The greatest love is within me. When I accept the possibility of this I can begin to choose to connect to this love instead of seeking it outside of myself through recognition and acceptance from people, places and things around me.
We all have this love inside us. It is the same in quality but with billions of different flavours of expression.
Beginning to connect to this love is the start of the grandest love affair any human being can imagine.
It is where I get to meet me on the inside. Where I begin to know how silky I can feel when I just let go of all the stuff I think I should be and just allow me to be. The more I let go, the deeper I drop into this expansive silkiness. The depth of my love is fathomless. It is there within me always and completely, regardless of whether I choose to connect to it or not. When I begin to acknowledge this Love I start to see and know myself differently. There is a growing awareness of the preciousness of me, my own delicate exquisiteness that I would not want to harm or disturb with a rough movement, a harsh word, or a hurtful, self- bashing thought.
This loveliness is what I have begun to trust as being me, especially in the face of all the ways I have lived that have not been me. All these ‘not me’ ways have been built and honed over a lifetime to help me survive in the world as I knew it.
When I choose to look for love outside of me it puts me at the mercy of everyone’s opinion of me and I become a slave to their approving smile and a victim of their disapproving frown. I spend my time needing them to tell me in a look, a word or a deed that I am ok and that I have their favour. This is what I have known love to be. I went out of my way to get love and overrode the love I already was to do it: saying yes when I felt to say no; saying the nice thing when I felt otherwise; working hard when I felt exhausted; doing the right thing but feeling something was wrong; looking after other people but neglecting myself; getting good grades but feeling like a fraud. I lived life seeking love and trying so hard to make myself worthy of it that I didn’t notice my own innