as truth. Self Love is the foundation to True Love. Self-love is what it is all about and cannot be separated from the ‘absolute’ love of all. Beautiful article Mariette – thank you for sharing.
Thank you Mariette for breaking down in simple langage what love is and what it is not. With the support of Universal Medicine I have learnt and am still learning that love doesn’t come from our outer actions but from a quality we feel in our bodies. Our actions and situations and ultimately how our bodies respond to them confirm wether what we do, say or think is love our not.
A key point indeed Ariana – I too had the same thought – I’d move to the UK and fall in love. I did – but it started with the relationship I had with myself first, and that does not need a change of country to do. The ability to value ourselves is a measure of how much we are willing to value others and see everyone as equal, and that is the most precious relationship of all – how are we with humanity. Love does not need to be searched for, it simply needs to be reconnected to.
It is as if we have to have a new dictionary to help us reclaim our vocabulary, because not many people would know what the word love truly means.
There are so many words that have been bastardised over time, the word love is just one of them, take the word religion for example, this has been used in so many ways other then the real meaning.
Love equals ‘being nice’, ‘being liked’? I too Mariette, thought this was what love was, even thought at those times when I look back, it did not sit well when in my body when I I chose this. So beautiful to allow a true understanding and knowing of what true love is now.
Self love is the key to love itself. Without it we continually try to unlock other people’s love locks by helping them through the issues and doing more and more, but are we truly helping them? I learnt that the true key to love in this world is to unlock the love we hold with ourselves first that is the foundation for loving all equally so.
Love starts with each and every one of us, first and foremost, self-loving. The quality of our love for another depends on the quality of love we have for ourselves; what a wonderful awareness Mariette. Thank you for shining a light on this vital fact.
“Self-love for me now is saying ‘no’ when my body says no; to really honour myself and the signals my body gives me”.
Very wise and inspirational words.
This is such a great article Mariette really summing up for me the way I have lived, thinking I was loving when all the time I was giving myself away, to be what others needed me to be. “It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.” I had the same and it took some time for me to even consider that I am enough, without the need to do anything. What we have longed for and searched throughout our lives has been living right inside of us, all the time, just waiting to be claimed and lived.
Your former understanding of love, Mariette, was very similar to mine-being nice, polite, not to rock a boat, peace maker, doer, pleaser etc. No wonder we felt empty and drained because of all the energy spent on doing good and pleasing others.
Thank you for sharing the changes and significance of self love which is crucial in relationship with self and others.
Yes, it makes you feel very drained and empty, also because you are never home. Home with yourself, in connection with your body. When you are always busy with the outside world and what others are thinking and doing, than there is hardly time spent with yourself.
‘Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself.’ How much heartache and how many issues in all of our relationships and in the world around us would be avoided if we all knew, accepted and lived the truth of your words Mariette. Beautiful blog thank you.
Yes self love is the answer to any of our ails.
You have summed it up perfectly Mariette, we are all love and its found inside of us and trying to find it elsewhere outside of ourselves always ends up a painfull exercise
This line about drowning our sorrows in songs that confirm that nobody loves us… is a real ‘ouch’ for me. How many times have I done that… only to then go back in to another relationship just to prove what I knew all along – that I was unlovable. So then I would get to play the songs again, in an endless cycle of confirming something that is not true. It was only when I stopped looking for someone to confirm how unlovable I am and started to explore the possibility that I am already the love I seek, that things have started to change.
Thank you Mariette for a great blog, I felt when reading it, I was reading about my own life story. I was so given up on self so as to be there for others, pandering, helping, always saying yes, and of course keeping my opinions to myself so as not to create upset. Thankfully I found Serge and what he teaches about self love, has changed my life, the love I was looking for, has lived within me all along, And today as I make loving choices for myself I can say no when need with a smile and with love.
This is a great blog to read Mariette – the awareness that self-love is the essential first ingredient for all love is major – it’s amazing how seemingly small unloving things i’ve noticed I do all the time, honouring what my body is teaching me about it’s grace and love is unfolding and deepening. Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine presentations have opened up the choice to move in a different way, a way home to love.
Although I immediately accepted the presentations and books by Serge Benhayon as being the truth I had been looking for many years, it took me a long time to live lesson 101……self love, but now that I have it has made all the difference.
I have found that loving and nurturing myself is the way to deepening the love I share with other people.
Yep that lesson took me a long time as well and it is a lesson that has no end as we deepen our self-love every day. And with that our love for everybody. It starts with ourselves though and the way we take care of ourselves. I am so thankful for Universal Medicine for presenting to me that the first step towards self-love is to start taking care of yourself. Heart opener!
How often have I heard..”I just want someone to love” or “I just want someone to love me.” We are the whole package, we are love, we are all love, no need for giving or taking but as you say Mariette we have been brought up to believe that love is a commodity, a thing we have or not depending on our fortune. We trade in love and money and what a mess we make. Thank goodness when we wake up and begin to take responsibility for the love that we are and in that magic cannot help but happen.
So true Elaine. We have been led to believe that love is something we earn but that the goal post can move at any time so that we can never feel at ease and confident that love won’t be taken away at any moment when we do happen to seemingly share moments with others. It leaves an underlying tension that can’t really be eased until we learn to drop all the old ideals and beliefs around love and come back to the basics with self love.
The responsibility you have taken Mariette by loving you first, actually showing the whole of Holland and in fact the world, that Love does start with each and everyone of us, is a gift beyond any kindness served.
Mariette thank you for sharing that the first love is the love you have for yourself. It is so easy to fall for the idea that we need to love others first. When I stop to appreciate all that I am to my family and friends I now know that this would not be possible unless I had made changes to bring more love to me.
‘Self-love for me now is saying ‘no’ when my body says no; to really honour myself and the signals my body gives me’.For me this asks a constant focus otherwise I will slip back and override my feelings, especially when I stop with appreciating myself just for being me, I have noticed old patterns want to come back in. I am learning to observe this without any judgement and just come back to self love and to the gorgeous me.
Thank you Mariette, even though I have read this before, the following lines really stood out for me today ‘I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it. Ouch…’ – this is what I needed to read today as there have been some situations I have been holding back from speaking my truth about, even though I know this is the way to go. This has shown me how easy it is to fall back into an old pattern of not speaking our truth, and it is at the detriment to everyone, ourselves included.
“Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.”- the more I appreciate who I am, and selfcare and self nurture the love within me grows.
This has been life changing for me.
Learning the true meaning of love that just is and is who we all really are is such a gift , is not a doing and something to attain and or be given but is definitely the divinity we all are.Knowing oneself from the inside in connection and relationship with ourselves first as our foundation is the greatest gift we can give ourselves ever. Thank you Marietta this is a joy to read.
For a while I used to think that to be loving was to sacrifice myself and take care of others and to sympathize with them in their misery. It’s very draining and exhausting to live in this way and there’s absolutely no truth in it and people don’t really like being on the receiving end because what you’re really saying to them is that you don’t feel they’re equipped to handle whatever it is they’re experiencing.
It is very draining and exhausting, I can relate to that. For me it was also a way to get a lot of recognition, coming from a need to be needed and wanting to be ‘a good friend’. And what do ‘good friends’ do? They help, support, rescue and are always there, no matter what. I can see now that this has nothing to do with love and like you say, I am actually saying I know better and you cannot handle this so let me, super woman, take care of it.
It is really strange isn’t it that it is common thinking that we have to find or seek love somewhere in order to be complete, when it is with us all the time waiting to be expressed. I can really relate to the flow of letting love in and letting love out as this makes sense. If we don’t feel love within us we cannot express it as simple as that!
As with so many words now, we need to redefine what Love means, and articles like this are essential to unravel the old and redefine the new, so that upcoming generations are inspired to settle for nothing less then the energetic truth of things rather then the fabrication of disconnection inherent in so much of our language that is around now
Like a secret or a big lie that has been hidden from us. We are love always have been, always will be and it is within, we just have to build the relationship with this love, once felt we will know the truth and expose the lie?
It is lovely to read of the awarenesses you have come to regarding love. So many of us spend our lives searching for it so struggle with accepting that no searching is required, just an allowing for it to unfold from within. It is beautiful that all that is truly required is a forever deepening commitment to having a loving relationship with yourself to connect you to everything you have ever been searching for without having to go anywhere.
I agree Samantha, it’s kind of simple- if we are feeling out of sorts we need to look at the lack love and appreciation we are giving ourselves, that way we snap ourselves out of it quicker, returning to the love we all naturally are.
What you are sharing – I can relate to it very well Mariette. I was also running away from myself – I always kept myself busy to avoid what is inside me. Now I start to feel whatever is in my body, it is a journey and an unfolding way back to me which feels awesome.
“Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing. “- so true and absolute! Thank you for sharing the truth about love.
This to me has also been my biggest learning..”I have come to learn and I am still learning – big time – that love is about expressing my truth, regardless of how many boats I will rock. I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it. Ouch…”
Now I am putting it into practice more and more, and I feel more real.
I searched for love in songs, in people, in ideas and in doing things but always found that I was left with an emptiness and restlessness when I was with myself. It is so beautifully empowering when we realise that true love, the love we are within is always with us and can never be broken, never be lost or never leave us. It is only us that chooses to move away from this forever deepening love that we all are within.
Thank you Mariette for sharing this article clearly showing us what love is not. Love has been for me too “…not having arguments or conflicts and keeping the peace, even though a bomb may be lying under the carpet, ready to explode.” This way of living is a lie. Confrontation has been a big one and is something I am still working on but the more I honour myself and speak up when something is not true the easier it is getting. I can still react, I’m not perfect but when I say nothing and withdraw like I used to, I’m still reacting. This blog I can relate to in many ways and it is a blog I will keep re-visiting as it is so confirming what love is and what love is not.
“When I withdraw, I am still reacting”. I love what you share here, as we can think that not saying anything is not a reaction, but it is. And what I notice that with this withdrawal and holding back, that what we want to say stays in our body and gives tension to the body.
Love is not a verb, I remember a friend saying it was a verb in the sense of it was no good just saying I love you, rather you had to show you loved someone through your actions. But of course this is not a true path either, what you have presented here Mariette is that love is about letting your body lead the way, honouring, caring for yourself deeply so and that love for yourself and can be felt by everyone. I also love what you share about it not being to do with being nice, that love can be firm and you aren’t here to save a whole nation! Though I imagine that you living love for yourself impacts 1000’s of people every week, lucky Holland!
Lucky Holland indeed vanessamchardy and It’s great what you share about saying “I love you”. Because I notice that I sometimes say it while I can actually feel that I don’t really have to say it, because the love is there and I don’t have to say nor do anything. I have been reflecting on that, so these moments that I do say it but it does not really sit well with me, and I have discovered that it comes from an insecurity and a feeling of not being enough. So I then say it to actually please, but there is absolutely no need for that.
Putting self love first is the greatest love. I too have travelled overseas looking for love and realised it was literally at my door step. I just needed to knock on the door and let myself in.
Further to my previous comment about love not having any emotion in it. Love is a member of the Soul family together with Truth. So love and truth are two different expressions of the same energy. It is another one of the many bastardisations of the true meaning of Love when people mistake good or nice for love and as a consequence are not truthful. If it is not true it cannot be love and if something does not have love in it it can’t be true!
I love your comment Nicola and I absolutely agree… Truth is love, it is the same thing and you cannot have one without the other. I have lived a lie being nice and polite, the ‘good’ girl but as I deepen my connection with myself and find that truth is everything to me, being the ‘good girl’ feels so not me! There are many moments now where I simply cannot live being the ‘good’ girl especially when I feel something that is not true. It is a great marker for me because when I know something is true and act on it coming from a place of truth I know then I am being love.
The songs you mention should not be called Love Songs as they have nothing to do with Love – we need to invent another word to describe the emotional state that people wrongly call Love. Love does not have any emotion in it. Unimedpedia Love provides some great free audio and quotes on what is true love http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-love.html
There are hardly any true love songs out there, all songs about ‘love’ are about needs, desperation, sadness, expectations, not being able to live without the other, being hurt, being left, being alone, not being able to live any longer or about waiting for that one love to stand in front of our door. No love in those lyrics, I can tell you that. So yes, love does not have any emotion nor reaction in it.
“Love for me has always been a verb, a doing; … ”
Thank you Mariette, for this line … it’s a great reminder of the true nature of love, that it is a ‘beholding light’, not something that one has to create or strive for or earn – I can drop the trying for it here and now.
Yes we can stop the trying and that feels awkward at times as for me this feeling comes up that I have to do something, it can be as small as calling a friend.
There’s so much I can relate to here, especially believing that a relationship defined me and that I was unlovable if I didn’t have a boyfriend – it just shows that searching outside of ourselves just leaves an empty feeling and a lot of disappointment – so not worth it.
I don’t have a partner at the moment and this feels like a great opportunity for me to let go of all the beliefs I carry around ‘the need to have a partner’. I for sure have these beliefs and I am now experiencing how great it is to be on my own. The moment I have thoughts that I need something from outside of myself or that with a partner life is better, more fun or whatever, I know that this is not true. All I want or think that I need is inside me and to live that, I am practicing every day. I have been living in a big illusion when it comes to relationships and love.
Your not alone in the big illusion when it comes to relationships and love. A huge investment has gone into keeping it that way as it sells so many products believing they symbolise love, like flowers, cards and presents of all kinds. When in truth Love is Love and can be felt and reflected to all freely and is not a commodity.
Wonderful blog Mariette. It’s so easy to get caught up in thinking love is about the ‘doing’, which becomes very draining and is unfulfilling. It always comes back to being self loving and honouring of our body first, eventhough those around us may find this difficult at times.
Mariette you have made such a big change in your perspective of how you choose to live. When you said that you are not responsible for all of Holland ,only yourself. This change allows you to live to your truth and not what is good or right or nice. Freeing you to connect to you and not the expectations of others.
i too thought that love was all of those things, needing to do things for another person, needing to ‘lift up the world’ but this was just so draining on me. It made sense for me when I heard Universal Medicine present that self love is the way to have true love and that it is a foundation to have to actually express love with others aswell.
Very draining indeed Harrison and quite intense for the shoulders, if we feel we have to lift up the world. We actually don’t have to lift anything or anybody, but just be the love that we are and reflect this back to the world. It will get an instant ‘lift up’ just by us being ourselves.
‘We don’t have to lift anything or anybody, but just be the love that we are and reflect this back to the world. It will get an instant ‘lift up’ just by us being ourselves’. I like what you are saying Mariette and I can feel the relief in my body when I realize all I have to do is be the love that I am.
Beautiful Toni, it shows that it does not matter what we do for another or what we give. Love is a being, a presence in the moment, it is what I am and it is what you are. With that we don’t need anything from the other. For me it is also about letting go of my father being ‘my father’ but to see him for the beautiful and loving man that he is.
The biggest change-over in my life: from wanting another to love me, to fill my empty feeling, to tell me I am worthy and beautiful to feeling I am love myself and I can share this with others. This morning we wrote for a website along these lines as well: the first and most important relationship we have is with ourselves. This is the foundation for any other relationship.
Marietta here we are in Australia trying to save Australia, thinking we are responsible for everyone else. You have so clearly spelled out all the ways we have been tricked into behaviours of what love is not. There is such a beautiful simplicity in just feeling the love that we are, there is nothing missing.
Australia or Holland, both too much to take on and feel responsible for. Just being responsible for yourself is more than enough, is my experience…
So warm hearted and beautiful your blog Mariette. And familiar, as I know the craving for people to like me very elaborated. I hardly realized having a truth, so quickly did I override it most of the times. In the past, I created the belief, being with people in a loving way, is not possible to me. I did different therapies, for I always thought I have to become someone else. I rarely stopped, to be able to feel, that what I was craving for, is in me and has to be allowed by myself, but not be reached like an examination with a reward from the outside. It is an ongoing process of now allowing me to feel my truth and not overriding it anymore.
Yes, it is an ongoing process of allowing ourselves to feel what is true for us. I also still override it, thinking that what I feel it not true or that somebody else is ‘better’ in feeling what is true. Not true at all…..I feel in every moment what is true for me, yet I don’t always listen to it.
Wauw Mariette, you just cracked the nut. Completely open and honest. The way you share is very supportive and cristal clear. You move mountains as you speak. I can feel that you break all sorts of ideals and believes in the world about love. Also big ideals and believes that I have been using in my life.. Wow. A big one for me also is ‘always wanting to be liked’ – I am starting to deeply feel what being liked actually means and how much ugliness this actually brings under the wings of niceness.. I actually am pretty shocked about it. All those times that I was pretending I was nice, ok with everything and liking everyone – I was actually playing small, save and endorse myself to be less, put people up and just be victim number one. NOT me at all. As I have become more knowing of who I am – I realise that I have played games and that ‘being nice’ was one of them. I liked this what you shared: ”I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it. Ouch…” It is true. Love is also being absolutely clear and fully direct. This allows me to be so much more of myself. Which can be very steady and direct, most of the time.
Great sharing Danna, especially about the playing small and then reflecting this back to others. It just shows how being nice and wanting to be liked does not support anybody. I am learning everyday about love in expression and realizing that being love and expressing this, deepens all my relationships.
I relate to so much of what you share Mariette. I was always searching to be loved by what I did but have found true love in me being love. Gently and tenderly building my self-love has allowed me to know the true meaning of love, to share this with others and to feel it reflected back. The more I am love the more love there is in the world.
You have beautifully expressed so many of the untrue beliefs we have about love. As I read I kept ticking them off, thinking, “yes I know that one too.” It is amazing that everything we learn from the world around us robs us of the knowing that love starts and ends with us, that there is no doing in it at all and no outcome needed. When we return to this knowing even if shakily at times, the way we are with ourselves, our relationships and life completely changes. The emotions can drop away and are replaced with steadiness and an ongoing exploration of the love we are.
I love what you share about the emotions. I used to be very emotional and this has changed completely. I am way more steady and consistent and with that there is a clear and true space to explore every day what love is and to let go of what is not. Great adventure!
Saying yes when all of our body feels saying no but overriding it because this is what everybody reflects as the normal is not very loving! Every decision about love has to be self-loving first.
Thank you Mariette. When humanity understands that love must start with self-love, then we will be well on the way to healing the gaping abyss of hurts that have propelled humanity into the wars and destruction that have obsessed it for millennia … All fueled by that simple lack of self-love. For when we know self-love we will by its very nature, start to reflect the divine presence of who we truly are.
Beautifully expressed Chris, thank you. Especially in times like these when there is so much war, terrorism and destruction going on. This can only happen when there is no self-love, because if there is, we can never attack another person in the way we do now. How can you attack the divine presence that is in you and therefor in all of us?
Beautifully expressed Chris
I love what Mariette has expressed and your response to it
Thank you to both of you
Thanks. After a lot of trying, I think I’m starting to realise that sympathy DOESNT work. I should just stick to being myself it’s way more joyfull.
My relationships have changed as well Ariana, because I am expecting less, letting go of needs and allow myself to just be me, so others can also just be who they are. Very freeing.
It is so beautiful to re-read this Mariette. There is nothing outside of ourselves that can give us, or even come close to giving us the eternal Love that we already are in within. I can relate to what you have shared as I too tried to use the world outside of myself to define me when all that I was ever searching for was already within, eternal Love waiting for me to re-connect. ‘From that place, I can be love and reflect love. I am and will be a forever student of love…’ – beautifully claimed and I whole-heartedly feel the same.
‘Most of my life, I have been on a big quest for people to like me.’ Yep…and what a tiring quest it is! It’s interesting how we play music to further implement our emotional state of being.. Just goes to show how loaded with emotions music actually is.
Hi Mariette, Taking on responsibility for others really resonated with me as I have done this all my life until I developed frozen shoulders, a really painful stop moment asking me to look at how I was living. Developing self love and coming to the realisation I don’t have to save the world has taken me a bit of time since those old behaviours can be very ingrained but it is so worth it!
Hi Judy thank you for writing, as I didn’t realise I was living with the same ideal, but “I don’t have to save the world” – this was such a physically felt relief to read.
But also … how arrogant is it to believe we are here to save the world in the first place.
Thinking you have to save the world is quite an arrogance indeed, especially since nobody is asking us to do this anyway. It implies that we know better or that we have the key.
Mariette beautiful sharing . I looked outside myself for love most of my life, and it took me awhile to realise (through the teachings of Serge Benhayon) that Love is already within. I thought I needed to be everything to everyone without really considering my own needs most of the time. I also love the comment that there is “nothing to miss” how can there be when everything, (Love) is within us.
Oh yes, those needs, I used to be great to pretend that I had no needs at all, always putting other people’s needs first. The reward I got for that was being liked. Being liked however has nothing to do with love, nor does not listening to your own needs.
Great post Mariette with the simple note that love in its truth, is not a VERB (!) How often do we fall for this definition. I certainly have in the past, and today with joy feel instead the full meaning of Love which surrounds and encapsulates to behold. It is so spacious, and have learned that this spaciousness comes from the developing the complete ease within oneself through the ability to self-love and love as we are, and as you share too.
Your affirming line here so spot-on Mariette, I loved reading this: “It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing”. Agreed.
What you said about being nice, pleasing and not rocking the boat with people I can really relate to Mariette. I have equated these things to being liked and loved by people, and yet there are times in my life when people have been very firm with me and I have felt their love.
Yes, love has everything to do with ourselves. I find it quite a journey to take out all the things that are not love, as I have lived so long in the illusion that love was outside of me. It is a beautiful yet sometimes confronting journey, but worth every part of it. I am learning every day about love, and mostly what it is not.
Hello Mariette, this is what I thought love was as well “Love for me was being nice, polite, helpful, being good and being there for others. It meant saying ‘yes’ while I actually felt like saying ‘no’…” It had nothing to do with me and how I felt it was all about ‘getting or doing something’. What a difference it is now and that love has everything to do with me, how I feel about things and as you say, “Love starts with me, and how I self-love” Thank you Mariette and Universal Medicine.
We are so used to getting feedback from others about who we are, and playing to it from niceness and saying yes. This is a great point to reaffirm, that it is an outer trying that does not allow ourselves to simply be and offer space to others to do likewise. Serge Benhayon has brought the ancient wisdom into modern times, how to connect to the true place inside for us to allow that space from a place of openness and harmony.
We are getting feedback constantly about who we are, but most of this feedback and reflection is not who we are, but who we are not. Indeed Simon, thanks to Serge Benhayon we are getting reflected who we truly are and how to connect to that true place inside, knowing that we are all love. There is no need to search, everything is there, it is who we are.
“Love has nothing to do with sympathy, doing good in the world, or being emotional.” when I read this line it completely summed up exactly what love is NOT like however, in society it’s exactly what love is thought to be like. Great blog Mariette
Very true Anna, society is reflecting to us that love is emotional, being nice and doing good. It is reflecting to us that love is not about truth, that we should first take care of others and that we first have to do something, before we are loved. It seems like we have lost our way in what love truly means. I can only say how beautiful it is to have found my way back to what love truly is, thanks to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
Yes, when I used to support people, I came with so much sympathy and feeling all great because somebody needed me. Now when I am there for others or somebody asks me for support, I am with me, more in my stillness and in the moment, so I can truly be there, listen, obsverve, knowing that the other is amazing, just like me.
This is something that I am unfolding with myself, that love starts with self first of all. The love that we so commonly refer to is often imposing and not really love. True love is beholding of a person regardless of where they are at or what is going on for them. Beholding them and seeing them for who they really are, which is equal to you and to me, to everyone. It is only possible to truly feel this when we feel this for ourselves. What I am discovering is that the more I self love and hold myself in this love, I can then feel this same love for others.
I can relate to this “Love has nothing to do with sympathy, doing good in the world, or being emotional”. I found it deeply empowering to really feel this quote as a truth in my life, Choosing to connect love with truth in my life, has changed everything and has made everything I ‘do’ more real, with more impact and less emotion, I still support but it does not come with all my baggage.
What I love about what you shared Mariette is that it always starts with loving yourself and feeling into yourself. I feel at this moment really tired and my body hurts a little and notice how I want to distract myself with anything to feel better (Facebook, emails, WhatsApp… 😉 ). After reading your blog I allowed myself to be with me and to feel how much I love me and suddenly I do not feel the need to distract myself anymore.
I know the distractions Lieke, I know them very well. I use the same ones as you do. At times I let go of a distraction, for instance TV, I don’t have a TV, and I think: great, I don’t watch TV anymore, that is one distraction less, but then I just replace it with something else. If I just feel what there is to feel, and allow myself the time, than I don’t need the distraction.
Mariette, I love everything that you have shared here about true love. I am learning too that love is about saying ‘yes’, yes to that which is felt and true and is there to evolve and deepen the love that is immeasurably possible in life. I’ve found that when I’m not saying yes to this consistently, I’m still saying yes, but to a love that is much less than the love that I am.
Great sharing Cherise, it is about saying yes consistently to love and to deepen this love every day. I notice that not one single day is the same as what felt right and loving yesterday, can change the next day. The importance of consistently feeling into what feels true in the moment and saying yes to that is a lovely playground, which I enjoy every day.
So that actually means Cherise, that we are or choosing love or not love. As it might be called ‘love’ while in fact and in true inner-sense it is not and can be not.
That self love is the start of true love is such a wonderful seeming dichotomy for the world, and yet it is so simple and so true. For without true love , there is no true you.
I agree Chris no love no truth
I love Mariette how you have totally blown apart all the ideals and beliefs around what is love. Through your blog I have been able to go to a much deeper lovel of understanding how I have also ‘loved’ people by feeling responsible for saving them (possibly the whole world there), going into sympathy, and the big daddy of them all – wanting to be liked. Oh how everyone has loved having me around. But of course! I’ve only but kept them in their comforts – it is a journey I am continuing to explore – to not go into sympathy, to not fix, to not just nod and join in but to know I am absolutely enough and to be aware the way to truly love someone is to speak the truth and present opportunities for others to evolve out of their comfort behaviours, begin their own journey of self love and see life as letting each other in and speaking out about a world that mostly just doesn’t support any of above. A truly wonderful and inspiring blog and read. Thank you.
I can relate to the nodding, just not expressing something in the moment, out of fear that somebody might not like you. The want to being liked is such a huge one for me, and letting that go feels so freeing…..my relationships have improved big time. Making the choice to live a life of truth can sometimes be uncomfortable for others to feel and also rocks my own boat, but it is so worth it!
Loving ourselves and expressing what we feel deep inside of us in every moment is the greatest gift we can make. A gift that will not only bring amazing changes to our lives, but one that will be a reflection for others and allow them to come out of the hiding they created to protect themselves and feel inspired to start making different choices in their lives as well.
Expressing what we feel deep inside of us in every moment is the greatest gift, I love that Michael and it is so true. I am expressing what I feel in the moment more and more and this feels so great, freeing and more and more natural. It’s like: Why did I even stop doing this because it is the most natural thing to do. I love coming back to my natural flow of expression….
A great blog, Mariette. So true, this constant looking out and pursuing of ‘love’ has taken us further away and out, and eventually, in a full circle – back to true love, thanks to Universal Medicine.
Back to true love indeed, the love that we are and that we don’t have to get outside of ourselves. I have learned so much about love thanks to Universal Medicine, I am greatful for that every single day.
I can very much relate to what you write Mariette – thinking that pleasing others is what it’s about even though it doesn’t feel true. I’ve come to learn that love is a being rather than a doing and it requires me to be still with myself and then allowing myself to stay in that stillness when I’m with others.
For me it feels that pleasing comes from an insecurity of not being enough. The moment I start to please, I am in a need of something and am expecting something from the other. I want something in return so to speak. For me this has been the need to ‘be liked’ or ‘seen’ by others. The moment I stop pleasing, and like you say, I am with myself, this is the most beautiful place to be and with that, the most beautiful reflection I can give to another.
Absolutely Matts, for me it is also about holding everyone else as equal – an understanding that I feel can go deeper and deeper all the time. For if I hold myself less worthy than another – it’s not love and likewise if I hold one with more love than someone else – it’s equally not love. Love is a beholding of yourself and everyone with equality and the quality can only be as deep as that which you hold and live with yourself.
‘Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.’ Profound wisdom expressed in a single sentence. It has taken me decades to appreciate and begin to live this way. All those expectations I once placed on others have been erased. It’s wonderful.
I have also placed a lot of expectations on other people Kehinde, wanting something, needing something, which can be very subtle at times. It feels very freeing to let go of that and realizing that what I want the other to give me, I can actually give to myself.
Yes, I too am finally learning that love is not something that we can get from another.
In learning to selfcare and self nurture more I have discovered self love- and how beautiful and freeing it is, when you feel the true love that you are- which is within others equally.
It is amazing that we fall for emotional love and all of the ups and downs that come with it when true love, based on a foundation of self-love, is as solid as a rock when we commit to it.
I love this true love “is as solid as a rock when we commit to it.” this is so true. It does not waver.
Yes, great sharing, and what I experience more and more is how great it feels to really commit to it, where I first always thought it was such a heavy thing. Now I realize there is nothing heavy about committing to self-love because I realize I am so worth it!
WE have access to infinite love within ourselves, true – I can feel the potential of this and live each day feeling more love within. I am more content and consistent and I do not feel lonely or insecure as I once did. Self love first and share this with the world, it works.
We are all an equal part of the oceans, however it comes down to our expression, which creates: dull, held back, weak ripples, that pander the boats afloat. OR: big, large, gracious, full waves of truth, of our love….no holding back, in our full expression. Now that’s what I call ‘rocking the boat’.
Thank you Mariette for a deeply exposing, boat rocking article which is just so awesome. This is a session in itself. Exposing all the held ideals of what ‘love is’, but then serving us a plate of refreshing truth to show what ‘love’ and ‘self love’ in truth are. ” I am and will be a forever student of love…”
I love the boat that you describe…no holding back and truly express. What I experience now is that with more expression, the more intimacy there is in my relationships. I am starting to truly love to express all my love.
Everyday I realise more and more how much our relationship with ourself determines everything that happens in our life. What a confirmation of how powerful we are and that we all have the ability to live truly loving lives based on the loving relationship we first build with ourselves.
I can very much relate to that Vicky, my relationships have changes so much over the last weeks even, the more I open up to myself and the more love I have for myself, I take this into all my relationships. Very powerful indeed and the effect is enormous!
Vicky I agree with your words ” we all have the ability to live truly loving lives based on the loving relationship we first build with ourselves.” as this is something I am coming to embrace and explore with myself. I always wanted to fix and sort the relationships around me, or with a partner or friends, and in that I would leave myself. I now know that to build loving relationships and communication with others first has to start with myself. For if I am not love I cannot be love with anyone else, this to some may sound strange, but really if I don’t love and take care of myself then there is no way I can be love with someone else.
Mariette, I love what you have written here – ” there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing”. We are surrounded by a material world of things and events which we are encouraged to use to fill what is missing. Traditionally to be self loving has been about buying nice things for yourself or going to an expensive spa with the “girls”. When I feel the beauty of truly connecting to me the “missing” disappears.
Yes, then the missing disappears. You realize there is nothing outside that is more gorgeous than you are!
Yes and what a wonderful realisation to have, to feel and then to acknowledge this in full.
Mariette what a glorious little read that was. The line that spoke to me the most this morning is that I will forever be a student of love – the celebration that this brings to me and all around. Thank you for reminding me this.
What a joy to read your loved-filled blog Mariette, thank you for sharing. ‘In fact there is nothing to miss’ – it is impossible to miss something you already have, I love the in-built barometer that says something is missing when we have left ourselves, so coming back starts to become more and more instant.
Now when I say yes, it is a true yes that comes from love and so easy to commit to. When I say no and it comes from love, there is no reaction or issue and it actually inspires others.
What really struck me Mariette is the phrase “It meant saying ‘yes’ while I actually felt like saying ‘no’…” as being your idea of an act of love. How disconnected from ourselves can we be as true love appears the be the complete opposite. It is sometimes a long way to go if we come from this, starting to appreciate ourselves and re-learn to say no if we want to say no and to say yes if we feel we want to say yes, but is way worthwhile to have a go.
Beautiful to read first thing in the morning. It is so powerful to discover and feel that we are love.
Thank you Marietta, this is a very insightful blog. I too learned that love came from inside me… eventually. Until I did, love was a rollercoaster of emotional experiences, some times l’d call good and other times not so. Now love is something steady, constant, within me and not at all dependant on anyone else… which is a VERY cool way to live.
Yes, I know those emotional rollercoasters, I really loved them and had one almost every day. It’s like an addiction…Love is indeed steady and does not need big ups and downs, actually, love does not need anything. It is there, Always.
Jenny, I love your comment, I agree, so true and a VERY cool way to live indeed.
Great Comment Jenny and so entangling when we know that love is within us and not dependant on anyone else. Very cool and healing.
Mariette this really highlighted so much for me . ” I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it.” I have always been seen as nice and always so good, which now hearing those words it really feels quite yucky and so fake in my body. I am much more than that and sometimes I don’t expresses what I feel to express for fear of not being “nice.” But the tides are turning and little by little I am trusting my own expression and releasing the divine ocean within.
Yes, little by little letting go and indeed trusting that what needs to be expressed, needs to come out. I can still go in my mind, measuring if what I want to say will be ok. It is great to feel though that this measuring is getting less and how freeing this feels. Step by step.
Ha ha Mariette, I just did that writing a comment – the going into my mind and measuring what I have to say, and yes for me too, each day the measuring is getting less. This is amazing and a miracle within itself. Re-learning to not hold back our expression and all that is there to share, for in truth it is not about us but everyone else equally, as well.
I love your comment Gyl, so funny. With writing I can have the same, going into my mind, can I write this, first check what others have been writing etc. I am thinking of the other, the reader in this example, instead of letting my expression and what needs to be said come out freely, without any holding back. Beautiful journey and every day, It is a big learning.
“Love was a synonym for doing and about what you give. Love for me was being nice, polite, helpful, being good and being there for others. It meant saying ‘yes’ while I actually felt like saying ‘no’… ”
What a total contrast to –
“I have come to learn and I am still learning – big time – that love is about expressing my truth, regardless of how many boats I will rock.”
There is so much more honesty and needlessness with the second option – great to define this as love. The manipulation for self gain is palpable in the first scenario, and yet that is what gets referred to as ‘loving behaviour’. Crazy when we stop to look at it so clearly.
Great blog Mariette, that shines a light on how the old feeling of ‘something missing’ can only be there when we are not fully with ourselves – because when we are, there is nothing needed. Great highlighting.
The feeling of missing can pass by but instead of choosing to stay with it and thinking that I am actually missing something, it is a simple and beautiful feeling that in that moment I can make the choice to come back to me and to realize that I carry everything in me, and that there is absolutely nothing outside that I need. Nothing to gain, nothing to do, nothing to need.
This is such a beautiful blog Mariette. I grew up on a steady diet of self help television talk shows and although the guests and hosts often spouted that self love was the key I was never able to work out how to live this love for myself. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have given me a lived example of how to love myself and I have finally begun to understand what self love is and begin a relationship with me.
So true Leonne, it is used very casually in books, tv shows and therapies. It’s all about self-love and that we have to love ourselves. Well, easier said/written then done is my experience. You don’t just read a book and then wake up one morning and love yourself. I have learned through Universal Medicine that it starts with taking care of yourself. Step by step. It has been and still is a whole journey for me and now I am experiencing what it actually means to love myself.
We have so been sold the ‘dud’ version of love…the one as you say is all caught up in the doing. Its in movies, songs, charities and the list goes on…
It was a revelation to understand that love starts with me first…my own self love, and then naturally I will want to share this with others, but not at my expense. After all we can only share the love with another that we have cultivated for ourselves first.
Your beautifull sharing about love shows how I feel for all of us and how we keep ourselves small to fit in.
Like you shared, regardless how many boats we rock, we just have to become ourselves again and if that brings up discomfort in other people then that is fine. They get a true reflection in which they can also make different choices to be themselves again. As we come from love, love takes care of all.
I love this blog Mariette, so honest. I can see a lot of myself in your writing with the wanting to be liked, not being able to say no and not really expressing myself at the risk of rustling someones feelings. It’s a very liberating breaking free of all that.
Mariette your expression of love and self- love is so beautiful. And how you shared your experiences of ‘not’ love also reflected how I too looked for love on the outside. It is a joyful moment when you realise that there is nowhere to go’, nothing to ‘do’, and no one you ‘need’ to be to enjoy the true love that resides within. Thank you for inviting me to appreciate this beautiful relationship with my love within that continues to unfold and deepen.
Yes, it is beautiful how it unfolds every day, the relationship with oneself and the love that we are. No need to push, to do or to get something or somewhere, but more of an allowing yourself to be and to realize that everything is already there.
‘In fact, there is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am.’ This is a beautiful statement Mariette. Having such markers that show you when you have left yourself are so great, and then knowing what to do about it to get back to yourself, what a wonderful awareness, with no judgment, just a simple observation. Thanks for an honest sharing.
Great blog Mariette. I love your clear simplicity on the love topic. I too have been fooled that true love in relationships is about the other filling me up. A big illusion, the downside of it you discover when you partner takes a distance or leaves and you are left with emptiness they were filling.
And your final sentence ‘I am a student of love’ fills me with joy! I am too! A student just starting on a road he has forgotten.
Yes, I love being a student. It means that I learn every day, that I make mistakes, that I sometimes don’t know and that if something doesn’t work, I can just make another choice and see how that works. It keeps life light, simple and joyful.
Yes Mariette – great blog and today what stood out for me was your statement: ‘ “Over the last three years I have become aware that self-love has to do with me being all of me, no matter what. I have come to learn and I am still learning – big time – that love is about expressing my truth, regardless of how many boats I will rock. I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it.” – It is work in progress, to learn to accept that this may be so, and also to be discerning for me that I am truly in the love that I am, when I express; and when I can ascertain that this is so, then rocking a boat or two is quite alright.
So great Mariette! This is a great reminder of all the things that love is not – and presents the very simplicity of what being self-loving is. All we need to do is be us, in our fullness and not hold back from that. This then allows us to be loving in our interactions, and relationships naturally flow on from there. If only I had known this sooner!
HI Mariette, I can relate to so much of this article. When I was little I can remember I knew exactly what love was. As my mum recalls , I loved everyone. It felt warm, open, completely needless, harmless and there was nothing to do. It was just there with me. Then the reinterpretations of love began, that love is about doing and sacrificing but also that it belongs to particular people. It feels so lovely to be returning to the true love I knew as a child.
Yes, I have fallen for that one as well, and still fall for it….Love is only for particular people. That is a big one for me, and such an illusion. For instance, I had this belief that love is for my partner and not for other men. I thought that I could not feel love for other men as this was like cheating and If I show that love and all of me, then maybe they think I want something from them. Now I am learning that it is ok to feel that love for everybody, regardless of gender, how much time I know somebody, age or whatever other excuse I use to hold back my love.
Mariette, I laughed out loud as I read your blog. Everything you said about yourself applied equally to me, right down to thinking it was my responsibility to save everyone. Thanks to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I am not doing that any more. Like you I have been learning that love is within me and so it is a journey now of learning to express that love as well as learning to receive it.
Letting go of the feeling responsible for everybody, or in my case, the whole of Holland, takes away so much pressure. To know that if somebody is in trouble or feels pain or whatever is going on, that I don’t have to fix it, solve the problem or do something straight away (or even after a week). Me just being me, being present and truly listening, is the biggest gift you can give the other. Being responsible for myself, well, that is a full time job.
Love equals ‘being nice’, ‘being liked’? This is such big ideal that we are surrounded by as we grow up. It is almost forced on to you that this is what it is. And have come to learn that this has nothing to do with love. Yesterday I was in a conversation with a friend of mine. Her daughter of four loves talking to people she meets. And this one day she was in a local supermarket with her grandmother and looked up to man and said to him. Why are you so fat? it is not healthy for you? And as her grandmother went into a feeling of shame about what the little girl just expressed and was already excusing her granddaughter for being impolite, the man look at the little girl, smiled and said. You are right, thank you. A few days later the mother of the little girl noticed that the man was now riding around on his bike instead of driving the car or being on the bus. (he chose to excercise) This little girl expressed true love, which can be life changing for people.
I love what you share Diana and it also made me laugh because I can just imagine the grandmother and the shame she felt, I can relate to that. Yet what that little girl expressed came from so much love and this is what this man felt. If we all learn again to express from that love, then we can actually support each other in living a more truthful life and being all that we are. Great sharing, thank you.
Oh that’s adorable…you have reminded me of how much I love the honesty of children. They just say it as it is which is beautiful…you know where you stand, no politics, just feeling and expressing. What a gift this man received and then the gift that her Grandmother received by witnessing the changes the man then made. Now in my books, that is true love!
This is beautiful Mariette. I love how you remind us that love is not a doing…it is something that we already are. I relate to the niceness and people pleasing which admittedly always felt so wrong! To be letting that go feels so freeing, I feel I can just be real and be myself…the love that I am.
I can relate so much to what you have written here Mariette. In my search for looking for love (outside of myself) I have twisted myself and contorted myself to fit whatever was needed of me from whomever I was with. Having now established a solid, loving relationship with myself I find that I rarely do that these days… But when I do still engage with this behaviour, something feels off immediately. There is an underlying feeling that I am actually cheating on myself! This gives me the opportunity to stop and feel into what is going on, why I needed that in the first place.. and then reconnect to the love that I am.
It does feel like cheating on yourself, great point. It feels like cheating because we leave ourselves in order to fit in. The moment we adjust or try to fit in, we in fact turn ourselves down. The beautiful thing is that if we don’t do that anymore, we empower others to do the same and wow, all of our relationships would be so much more honest, fun and powerful.
Me too Mariette… ditto to everything.
Beautifully said Mariette I can relate very much to what you have written here. I know that self care is the way but I am still finding in certain situations I ignore what my body is telling me and give in to the old patterns of what I ‘should’ do.
In these situations I just need to accept this is a big change for me and it will take some time to change my ways.
Yes, I also still ignore signs of my body and then I just remind myself that I am a student and that i am learning everyday. Each moment I get the opportunity to learn and to deepen my own self-care. The more I self-care, the more my body is really loud and clear when things are not that supporting, like it is telling me: heh, you know better, what are you choosing here? Isn’t it amazing, how intelligent our bodies are?
Thank you for the great blog, Mariette, – haven’t we all been in the “doing” in search for love. I can relate to a lot of what you write. What’s awesome in the fact that we are indeed pure love and that it is inside of us, is that we can take responsibility ourselves instead of being a victim of outside circumstances. There’s so much freedom in that.
This is a wonderful reminder for me: “could it be that love has nothing to do with doing, helping or giving something, but that it all lies in my being and how I self-love…?”
I have had similar ideas of love as you had such as saying yes when you wanted to say no, not expressing your truth so as not to rock the boat and needing to be liked. I too am inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon that teaches that we are love at our essence and can return to it at any time. Therefore life is an amazing opportunity each day to reconnect to our love and that has enriched my life.
Mariette I so understand what you mean by “nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing’. I spent a lot of time “thinking” I would get this from others. Your blog is a great wake up call for many to read and appreciate. Thank you.
Mariette, thanks for your honesty. I’m my own student at the moment also…as we all are. Most of my life I have held on to a belief that no one can complete me, that I am in fact a whole person and you will never hear me say to a man or woman ‘ you are my other half’.
When my relationship ended over a year ago, it only took a week before I realised how empty I was without my partner. I could barely function without knowing he would be around. I was always independent, so I thought, and we never needed to be in eacho thers pockets so to speak. But what was really exposing was just how much I relied on him for my day to day dose of happiness. I had completely handed myself over to him giving up all responsibility for myself.
Now, I’m slowly working back to being a whole person again, without putting so much pressure on the idea that I am a whole person, because before it was just an idea … something I thought I had to be in reaction to my idea of what happens in relationships. But nowadays it’s more about allowing myself to be whole rather than just pretending with a big fat layer of protection.
Super honest share here Elodie and I can so easily relate to when I was in a past relationship of relying on my partner; ‘for my day to day dose of happiness and I had also completley handed myself over to him giving up all responsibility for myself’. Now, I can see why I did this, I was so lost and empty inside and I held a belief that I had to look outside of myself for happiness. Now I know different, now I know that I am enough and that everything I need is within me.
After reading your comments I just read this short article on internet about a research they have done after break ups. They say that ending a relationship, this affects a part in the brain which is the same part that has to do with a drug addiction. So there is a similarity between getting over your partner and getting over cocaïne. What is going on here, I replied to that article. Could this mean that this shows that we are lacking a relationship with ourselves and that we are in need of the other? What is the true basis of our relationships?
What a beautiful sharing Elodie, thank you. The beauty of being alone again for a while, is that we get to understand and experience these things and that we can bring more truth into our lifes. A lot of relationships are based on needs and wanting something from the other to make us feel complete. It’s like a deal we make, you give me this, then I give you that. But in the end, there is nothing to give or need, because it is all a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves. And yes, step by step, we can work on being that beautiful, complete and gorgeous whole person again, which we have Always been, but just have not made contact with..
Mariette, thank you for sharing this very thought provoking blog. Isn’t it weird that at times the hardest person to love and be with and do loving things for is yourself! I can feel myself avoiding being with me at times -I put myself last in line. It has been wonderful to feel the love in my relationship with my husband deepening further than what I thought possible. There is very little emotion there just a deeper way of being with each other. This has come about as we deepen our loving connection to ourselves. I notice that when things are not going so well it is usually when one of us has lost the loving connection to self and we are looking to the other for something to fill the gap. It is so obvious when this is happening now and most of the time we are able to gently pull each other up.
Oh, how I lived off and for the emotional kind of love believing that be it and constantly prayed for my Knight in Shinning Amour to come rescue me and make me & my world complete. WoW! I am so thank-full to be out of that trap and off that Merry-go-round… for ever. True love only comes from within, the relationship we truthfully have with ourselves. The self care & self nurturing for our selves and our bodies and the honouring all that we feel within ourselves and our bodies. Then this reflects and becomes a beautiful reflection for all to know that they too can experience the same as they too are love.
This is such a great article to re-read Mariette, ‘could it be that there is nowhere to go and nothing to search for, but that love is inside me and has been for all of my life’. I spent many years searching for myself and for love and never found either as I always expected love to come from another who would bring love to me, I also went searching to ‘find myself’ travelling the world. It was through the presentations of Universal Medicine that I come to feel that love is inside me and that I can simply re-connect to it anytime I choose, how very simple and very beautiful!
Thank you Mariette, I love what you share. Due to the inspiring support from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine i have been dating one of the hottest babes out – ME! My relationship is deep, tender, funny, touching, exquisite and inspiring. I am constantly blown away by myself and know that this will forever expand and I will just get hotter! LOL
Love is ‘about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.’ When I feel this in my body there is no denying that I am love.
Powerful little comment Madeline – love it!
“Knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing” is such a powerful and game-changing knowing. It is true responsibility and at times tough to accept but it is true self-love.
It is a game changer Jonathan…and a very empowering way to be and live knowing that all that one needs is within each one of us…that all the love is and has been right under our noses. To be puppeted by outside circumstances that dictate how much love we receive, and thus how we feel about ourselves, is painful. Filling ones own cup and sharing that cup is so much more joyful.
They are worlds apart, emotional love and self love; like two streams running parrelle that give you two completely different results: the emotional, needy, insecure false love in comparsion to self love, taking care of yourself and putting your needs first means you do not need to look to others to complete or fill anything within one self because you are doing that for yourself. Most of my life I was choosing emotional love with all the drama and disregard that comes with. Today I am choosing self love which continues to deepen every day with my practice of appreciating myself for all the amazing choices I have made to coming to realise or feel rather how amazing I actually am; all thanks to the support of Universal Medicine and the true reflection of love that Serge Benhayon is. Great blog Mariette.
And isn’t it fascinating that we only learn about the emotional love…what we get reflected is that we need somebody, that there is such a thing as a ‘big love’, that if you are single, you are a sad person, that all love songs are about feeling hurt, feeling left or alone or the other side, that everything is beyond the moon, because we finally are IN love. Fairy tales tell us that we will meet this guy on a white horse and everything will be great and we will live together forever and from a young age, we grow up that we need others to feel loved, accepted and recognised. I just read this article in the newspaper saying that more and more young people are taking drugs because they don’t feel loved and the xtc gives them a sense of connection. The lack of self-love is huge in today’s world.
Very true Mariette, the lack of self-love in today’s society is huge and causing so many problems.
Thank you Mariette. I recognise so much of what you describe. I too had a false impression of what love was meant to be and, for most of my life, gave to others at the expense of myself believing that nice and being good was it. Learning to look within first, put my own house in order and love myself changed me and the way I live my life. It made me the centre of my life. I found the more I loved myself, the more I had to give others and without expectations.
I am also experiencing that the more I take care of myself and the more I am building a relationship with myself, the more I can be there for others without the need to fix or do something, and yes indeed, having less expectations. This puts less pressure on relationships as the two of us can just be without the need to give something to the other.
Love absolutely does start with our relationship with ourself Mariette, and it is for me a daily practice to find some loving still moments to check back in and reconnect. I really enjoyed reading your gorgeous blog.
It is for me a daily practice as well, stopping now and then to see where I am, what kind of thoughts I have, how my breath is, and just to feel how my body is feeling. The toilet is a great moment to do this as I am sitting anyways with myself ( :
What a beautiful read Mariette, thank you for sharing. Imagine if this be taught to us all at a very young age …… “Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing. In fact, there is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am. From that place, I can be love and reflect love. I am and will be a forever student of love…” what an amazing and beautiful foundation that would be to live from.
Kirsten it is transformational when we fully understand that True Love is about our relationship with ourselves and not anything outside ourselves.
Hi Mariette, I can relate very much to what you have written here. I am also learning that: “… love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like it.” I am currently experiencing that even though people might react or not like what I say, it does not change me and my loveliness inside that is there always and has been from day one.
Hi Mariette – so beautiful to read your blog again – it always brings me back to me and to the true values of life. I can so relate to how you were – wanting to be liked and afraid to speak your truth. It is amazing to feel the unfolding as we change and realise that we do have true value in the world – and that the world actually welcomes us with arms open wide when we are truly ourselves. There maybe some who are uncomfortable with our truth, but I have found that as I am able to express more of my truth I do not need their approval anymore – just the amazing feeling inside to honouring myself.
Great point you share about approval and the need for that. Once we can let go of that and also about what others think of us, we can allow ourselves to just be who we are without measuring up to everybody around us.
Love this blog. Wouldn’t it be great if it became essential reading for kids in school. Life would be so much simpler.
Such a beautiful exploration of what we think is love, exposing that true love begins with us and how we love, listen to and treat ourselves. Through this self-love only then is it possible to present true love to another – thank you for your sharing.
Mariette, it’s like you’ve just described my whole life in your blog (apart from the bit about Holland!) I too am realising that love is inside of me instead of needing something from the outside world to confirm that I am worth it – in this I feel that I am able to give far more than ever before because I allow it for myself first. Thank you for sharing
The search to find true love, love of self took me to many dark and sad places, different countries, and to the bottom of many bottles – that search exhausted my body and made me a puppet for everyone else. Universal Medicine and the teachings by Serge Benhayon have supported me to truly find I am worth loving.
Your comment Lee reminded me of when I left Australia to travel overseas, working & holidaying in different countries thinking that I would find love elsewhere…thinking I had to look for it, that it was about a different location. That the man of my dreams was ‘out there’. I was quick to discover that no matter what country I lived in all of my baggage followed me…different people and backdrop, but same story. The ‘love of my life’ was with me all along…I just hadn’t discovered that yet.
Mariette you are not only the queen of Holland your are the queen of the whole world. It is so wunderbar how you wrote about love and its meaning. It is mind blowing what you describe: “Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing”. We need to learn this in the kindergarten and at school – imagine how the world should be then!
Thank you Ester and yes, we should teach this in kindergarten, how great would that be. A lesson in love and self-love as part of our education in school, that would be indeed ‘wunderbar’!
Great article Mariette, This is exactly how I had been living from expectations, needs, always
keeping the peace, never daring to say no or express the truth. Anything to not feel the truth.
But as you say now I am learning to honour myself and the signals my body gives me.
Thank you Mariette for your writing, your blog really highlights the importance of self love and that you can’t look for love from outside of yourself. Great reading
It never occurred to me either Marietta ‘that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.’ It’s amazing knowing it is and makes my part in being / feeling that love all down to me. It can be challenging at times, especially when I don’t choose it or don’t want to take responsibility for what I’ve chosen, but it’s a wondrous journey exploring it and one I feel blessed to be on.
Thank you Marietta for this beautiful blog.
I always avoided to look at the fact that I did not love myself at all and tried to mask it by being always caring for others and easing their lives. It was a game in which I hoped to gain the feeling of being “loved” in return – so that I did not have to feel the emptiness and loneliness inside.
I now have grasped that true love can only start with loving myself how I am and appreciating me in each and every moment. Sometimes this is easy, sometimes not – but the changes this brings are so huge and beautiful.
We all want to be loved and therefor we think that we have to do something in order to get this love. I also loved to take care of others, always being there and being the good friend. It gives you a lot of recognition and it is seen as normal that no matter what, you should always be there for others. It feels great to break that pattern and like you share Michael, that it comes from an emptiness inside.
It’s great that you share that Love starts with loving ourselves first and that in turn opens us and makes relationships with people a lot easier. And indeed the feeling of having to save everyone fades away after starting to self-love; it is everyone’s own responsibility to live their true self.
Great point, it is everybody their own responsibility to live your true self, we don’t have to do anything for that, only be the reflection.
You share so succinctly what true love is and isn’t. We get so caught in the doing, giving, pleasing and looking for love outside of ourselves, that it is easy to forget love starts with self-care and connection to self first.
Ah those Abba songs Mariette; they were certainly the way “ to drown yourself in sorrow and to highlight the feeling that nobody loves you” ; such a distorted view of what I now know love to truly be. To discover that I had been looking for love outside me for most of my life, whereas all the time it was waiting within, was utterly and completely life changing. From that moment I decided that I was going to take the time to develop a loving relationship with myself (however long that took), and to discover what self love and love really meant. It has been a most amazing inner journey of self-discovery and one that has flowed on to all the other relationships in my life, after all; how can you truly love another if you do not love yourself first?
Yes, to love another, it starts with loving oneself first. Now that Valentine’s day is almost there, it is truly fascinating how this day is reflecting to us that love has nothing to do with loving yourself first, but only with romance, hearts, making yourself pretty for the other, buying presents and sharing time together on this ‘special day’. There is absolute no truth in there and makes us believe that we need the other to be loved.
Love what you share, “live inside out not out side in” and start with a true foundation of self love.
Dear Mariette, many of your words echo my own experiences and I thank-you for articulating it all so beautifully. Understanding the true meaning of love is truly a revelation and one worthy of sharing with others.
Thank you Mariette. ‘It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love’, this also used to be a ‘concept’ to me that I had never considered but it really works and I am still continuously impressed how very simple and absolutely affective it is to deeply care for yourself and with that for others.
Yes, for me it has been a concept as well, for quite some time. When people would say or when I read about it in books that ‘it is important to love yourself, you have to love yourself first’ I would just look at that them or close the book and think ok, that sounds great, but how??. It is not a button you push one morning. I have come to learn through Universal Medicine that I had to start with taking care of myself. By introducing self-care and appreciation for myself and realizing that pleasing and doing has nothing to do with love, I slowly and gradually experienced for myself what it means to love yourself, And I am still learning every day, falling in love with myself more and more.
Thank you Mariette. You reminded me how I have lived so much of my life believing love was a verb and not a state of being. I remember telling my first boyfriend that love was about ‘doing’ and I will never forget the horrified look on his face! He was on to it and if I’m honest with myself I could feel it was not true when I said it. Thank you for the lovely reminder about what love really is.
Mariette, wow, i feel like the words you have written here, marry up with how i have felt throughout my life. To begin to feel and start to make choices that were self loving was a huge struggle initially, as i’d been so conditioned to say yes, negate myself, people please and the like. However, to start to feel that love is within and so not about the ‘doing’, really was the time my life began to turn around…….slowly like turning a huge big cruise ship, but it began to shift. To not have such ingrained expectations of others, to not look outside myself for love and to fill me up. Thank you for this amazing reminder to always come back to me first in every moment and live from there.
I can so relate to the expectations Raegan, I was a walking expectation. Especially from partners/boyfriends (even one night stands…) I expected a lot. I was so needy for love and wanted to be that special one for them. I have had quite a few men breaking up with me or not wanting to start dating at all, because my needs and expectations were too strong, What I wanted from them, was not something they could ever give me.
‘I am enough and I am love.. ‘ Thank you for your expression here Mariette, I have been touched and inspired by how you came to understand that if we miss something and look outside of ourselves, we are actually missing that very thing inside of ourselves. This is a great reminder for me and one that is relevant for me right now.
It is a great reminder and I am reminding myself every day. The moment I go out and want something from outside or the other day, I felt a missing, I know that I can make that choice to come back to me.
Dear Mariette, I love how you make reference to drowning yourself in emotional songs. In my teens, I hooked into Tina Turner “what’s love got to do with it” I was so miserable in my surroundings that I blamed love, instead of looking at the choices I was making that produced the life I was living. I blamed everyone and everything for not being love but the whole time didn’t turn the mirror on myself, I was not being love either. Today I make loving choices and that quality is reflected back at me. Now I sing “love has everything to do with it”
I still find it very fascinating Caroline, how emotional most songs are and how we use music that only support the emotions and in fact make our emotions even stronger. Most music does not support us in who we truly are and only dwells on drama, broken hearts, missed loved ones and how we can not live without the other. The way love is being presented in music is not a true form of love, but an emotional, romantic and needy form of love. Thank you for Glorious Music and Chris James, for me the only true kind of music that allows me to be me, in all my love and glory.
Great expression Caroline, I especially love your last sentence :- “love has everything to do with it” – I will sing it too , thank you.
Mariette, I loved your blog for it’s clarity and honesty. It is such a true reflection of how I have lived my life. I have known that devastating loneliness and emptiness, and how ‘doing’ and ‘being nice’ for others does nothing but send you into a downward spiral. What a wonderful saviour the presentations by Serge Benhayon have been in showing there is another truer way to live by honouring what we are feeling within our body, rather than allowing the mind to take over.
It’s a work in progress for me, and I appreciate having found that ‘other’ way.
Yes, it is very much a work in progress for me as well, and the beautiful thing is, that because I am aware of the fact that I can easily take this pleaser role on me, I just know when I step into that role. Because I know this, I can stop and just see what is going on. What I have also learned, that in my pleasing, is a need/a desire to give other people a sense of belonging, a ‘good feeling about themselves’. I am not the one to give this to people though, as we all carry this in ourselves. What can I say, I am learning everyday!
Thank you so much for writing this beautifully honest account of how you came back to self. I was like you in that I was always trying to please people and wanting to be liked( still am a bit not completely over it) at the expense of my true expression. I also struggle at times with the livingness of me being enough, but thats ok as I am always learning and reading your blog Mariette was lovely and confirming.
‘Love for me, in a relationship, came with quite a lot of expectations. I thought I needed the other person to complete me, as I believed something was missing inside me and I needed a partner to feel better about myself. For a while I was ‘an easy catch’; anything, so long as I wasn’t alone. I was very needy and quite a handful for my partners back then. I had a wild time where I mixed up love and having sex, thinking that the two would go hand in hand.’
I think you have captured my expectations about love really well in this whole blog. Especially the lines above. Every time I read this I realise a bit more about how i search for love elsewhere but myself, and how I compromise myself for it as well… It is very different to bringing love back to you first and letting it come from there and not what others can give you.
Such a simple message but so powerful for the foundation of true relationships. Thank you Mariette for your openness and honesty it is so lovely to feel.
Mariette, this was beautiful to read — you have broken down so simply all these false ideas we can have about where and how to find love — in the doing. Instead of realising that true love can only come from within, and that when we start caring and cherishing ourselves we connect to our love and we realise we are from love and made from love — that is has nothing to do with doing, and everything to do with being.
I too have searched for love outside of myself and wanted to save the whole world from a young age. Coming to understand that the search was a red herring and that i have all that i need within me was a hard pill to swallow when so much investment had been made in externalising love and life meaning. For me it is a slow and ever unfolding evolution back to who i truly am and the love that i now have felt inside. Because I have felt this love and also felt the changes in my life that come from being connected to this, i have made it my daily committment to deepen this connection through simple choices with no investment in perfection.
I love what you share Megan, with no investment in perfection. Oh that perfection can sneak in is my experience. It’s great to be aware of that and to keep in mind that I am a student of life, forever learning, every day, in every moment.
Thank you Mariette for your beautiful blog and especially the words ‘Love starts with me and how I self love’. These words say it all, and will be with me as a constant reminder in awareness of all that I do!
Yes, that is a great reminder, and then with every moment I feel that I need something outside of myself, whether is is love, recognition, acceptance or a compliment, I can make the choice to go back to me, my own love, my love for myself and the knowing that everything is inside me.
I too fell into the trap of what you thought love was all about- The doing things and giving all of me. It was great to hear your story about it all, and especially your conclusion about it.
Mariette, I enjoyed your blog re reading it this time I feel you are such an inspiration in many ways, but your open sharing about your journey is absolutely one way you inspire others. Your honesty about yourself and willingness to let go of what is not true for you is amazing. I am also on this journey of love and will shine, just like you, every where I go.
‘Love was a synonym for doing and about what you give. Love for me was being nice, polite, helpful, being good and being there for others. It meant saying ‘yes’ while I actually felt like saying ‘no’’ – I can so relate to these feelings Mariette, I would run myself into the ground trying to please, and never realising that I was not pleasing anyone. I was on a desperate search for love without any understanding of what true love maybe.
Now I live a life that is based on the understanding that the love that I show myself in every little detail of how I live my life and treat myself with respect means that I can also be this way with others – what a joy it is to be able to share this livingness with others.
Great sharing Susan, It is a great joy to share this with others and for me, It has been such a great learning and shift to realize that with that pleasing, there was this huge feeling of responsiblity for everybody. Now I can so much better observe and let go, knowing that I am not responsible for other people or their choices. And true, in the end you don’t please anyone and pleasing does not support anyone in their evolving, learning and growing.
‘There is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am’
I love this reminder. Thank you!
Yes, it is a great reminder, also for me now reading your comment Laura. That feeling of missing something, I have had that for such a long time, day in day out, wanting to avoid it by doing things and looking for fulfillment outside of myself. My daily glass of wine that I used to drink was a great way to numb that feeling. I actually thought that having a child would take away that feeling. It is such a beautiful knowing now that when it is there, that feeling of missing, a sadness at times, I know who to turn me….ME!
I so enjoyed reading your blog Mariette – For so many years I put others first and its taken a long gentle process to break away from old habits that have been so engrained. Instead choosing self love and all that comes from that. Amazing. thank you
Yes it is amazing and most of all, what I have noticed big time, is that if you always choose other first, how draining this is. I was always so anxious and tired because I was always busy with others. Not only in my doing and helping, but also in my mind, with my thoughts. I have so much more energy now, that I am with myself, knowing that everybody can perfectly take care of themselves and that I don’t have to carry the entire world on my shoulder, starting with Holland…
As I read your blog Mariette I realised how tiring all that searching for love from the outside was, for I too spent most of my life thinking that was where it would come from. I looked to other people, or my achievements to fill the emptiness inside but it just doesn’t work. It’s easy to see now how that very search for something more or different leaves no space to find and connect to the love that is naturally within. It’s also easy to see that everything around us, the love songs, the movies, the media, sells us a story that love does come from the outside, from another person. It’s only since coming to Universal Medicine that I’ve discovered the deep well of love within me, a love that is ever expanding and feel truly beautiful and amazing. From this place it is simple to make self-loving choices.
Most of the movies that are being made, are about this romantic love, so called true love, and we are forever happy with each other, But we never see what goes on with the couple after the movie ends….same with the so called love songs. Most songs are about how lonely the singer feels, left behind, desperate and they can’t seem to live without another person. “I can’t live, if living is without you’, is quite a famous lyric from a love song. It just shows that we don’t know how to have a relationship with ourselves first, that we ourselves are our true love.
That’s a great point Michelle…looking for love outside of ourselves is so exhausting. Its a non-stop merry-go-round that is joy-less.
Truly taking on board the fact that no one is ‘more’ than or ‘less’ than anyone else, sure takes the pressure off, and bingo I get to feel more of me in doing so – win win.
Yes bingo, that is a great point. I have for sure put quite some people very high on the ladder of being more than me, looking up to them and making myself small. If I do that, then I also make people less than me. I have not been working on those people, wanting to change them, but I have worked on my own self-worth and self-love. The effect is huge and I can still fall for the being more or less, but more and more I can feel the equalness an it feels amazing. Yes, with that I can feel more of me and that is just a wonderful feeling.
I have been through exactly the same! For me the hardest part was to accept that I am “enough” and perfect the way I am. Perfect in my imperfection. That there’s nothing I have to do or be. Not in relationships, not in business and not with myself. I could always tell this to others. But concerning myself I was always very judgmental (a funny word by the way: a mix of judging and being mental*) and hard with me. I was always under the tension of feeling someone wanting something from me or something needed to be done but in truth wanting to say “NO”. Today I see it from a different point of view. That I have to say NO, if it’s not right for me. If I don’t care for myself first than anything I do then is either pleasing or needing something.
I feel very much the same Christina Hecke. For me it’s been like a program running in the background telling me how things ought to be without considering me first. I’m starting to let go of this way and it’s like I’m coming home, returning to who I am in truth. Very lovely feeling.
That is so true Mariette changing your beliefs about what love actually is, was and sometimes still is a big thing for me. True Love can seem “boring” when you compare it to the emotional love you knew. Caring and loving for myself is a never ending process for me in life, erasing the beliefs that only when I do amazing things that I am loved or accepted.
I can so relate to the ‘being boring’, great that you share this. I have been so emotional when it comes to love, with anger and crying and having all these huge expectations from partners. Since I am on this great adventure and journey where I am making choices to self-care and with that, to love myself more and more, the emotions disappear and there is so much more balance and consistency. No more emotional break outs, but far more a going inwards and being with myself. And from that, I can very much enjoy the small things and just be with each other.
Wow – so many things jumped out when reading this blog – a big thing which I was avoiding feeling “that I am NOT responsible for other people” this is huge, I don’t realise the extent to which I and many often carry the feeling of having to be responsible for other peoples choices, which I am not. This today is a revelation for me – it lifts an absolutely huge weight of my body as I do not have to try to fix or be responsible for the choices other people make. I did’t realise how often I would feel it was up to me to ‘save the world’ (that feels awful and so self righteous and absolutely draining). When in truth it all comes back to making loving choices for myself, expressing all of me and allowing other people to unfold and make choices which feel true for themselves, And in that I can feel how much more loving, honouring and true relationships can be built. 🙂
Beautiful Mariette, thank you. I loved how you gave us a feel of how it was before by saying ‘It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.’
I too had fallen for the being nice, the doing, the not expressing my truth and staying with it, the needing to be liked and missed etc but all of this still left an emptiness feeling inside me. It wasn’t until I started to self-love and deepen my loving choices for myself that I truly felt that this is the quality of love that I am actually sharing with others. Before when it was about seeking love and everything outside of me that came from a need, and the need to fill that emptiness. So before that is the quality I was sharing- needy and empty . . . But now I am living love in the choices I make, I am expressing as I need to, listening to my body and caring for me. With this I share this deeper level of care and consideration with all others. I have true relationships around me now as I am being true with myself and staying solid in the knowing that fundamentally I AM LOVE so I must treat myself in such a way, for it to be there in it’s fullest.
We are taught from a young age that love is something outside of us, something that can be given and received (as Danielle mentioned, like gifts and praise and affection). What Mariette exposes is so important, love is not something we do, it is a way of being that starts with self-love. If we do not honour how we feel and connect to that love inside us, we are not able to truly love another. Without true love, all we bring is sympathy, pandering and an allowing of other to ignore the truth – definitely no love in that.
How on earth did we ever get loved confused with being nice. Being nice is such a game we all play with each other to avoid being really honest and truthful about how we feel.
I know Vicky, where does this confusion come from? For me it is a biggie so to speak because I come from a background where being nice was and still is a way to be with each other. In my family we were all being nice and this is a hard pattern to break, is my experience. And yes, it is a way to avoid being honest and sharing truth. What being nice brings is a so-called harmony and we are all getting along just fine, but when you take a closer look, there is in fact no true harmony at all. I am learning every day and taking steps to break this pattern and the importance of it, because being nice has nothing to do with evolution and allowing yourself or the other to grow in the true potential that we all are and carry within us.
I love this article, it blow’s out all of the books and discussions on the “Language of Love”. The self help relationship books that says we need to learn people’s language of love, that is what they need to see and hear in order to feel loved, and that this is the key to a successful relationship. This article shows that living this way would only help someone to hide the fact that they don’t feel love for themselves, feel empty and so desperately need to see or receive love from someone else in any form what so ever. For some it’s gifts, for some it’s praise and positive thoughts, for some it is physical contact and affection. All of these things are fine, but if they are to make someone feel better about not loving themselves, then in fact all of these things are harmful. The world would be a much better place if we didn’t play this game, and instead we were ourselves with each other, and if someone doesn’t feel this is enough, and reacts or get’s upset or hurt, then we hold them to account – ask them to go deeper, and consider why do they not feel loved in that moment, why are they not loving themselves.
Great point Danielle, the other day I saw this advert in a newspaper from a dating agency, saying that they will find your true love for you. It showed a photo of two people holding hands and one of them, the man, with a big tattoo on this wrist with the word ‘HOPE”. Now I am not single, but I got such a desperate feeling from the advert, like I was some lost case and all hope was gone if I would not find that ‘special person’. The advert was not inviting and did not give the feeling that hee, you know what, you are just amazing for who you, you are love and you don’t need anything outside of yourself. And then of course we can join an online dating agency and then it would be so different. I feel we put too much pressure on the one special love and then everything in life will be fine. That is not how it is in reality and nobody tells u that we ourselves are our own true love. This is a whole new starting point for a relationship.
I have always believed that love was about doing. When you do something for somebody else It shows how much love you have for the other person. But love is about our being, it is who we are. The most important thing is that I am me, with myself and open, and this is what love is about. If I do something for another from that point, from that being, that is completely different. My love is then in everything I do, from showering to making a meal and to support somebody when they ask for help.
Your comment made me stop Susan, as I had never realised that I had equated love with doing, but as I read your words ‘doing’ stood out for me. Then I realised how often i have made love about what I do, often for another person – when in truth this has nothing to do with real love at all. Just being open, present, committed and being me is way more than enough for true love to be felt. and that starts with myself.
I love how simple and truthful this line is, “Self-love for me now is saying ‘no’ when my body says no; to really honour myself and the signals my body gives me”. I know at times I will feel something so clearly from my body but then the questioning will or tries to kick in from my head, which is exhausting. How simple life is when we honour what we feel from our bodies. And we can have fun and be very playful with this.
I can very much relate to it. I have moments as well, that I feel very clearly from my body a signal that for instance I should not eat a certain food, say no to something, or a clear yes (!), or that a certain appointment will not take place, but then my head takes over and I ignore these signals. For me it is a constant learning to listen to my body. And yes, it is very playful. It also has to do with trust, a trust that i know and that my body knows exactly what is loving and supporting and what is not.
Marietta. Wonderful the way you express the love you have for yourself, which then radiates to other people.
I love this blog, I love how you describe what love is for you, Marietta, as it speaks for everyone. thank you.
“Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing. In fact, there is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am. From that place, I can be love and reflect love. I am and will be a forever student of love…”
I agree Jonathan, such a beautiful reminder “Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself.” At times I find myself reaching out looking for love or an answer, and then I’m like, ‘oh, okay come back to me” as I know everything I could possibly be looking for is inside me 🙂 and that feels amazing.
Thank you for a gorgeous blog Mariette. I so related to everything in it. I have always been a great pleaser and it has been quite a challenge to learn to say no or to speak truth and hold steady when it makes another feel uncomfortable. A loving work in progress.
It is very much a loving work in progress. I have moments that I find it hard to speak my truth because of the reactions. I have this strong belief that it is important to have harmony the whole time and that we should all be friends. With this, I walk away from truth at times, and it has a big affect on my body, especially on my stomach area. When this goes tight, I know there is something going on and that I need to express..
Beautiful Mariette, ‘that love is about expressing my truth, regardless of how many boats I will rock. I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it.’ I too am learning this, I had always thought love was about being as nice as possible to people, but I’m now realising that this isn’t true and that love is me saying what feels true.
Love your blog Mariette – “love has nothing to do with sympathy, doing good in the world, or being emotional.” This is so huge, totally kicks out the idea that love is all about other people, instead it is about coming back and loving ourselves through self-care for example.
Great call Jessica and Mariette – “love has nothing to do with sympathy, doing good in the world, or being emotional”. We are totally sold the lie that love is emotional in all facets of life, so it’s great to have the truth exposed.
We all have a daily choice, disregard ourselves, or bring our whole being in to an open and honest way of living.
This is a great blog, Mariette. You make so many good points about the different ways we are sold a false image of love that all dis-empower ourselves, making us dependent upon something from outside to make us feel complete and loved. The one that stands out for me on reading the blog this time is, “I needed the other person to complete me”. So rarely are we made to feel enough, there is always something more we need to make our lives fulfilled but as you go on to express so eloquently in the penultimate paragraph we are already complete and do not need anything from outside.
That is so significant for me Mariette, when you say ” I have come to understand that love can be very firm and direct and that people might not like me for it. Ouch…”, as I have very rarely been able to express myself this way, always fearing the reaction. It is now very clear to me how that way is so unloving for myself and the other, and how loving it is for us all to speak honestly without the fear and false protection of trying to survive without getting hurt. The truly loving way I don’t get hurt because I am living all of myself, but the other way I build up lots of resentments inside me that will be held in my body and cause me harm. I will also feel bad about myself, whereas, if I express from all the love I am I will appreciate that.
I have found that being polite, nice, knowledgeable or helpful all lead to a feeling of lack within me. Yet there has been this belief that ‘If I keep repeating it this behaviour it will work’ even though every.single.time the result is the same. Thank you for sharing the fact and reminding me that I already know that this repeat doesn’t work. How about I try another, more self-loving method to get a different result?
Love is all around us everyday of our lives. All we need to do is feel it, and grow with it.
Great blog Mariette, I could certainly relate to a lot of what you say, especially being nice, wanting to please and putting others first. Acting in this way I thought I was being a ‘good’ person but in fact I was being dishonest. There is no self-love in any of these and ultimately can be very harming as it only serves to keep us less than others.
Hi Tim,
i love your comment ‘as it serves to keep us less than others’. I have never seen it that way, this is a big learning you give me, thank you. I am very much in the proces of learning and feeling in my body that we are all equal and that nobody is more or less than another. I have this tendency of seeing myself as less which is very harming and dishonest, to me but also to all people around me.
Wow. I read this and see myself! It is completely what I thought love was until recently. If ever someone were asked to describe me, they would say ‘she is very nice’, and I thought I’d won the jackpot. The more I could do for others, the better – at the expense of feeling deeply neglectful of myself. And then I’d punish myself for feeling that way – with whatever I could – through food, exercise, self inflicted pain – you name it. But, like you, I’ve slowly realised how harmful being nice to people is – and not actually saying what is really going on. And that I don’t have to save the world to be appreciated.
Its an ever learning journey, but I can say that the way I live and feel about myself and others these days, is coming more and more from honesty than the need to be liked.
Great point Ariana. The only love story is loving ourselves. I fooled myself for so long with this one! By loving and caring for me more deeply my relationships blossom and become more true and more loving.
Dear Mariette, What you are writing here is so powerful and healing. I can relate so much with what you say. Your first sentence “when I was young I thought love was something that was given to me by others” is something I also could have written. Like you, I felt I was responsible for everyone, including France, and am now learning that I am only responsible for myself and my choices.
“There is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing………I am and will be forever a student of love” Thank you Mariette for this clear and powerful piece of writing.
Ariana I love how you say it.
I had certain parts of the world which were special to me because I had a moment of re-connecting to the love inside. Did I ever consider for a moment that it wasn’t the magical properties of the place or some magical circumstance that all came together, but that IT WAS actually me all along, I just hadn’t realised it? Not at all.
I would spend time trying to re-create these moments, re-visiting certain places to find the allusive love that I longed for. I see myself at that time constantly looking out the front door (and often leaving the building altogether). Meanwhile the love that is inside is like a fire in the hearth waiting for me to return and feel its warmth. Now I no longer jump up at any noise to see who’s at the door and though I haven’t fully sat down and appreciated love’s warmth, I am walking towards it feeling toastier!
There are lots of big ‘ouch’s’ in this for me to relate to. I was often miserable in relationships because I wanted my partner to be a certain way and for our relationship to be a certain way. I can still get caught in this but realise now it is a trap and that I then miss out on appreciating my partner for who he naturally is and allowing the relationship to be natural, instead of putting a pressure and expectations on it. I also realise if I do want the relationship or my partner to be more loving, adoring and supportive then those qualities have to start from me first…
“Love for me has always been a verb, a doing; and that’s what the women around me mainly reflected to me as a child.” How true this is – we look for love in the form of approval for everything we do as children, from bringing home that painting for the ‘That’s beautiful dear’ to getting degrees and great jobs, and yet we are still unhappy inside, why? Because we never learned to appreciate ourselves simply for being who we are. Now we have an opportunity to change that.
Well said Carmel. Changing my appreciation from things I do to who I am is huge… and I appreciate your comment!
Yes, Gill. I agree with you and all the above comments, that we were brought up with thinking that love was a doing and not being. You are right Carmel, we now have the opportunity to change that and to appreciate ourselves for who we are not for what we do.
Great comment Carmel. And it is so easy to then not feel good enough when other people do not appreciate us for what we have done. All the more reason to create that sense of self-worth by appreciating ourselves for who we are.
Gorgeous blog Mariette. A beautiful reminder of how we don’t need to search for love…it is already there within us.
In my early childhood I was shown that to get love I had to give something in return.
In my late teens that became an expectation in relationships with men, I had to give sex to get love.
I have carried this all through my 71 years and I am now discovering in my friendships with men, that I am able speak how I feel about intimacy and love-making. The fear of not being loved has left me…….because I have found love for myself from within – I am love.
Dear Wendy, this is so beautiful and inspiring to read, thank you for sharing. I too can relate to what you share about thinking or using sex to get what I thought was love from men, but merely attention, momentarily filling an emptiness or need in me, and that people may come and go, but the love we are looking for is within us all, and it will never leave. Love is who we all naturally are.
Beautifully put Wendy and Gyl, it feels so gentle and natural when you both express it that way. When I remember the tension that used to grip me around men, because of that feeling I had to perform and give something in order to be loved, (for I did not feel worth it for my own sake!), I realise how impossible it is to have an equal, intimate relationship. When we start to develop an intimate relationship with the love within ourselves that supports us in being Love, then our whole relationship with the world and others changes; and becomes gentle rather than hard and demanding, without expectations or judgments.
Wendy, Gyl and Joan, I deeply enjoyed reading what you have written, and the truth you shared Joan that our relationships with others cease to be hard and demanding as we develop an intimate relationship with the love within ourselves. I know without doubt that when my relationships are off, I must first look at me, and the first question I must ask is ‘how am I feeling?’. Even if I am a little out of sorts one day, I start to perceive the most easy going people as being against me, when this simply cannot be true, what changed first was me, how I was with me and also how I perceived others.
Thank you for your article Mariette, it helped me come back to love today.
This is such a fabulous blog Mariette! I’ve mistaken Love to be all of those ‘doing’ things too. How exhausting trying to please so many people! When I began to realise what real Love is about I felt quite shocked that I had got it so wrong! Self-Love is still an unfolding journey for me, the more I discard the old beliefs, the more I realise that I am enough which feels so liberating. There are so many treasures to be found once we stop looking outside!
I agree Heather and it got me thinking that perhaps many of us give up on love because we feel that the love we think is love is not bringing to us what we feel love actually is.
Hi Mariette, great blog with such a simple message, self love brings you to a love so deep nothing outside of yourself can come close to and something which it would be awesome to see taught in schools. Thank you for such a clear expression of your learning to be love.
Same here Michelle, I think we were on the same boat!
Awesome blog Mariette, very beautiful! It’s a good reflection for me to ponder on. I am going that way and the journey is amazing but what a change to what I was taught as a young boy and those ideas and believes I was still carrying with me not so long ago!
This is so great, Mariette, and it resonates deeply with me, as I too was a person that looked for love just about everywhere other than from inside myself. It has been such a joy to rediscover that I am actually an eternal source of Love, and that when I direct that Love towards myself and fill myself up with it, I am then able to truly love those around me – family, friends, colleagues etc. And this of course leads to them reflecting Love back to me, and it just grows and gains in momentum. But it all starts with that one, big paradigm shift: that we are to Love ourselves first and foremost before we can truly accept Love from and express Love towards another. A simple step – but one which flies in the face of convention and the current societal set-up.
So true Conor. Loving ourselves can change the world, that is a big one, what a revelation and so simple too!
Awesome blog. Thank you Mariette. I got the T-shirt on what you’ve written. I love the line, “absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing,” because sometimes I mess around with the fact of the absoluteness of this. Your next line says I have no need to mess around, “In fact, there is nothing to miss and if that feeling comes up, it means I have left myself and I only have to come back to me and the love that I am.” Thank you.
Love it <3
Love is…”about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.” This is such an important statement – one that should be taught from birth! Imagine the world if we all knew this to be true. There would be no comparison, no judgement, no resentment…the list goes on. How amazing to know that for yourself and be able to honour that in every moment.
I love the joy you feel as you describe rediscovering yourself as Love. I am discovering and learning this too and that it’s like any relationship, taking step by step getting to know more of the fullness of me and how it feels to be with myself in this way. Some times it’s easy to focus on this and sometimes it’s easier to forget! But the more I build that loving relationship, the easier it is to come back to it whenever I lose sight of me.
I just read your blog again Mariette – a timely reminder as to what self love is. I for one really need to stop relying on everything outside of me for love, acceptance, recognition etc etc etc and from what I hear it all starts with self love. I am honing in on the fact that all I need to do is to listen to my bodies feelings, and actually act on them. Here’s to starting from now!
This is a very poignant blog I can relate to and although I live much more self-lovingly than I did a few years ago, I know up until now I have still been searching. There’s always a feeling that there’s something else, but that something else may be more the Love inside of us that Mariette describes?
Not letting what is so naturally there and waiting to be expressed out, does drain and hurts, but when we do there is such a huge expansion, and JOY to be felt and shared and an absolute love for self and all of humanity.
Beautifully said Gyl – and so true. The expansion I feel when I do express how I feel without sensoring or over-riding feels wonderful
That’s beauty-full Michelle. I can relate to “the delicious, round, cheeky, beautiful, squidgy, loving, affectionate, open, trusting, joyful, glorious little girl that I was – that is still with me”.
Thank you all for the amazing comments. It’s the same for me, every day is a new day and every day I can make the choice to connect to myself and to express from love. Every moment I have this choice. And yes, it can be firm at times but love and truth go hand in hand. It’s a challenge sometimes, but definitely a challenge worth taking :-).
Beautifully said Mariette and if we consider every day as a new beginning and live in the appreciation of all that has past has brought us to where we are today it allows us to let go of yesterday so much easier.
How awesome does that feel ” I am enjoying falling in love with myself all over again” what a joy it is to feel – thank you Mary
Thank you Mariette I love reading your article again and again – everyday would be great 🙂
Confirming the amazing love we are on the inside and not to look on the outside which is a trick that we can all fall for and that keeps being reinforced from the world as though it is there somewhere and so it has us constantly looking.
I like your words, Phill…. very true!
Awesome blog Mariette, I love re-reading this one as it reminds me to come back and feel where I am expressing from. Everyone on earth needs to hear that it is ok to be love… again and again. Let your inside shine out, and your outside will reflect in.
So true Phil everyone on earth does need to know it’s okay to be love
Thank you Phill 🙂
I am coming to realise love and nice don’t have anything in common. Love can be firm and it might not always be what we want to hear. Love can often be expressed as NO as you so beautifully express Mariette. How wonderful it is to be a forever deepening and connecting student of the livingness, gifted the tools to live in love with truth and honesty.
So true Stephen and how wonderful it is to feel that Love can be firm and as you say it might not always be what we want to hear, and can be expressed as a no, but in the end it is love that calls us back to who truly are.
Well said Gyl, in the end it is love that calls us back to who we truly are. Love it!
Coming to realise the futility of desperately searching everywhere for love only to find it was, and always had been, within me was shocking and liberating. Choosing to live that fact is the every moment commitment to be in full relationship with myself (and therefore life and everyone else) and it changes everything. Thank you, Mariette, for your honesty and openness and to Universal Medicine for endless, consistent support.
Thank you Matilda for expressing this, very inspiring to read your comment. The support from Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon and these deeply inspiring blogs and comments is incredible. There is no other site on the internet that offers the magic I find reading the articles, blogs and comments on these sites.
Hear, hear David
I felt the same Matilda, although startling, it was very liberating to know that the search to get love from others was over. Knowing that I can’t truly love another until I truly loved myself was a big revelation and started me on my journey of self-love. As you say, committing to ourselves in this way is a huge responsibility but one that is worth taking on.
Dear Mariette, thank you for such a beautiful writing about love and about searching for it and finding it all comes from within oneself, nothing on the outside and not from being nice or doing good. Simple and clear it is all within us. Love starts with oneself and self love and this leads to love in all and everything. I can relate to all you feel and write and love how you express. So true .
A great expose on our misconceptions about what love is, Mariette, summed up for me by, ‘It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.’ So profoundly simple. Thanks for capturing it so beautifully.
We all seek to look outside of ourselves – to search for love, for the one. We fill ourselves with actions, distractions to not feel the emptiness. Yet it’s all there within us, laying dormant, not connected to. How simple if we all knew that.
Beautifully expressed Mary.
Beautiful Mariette, thank you for your open and honest sharing – I too sought that completion in a relationship, and mistook sexual desire for love. What a turn around to now be feeling so complete within one’s self. True inspiration!
I love what you share here Rowena, “to now be feeling so complete within one’s self, true inspiration!” yes it is
“The love story is me loving me more each day” – that concept is so radical in our world, and yet so so beautiful. Imagine if that were taught and practised in schools and through teenage years. Wow, how would that be?
Thanks Mariette, I can really relate to what you have written, especially about not saying what felt true to say because you wanted people to like you and didnt want to rock the boat or cause an argument. As a child I used to say what I felt and would say if something didn’t feel right, but because this caused a lot of reactions and arguments I withdrew and stopped saying what was true and instead become very quiet with people. I’m re-learning to say what I feel and not be scared of peoples reactions and I’m feeling more confident in myself as a result.
Thank you for sharing this Rebecca, we can so often withdraw and not express how we feel in worry or fear of another’s reaction or even at feeling the greatness and power we know is innately inside us all.
Same here Rebecca, spot on!
I know this Rebecca. As a child and young adult I would express very freely and really say it as it was. There was indeed a great power in this. I learned to water this down as I observed that this was it how the world operated. I am Reclaiming this power once again returning step by step to the real me.
Wow, awesome blog Mariette. Thank you for sharing how self-love might actually be the greatest love affair of all!
Thanks Mariette having spent a lifetime looking for love outside of myself I love how you write ‘It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing’. I am now on a journey of self-love which is expanding every day and feels amazing.
Hi Mariette
Since reading your blog I have heard “love” songs at work which have reminded me of how I used to go into the poor me victim mode and make myself feel worse and worse after a relationship break up. Thanks for a great blog showing a different way.
There is a lot said in this blog that makes a lot of sense to me. For me communication is the key to opening up in relationships which I am not now always very good at. Sometimes the truth has got to be heard before things get too ugly, right?
I feel that what you have said Rhiannon is complete wisdom. And my own experience of not speaking up is an ongoing development for me. I find the more connected I feel to myself the easier it becomes.
Beautifully expressed Michelle.
I have to agree Rhiannon, communication is the key to opening up a relationship it offers limitless opportunities to grow and evolve and creates so much space and freedom to be. I have found that if I hold onto something small, maybe a feeling or something i have reacted to, it feels awful in my body to not express it, no matter how yucky or ugly you may think or feel it to be, but if approached with absolute honesty and the willing to nominate stuff that you know is not you and does not feel true, allows a platform for whatever it is to be let go of, much better than holding on to something for fear of how another may take it, as you say so often that’s when these tiny things that really aren’t a big deal or issue, can grow hooks and bury themselves in deeper to become something much more ugly. I have found just simply expressing how I feel and being honest, even in so much as saying I know this feels / sounds awful but I feel it’s important to share so it can’t become something bigger, creates SO much freedom and space, and it’s as if as soon as this so called issue is expressed out loud it has no where to hide anymore, it can’t get its foot in the door and that’s when it goes away.
This is a blockbuster, better than Bridget Jones and all those so called Love Songs! Lionel Richie did it for me! Your blog is awesome, it hits the spot! I have read it several times and each time I resonate with it in a deeper way. Profound words of wisdom, thank you Mariette, Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Ariana, I love how you write too, always straight to the point and with humour too! Yes, I have been there, done that, bought the tee shirt, looking for love around every corner, always hoping to find true love outside of me when it’s been inside ME all the time, ever waiting patiently. And a BIG thank-you to Serge Benhayon for reflecting that love back to me.
Thank you Mariette for your expose. You certainly speak to me as one who has fallen for believing I could give love without truly loving myself. I have been getting by (quite miserably) on the “be helpful/be nice” way, thinking I was being loving. As another commenter said, “it will never be that way”. I am still working hard on transforming my dishonest/nice ways to Truth-full loving ways. I see and feel more and more how I need to feel and be loving in myself first for my acts to carry true love in them!
Wow – beautifully said. I agree – there is nothing like the feeling when you realise everything you’ve been looking for and searching for is inside you – incredible.
Meg that simply made me smile “there is nothing like the feeling when you realise everything you’ve been looking for and searching for is inside you – so true.
Beautiful Mariette that you connected to the love that you are. I also went looking for love and thought that love was meeting a man and receiving love from him and me giving love back to him, but whenever I met a man something went wrong and this “love” felt needy or emotional – I never felt consistently confident, joyful or really myself. As I began attending Universal Medicine workshops I realised that I can love myself and be in my fullness, joyful and confident and feeling beautiful and that this comes from me, not from outside of me.
So true Rebecca, everything in our world, all the fairy tales we are raised with say look for love outside, that we have to find our princes and princesses before we are complete. I too sought love in men, only to find that this left gaping holes in my confidence and self esteem. What a revelation to discover Universal Medicine and understand how to build a truly loving relationship. Its a work in progress and I am enjoying every day of it – developing my own relationship with me, that then overflows onto other people.
This article speaks so loudly and clearly. Tonight I found the sentence, “Love for me was about not having arguments or conflicts and keeping the peace, even though a bomb may be lying under the carpet, ready to explode.” I wonder how many homes have carpets with bombs under them – plenty I suspect. I have sure lived with them. But this blog shows how it doesn’t have to be that way.
I love and relate to everything that has been expressed in this article. Beautiful, Thank you Mariette.
Ariana, I had the same idea that I would find love abroad, so off I went leaving a relationship behind, as I was so sure my love was on the other side of the world. Sure I found a relationship after 7 months, but that was never true, it was just me fitting in, I could see myself getting lost in pleasing and saying yes. Just like everyone, looking for love outside of me. Two years later I had enough. I hated my job and was trapped in a relationship which was not true. I returned back home, and a few months later had the strength to end the relationship. Through the love and support of Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine, I realised that love was always within me and I never need to look outside, I just need to stop, feel my stillness and connect to that love within me. Allowing me to build a deeper relationship with myself and my connection to love.
Beautiful blog Mariette. Thank you for sharing and good to read this now as I keep having to catch myself as I fall into romantic ideals. One thing that keeps pulling me out is the connection to my body. The warmth I feel within when I reconnect is beautiful compared to the emptiness of the romantic ideal. Feeling the difference helps me to feel what is True Love and what is not.
Your “Love starts with me, and how I self-love.” Kind of says it all. Thank you Mariette.
Well said Steve – a far contrast from what I thought before Universal Medicine opened my eyes to another possibility and a way of living that comes naturally if I simply allow.
It never occurred to me either Mariette, that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love. I thought love was all the things, that you so beautifully clearly hightlighted, it is not. It also wasn’t until I started to attend Universal Medicine presentations that I felt inspired to feel the truth that love is.
Great blog Mariette – so much of it resonates. Yes the endless seeking outside of oneself for love is a futile quest – but one that keeps us on a merry go round for a long long time!
I whole heartedly agree Fiona, how many of us, I know I for one, have fallen for one or all of the above, emotion, doing good, and sympathy, when in truth love is absolutely none of these, but in fact simply a way of living and being that expresses and is equally with all others, it feels so light and freeing.
Love it ‘love is inside out, not outside in’. Thanks Ariana and Mariette for the inspiration.
A lovely blog and beautifully written and expressed.
Hear hear Mariette, you have hit the nail on the head here. As a society we have got so lost in the misinterpretation of what actually is. Humanity seems to be under all sorts of illusions when it comes to the true meaning of this world. I like you have spent many years looking for love outside and have learnt that it will never ever work like that. Love is being able to feel what is true in us first and then to see that equally in another.
Thank you for your sharing.
‘Love is being able to feel what is true in us first and then to see that equally in another.’ Well said Samantha – we cannot feel Love with another if we cannot Be Love within ourselves.
Thank you Mariette, what a lovely article to read. It’s so simple and so strong yet something I time and time fall for which is the doing of showing love. Over the years I’ve refused to want to love myself, thinking, insisting and demanding that others do. It is very inspiring the changes that you’ve made with the great reflections of Universal Medicine.
It is very touching reading this and I will take the following words you wrote deeply “Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself and knowing that there is absolutely nothing outside of myself that will give me what I feel is missing.”
So true Ariana, it never occurred to me either! What fun it is to be learning to live from love inside out and not outside in.
Yep that is exactly it Ariana and Mary, – living love from inside out – wonderfully expressed like that, thank you.
Yes, it can be such fun Mary and Ariana, learning to love yourself from the inside out… and you don’t have to rely on anyone else but yourself! We can give ourselves as much love as we like with no restrictions whatsoever, we are limitless!
Living from the inside out continually shows me how just when we thought it felt amazing – there is even more. A constant discovery of our own limitless love. Now that is fun.
Great that you say that Vicky, it is fun. When things get too serious and complex, it is for me a sign that I am not with myself anymore, And yes, there is always more, more to discover, to learn, to grow and to blossom.
This is a gorgeous piece Mariette. It reveals so many of the illusions that we carry around and play out when it comes to love. Thank you for lifting the curtain and exposing the magician!
Mariette, You are enough, I am enough – we are all enough just being us.
Thank you Natalie for this beautiful, timely reminder that I am enough; that is “we are all enough just being us.”
Dear Mariette, thank you for expressing with such clarity and truth what I have absolutely no doubt many of us will have believed or possibly still do for that matter, that love is something outside of us that we find in another – but this is so far from the truth. Isn’t it amazing the lengths and breadths we go to searching for love when really the greatest love of all is inside us. “Love starts with me, and how I self-love. It’s no longer about searching for love outside of myself. It’s about the relationship I have with myself.”
I agree Gyl. Its totally fascinating how much time and effort we all put into the search for the elusive illusion that love lies outside of ourselves when there is a bottomless well of love within just waiting to be expressed.
Thank you Mariette; it’s wonderful to know that we are not alone. Your music reminds me of Bridget Jones; and the depths of despair that we have all shared when we have invested in outcomes beyond our control! I am just learning the Livingness and am finding you all so lovingly supportive. Thank you.
Hi Maggie, I love that you mention Bridget Jones and the despair……. so much control indeed in how love should be, relationships, what we expect from others etc. We are all learning the livingness, every day, it is such a beautiful unfoldment and I am learning every day. (:
Hi Maggie, makes me think about all the so called love songs that is written. They’re usually quite depressing aren’t they so they shouldn’t be called love songs. Perhaps ‘I miss true love’ is a more appropriate name for them…
Haha. Yes, this is true Matts. They are not true love songs at all, but keep us hooked into the merry-go-round of seeking emotional love.
There is no way you can wallow in a true love song – like one by Glorious Music for example, it instantly lifts you up and inspires you to feel the enormity of love within you.
Thanks Mariette, a very clear summary of what is and is not love. Sometimes it’s too earth shatteringly simple to comprehend that all love is, is stillness, in motion, allowing you to feel the needs of your body to enable you to respond lovingly i.e. to honour your feelings. You made me laugh at with the love songs… How utterly crazy to purposely put on music you know is going to make you cry your heart out that bit harder – I did this repeatedly my whole life up until a few years ago! Thank goodness for Glorious Music, there’s no depressing, cry-a-thon stimulating music to be heard with that beautiful band!
Hear hear for Glorious Music Rachel, true music that does not entice, affect or allow us to emotionally absorb all that it is – but music with absolute power, clarity, truth and love sent straight from heaven!
So true, and absolutely crazy that most of us in the world have used music to keep us MORE miserable!! So true also that Glorious Music is paving the way to show that music can be beautiful, true and life-affirming without the depths of emotion and misery.
I can relate to what you say about music and dvd’s to wallow in emotion.. which I did in the past. Food though is still something I use to numb myself from not wanting to feel…. I am finding it a tricky one to crack!
This tells the story of so many of us. Thanks for so beautifully putting it down in words.
Yes it does Kevin. I know it speaks for me for sure and yes, for many others. And so beautifully. It is super cool to realise there is another way to love and that self-love is the answer.
I love the reference to the songs – it’s so true – I could name a plethora of emotionally bound songs yet until recently very few about true love. It’s what we’re brought up on and then what we continue to tap into at any given moment. Thank you to Michael Benhayon, Emmalee Benhayon and Miranda Benhayon in particular for presenting us with something else.
Can you imagine how the world would be if every child was lovingly introduced to this blog, and supported to know its truth?
Wow, what a beautiful world that would be Catherine, a world, perhaps, that would be much more in harmony with the rest of the universe.
“When I was young I thought love was something that would be given to me by others, and looking back now, I have been on a very long journey searching for love outside of myself. It had never occurred to me that my ability to self-love may be the foundation to true love.”
This is wonderful Mariette, a great opening paragraph. Such a treat to feel an expression of such truth and the love with which you write is there for all to feel. A true inspiration, thank you.
Hi Amina so very true, if we do not have this relationship with self it is far too easy to get thrown and knocked by what’s going on outside of us (stress, drama etc), believing it to be us or in us, whereas as you say life indeed is in-fact very simple and ease-y. It is only building this deep and loving connection and relationship with self that then builds that absolute knowing and steady foundation from which we can feel the truth that we do not in fact need any thing or other, yes we can choose be with others or another, but we do not need them to make us complete.
I completely agree with what you guys have said. Very true indeed.
What a powerful blog and I love what you share here Ariana. I too was looking for love everywhere, except myself, the one place I couldn’t look at that time because I simply didn’t love myself. It was only too when I started to build a relationship with myself and see that I was worth loving, that there was something deeper within me that was worth nurturing that I began to blossom and grow into the woman I am today. The love for humanity has always been there but now I have a deeper love that starts with myself first and then grows from within and touches everyone in my life.
A power-full sharing Mariette, thank you so much.
Wow, I love this blog, thank you Mariette. I am going to read it, and read it, and read it….
Inspiring article, Mariette, thank you, especially the reminder that ‘we are enough’.
I totally agree Carmel well said.
Brilliant, Mariette. Another gorgeous opportunity to claim and live the truth that love is, and always has been, within us, not something to be sought. Living that, we serve everyone by reflection.
I really enjoyed your blog about what true love is. I used to also think it was something to be gained from outside of myself and was so needy and clingy for others to love me… (not very great for friends and family around me!). It’s been quite a revelation to find that all the love I was seeking was right inside me all along and the amazingness of not needing others to fill me up. I now have a fullness and completeness of being myself.
I also resonate with what you wrote about thinking love needed me to be ‘nice’ or say ‘yes’ to others all the time. I realise love is also saying ‘no’ and nominating what is true and like you am learning to handle that especially when, as you express, a few boats gets rocked. The power of holding steady without reaction is just beginning to develop.
I love what you state above about ‘being nice’ Rachel. Having identified this tendency in me a while back it is still very much a work in progress. And yes it definitely makes waves when Mr or Ms Nice starts to not just ‘go along’ any longer. And this is great, an opportunity to keep connected and just be with what feels true. These points of evolution are so full of grace.
Beautiful how you call them points of evolution. yes, quite some boats get rocked now and then and for me as well, it is very much work in progress and just stay with it, no go into reaction myself and stay open to whatever goes on in front of me. One moment that goes very well, the other moment it doesn’t…..and that is ok too.
Thank you for sharing your insights about love and self love. I find this is an area that I can visit again and again and always go deeper in my understanding and expression. Much appreciated.
Thank you Mariette for this wonderful blog. I can relate to so much of what you share here. I love how you express the beautiful simplicity in how to simply come back and connect to yourself when you feel you are missing something. Indeed we are missing the love and connection to our own selves. Thank you for the beautiful reminder.
Thank you Mariette for this very honest article. It rings so many bells for the way I have always been, especially making everything ‘ok’ for everyone else without an iota of self-love for me.
Wise words from a beautiful woman reflecting true love, thank you!
A beautiful expression of returning to the love within. Thank you Mariette for your honesty and clarity in your glorious blog. It mirrors so much of my own previous way of living and seeking love from the outside. Attending the presentations by Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine over the past few years has supported me to choose how to live from the love waiting patiently within for me to reclaim, reflect and express – yes indeed…. letting go of being responsible for the world, wanting recognition or approval from it and now rocking a few boats as I trust what my body is feeling and showing me and expressing truth from this connection.
Really awesome Stephanie, so true that the love is always there, waiting for us to claim and live it.
I have fallen into that trap of desperately wanting some one and something outside to make me feel loved and appreciated. Learning to bring the love and appreciation to myself now thanks to the amazing presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I can still feel low at times but when I’m not caught in blaming others and I feel that love in myself, there is nothing that can get me down. The more I appreciate myself the more I appreciate the beauty in others. Love starts with self and it’s simple and spreads like fire.
“The more I appreciate myself the more I appreciate the beauty in others”, that’s awesome Laura, and I love your honesty when you say you still feel low sometimes, I do too, but how truly wonderful it is to have Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present to us a way to re-connect back to the love and appreciation of ourselves. For me, this is the only true way. And yes, you are right, it does spread like fire.
This is a beautiful expression Mariette, and one that I can totally relate to. I also have spent my life looking for love outside of myself, but with the support of Serge Benhayon, his family, Universal Medicine, and the student body, I realise that true love is inside of me and it is a simple choice to re-connect to that love in every moment, thank you.
Absolutely agree. The truth is so simple.
Yes, so simple Mary, and having the realisation of this is like a heavy burden being lifted – knowing that we are love on the inside, it then puts a stop to the endless search for love outside of ourselves – it’s so liberating.
Yes, knowing we are love, living we are love, appreciating we are love, expressing our love (our self) in full.
Not bad.
It does feel liberating Sandra that we finally discovered where we can find love that is everlasting.
Thank you Mariette for this awesome blog. I can totally relate to what you describe. As you, I have learned – inspired by the presentations and workshops of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine – that I first have to learn to love myself again to be able to love others. As long as I don´t love myself I will be always in the need of someone giving me ‘the missing piece’. A relationship based on that is not about love at all but is an arrangement. The more I love and accept myself the more I love and accept people. And that makes life really enjoyable again.
Beautifully expressed Jane, thank you….what you shared is my story too.
So true Jane
Hear hear Jane – I’m with you on this one, I too have searched high and low in everything outside of me looking for love (at that time I didn’t know what it was, and it wasn’t until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I found the truth that I was searching for myself, what was inside of me all along. And the relationship we have and grow and deepen with ourselves on a daily basis is amazing, when we are with ourselves there is no looking outside for love again, yes there may be little moments, but we know we have simply dis-connected from that innate love-liness we all are, and it’s just a simple step to come back. When we are connected and have this beautiful relationship with self, we can’t help but feel equally love for all others no matter what they choose.
I agree Jane, it’s amazing that the missing link is so simple yet so easy to ignore or not see… and when you said this it dawned on me, of course! it is quite probable that because we have no relationship with ourselves, we don’t even consider that we, little me, could be THE link, THE ‘something’ we’re missing. And so it stays hiding… what a well kept secret you’ve revealed Mariette!
Indeed Jane, all that searching for decades and realising that it is all in our back pockets and I can so relate.
Yes Jane, it is amazing how far and wide we go searching outside of ourselves and yet all along we were right there – and whats more is our self love is so much more than the love we were searching for.
Jane that is beautiful and funny in a way that we have spent so much time searching for love when all we needed to do is reconnect back to ourselves and it’s there. It is like finding the hidden toy so we are able to play again.
So well said Jane. I have also found that ending the search has not just brought great relief but also incredible joy. Universal Medicine has given me the tools to live the love that I am in the world and for this I am deeply appreciative.
“… and when I found me, I realised it was me who I missed the most.” This is so true and what I have come to realise too… nothing hurts me more than when I have disconnected from myself. “The more I deepen my relationship with myself, and care for myself, the more I love being in the world, and love being with others.” Beautiful.
Mariette, I like the clarity that your article has brought to understand the difference between emotional love and love that is based on a foundation of self-love.
As a ‘bloke’, I found that the concept of self love took some getting used to, until I realised it was simply a matter of taking care of myself. By doing so I found I could be more open and loving to others. Yet if I disrespect myself, I find the focus goes back onto ‘me’ and the quality of my love diminishes… and that does not feel comfortable.
Yes Rod, great point. It is wonderful when this penny finally drops – that by caring for yourself you are able to be more spacious and open with others, but if you disregard yourself it all then becomes about you and the hurt you are feeling, and so you separate from everyone. Simple wisdom for everyone.
So true Janet
I absolutely agree Rod and Janet. It’s taking a quantum leap for my mind to get it but the repercussions in my life and on others when I disregard are enough evidence to tell me that this is the truth.
I love this line Janet, “that by caring for yourself you are able to be more spacious and open with others”, just an absolute lived fact.
I love that Janet – ‘simple wisdom for everyone”
Simple wisdom indeed Janet! I am experiencing this for myself on a daily basis – the choice is always there to care more deeply for myself or go into disregard – it is painful going back into disregard – choosing to be more open with others feels so harmonious within.
I so relate to what you share here Stephanie, I also experience this daily – how does it feel when I am loving and caring for myself and how joy-full it then is with others, as to when I am in disregard, and how yucky that feels, especially the reflection that then comes back – to truly get it …
By holding back our truth from another we don’t give the relationships we are building to be based on quality of love. Pandering and pleasing feels limited; openness and sharing without perfection feels limitless.
What you say here Janet is so categorically opposite to everything that we learn, and everything that we see, that it makes me wonder how come we got things so wrong, especially when the truth is so much easier to live with.
We get things so wrong because when we realise that we are love and start to shine we attract the force of jealousy and we put a higher value on not attracting jealousy than shining. Hence we rather not realise that we are love or, if we do, we still won’t shine.
I love what you write here Mary, I am no longer a door mat of life but a very powerful woman. It is our choice indeed to take our space and be who we are. And yes, when we shine we can get reactions like jealousy, but like you, I am also learning to deal with that. For me always letting people in is key and this a beautiful daily practice.
I love this Janet. How you describe disregard and how much self is involved in this. A penny dropped while reading your words. I know for myself in recent years that I have indeed become much more open and spacious in terms of letting people in and letting myself be seen. A letting go of hurts and self. A work in progress for me but your words are indeed a simple truth for everyone.
So simple and beautiful.
I love your succinct summary Janet – simple wisdom but worth repeating.
That’s lovely Janet, simple wisdom for everyone.
It’s a shame that some feel that making self loving choices and putting ourselves first is selfish, but how can it be selfish, if we truly love ourselves first, we then naturally love others more, so no one loses out, we ALL become more open and spacious.
Sandra this sounds like a great deal as it’s a win win situation for everyone.
Self care equals a spaciousness that allow us to really accept others as well. The focus on self holds the world out… I love how a simple sentence holds such liberation when truly understood.
Great points Rod and Janet thank you both. The trick on the disregard; we get the double whammy to us and the reflection goes to others…disregards bouncing all over the place. No wonder it feels so yuk!
Very well said Janet. It makes sense, that we then become Individual instead of letting people in and being Universal.
Wise comment, Janet. The self-care we have for our bodies gives us the quality of thoughts we have about ourselves and can make the difference between, like Mariette described, feeling lack of self-worth and being needy for appreciation or having a relationship with yourself and share the love you are with others.
‘if you disregard yourself it all then becomes about you and the hurt you are feeling, and so you separate from everyone’ Beautiful Janet.
I love what you have written here Janet. When I make it about me, it becomes all about me! And I cut off from the world. And then it becomes less because I do this. But the more I can and appreciate me, the more open I am. Simple yes.
Oh gosh, doesn’t that dynamic play out a lot across the world. Well said Janet.
it does not feel comfortable at all I agree…in fact I notice how it feels so uncomfortable that I actively seek out ways to avoid feeling that discomfort which can drive me deeper into it…the reality is and looking at your comment and this blog that If I just stopped running and felt and honoured that feeling in the first place it is likely it wouldn’t be such a distraction in the first place…
Very true Rod, men and self love need a steady hand on the tiller while they are being introduced. Once the expansion of self care is felt in how you relate and ‘be’ with others then there truly is no going back.
I love how you describe what gets in the way of true love Mariette – thank you.
So do I. Love is not a doing. Love just is.
Me too Adrienne. Love is not a verb but a way of being that is in us from the day we were born. Its precious and unwavering ,the power of that is huge.
I love this too – yes, it is a way of being rather than doing. One can’t do ‘love’ – it is an ‘is’ – being love.
Nothing feels more amazing than being love.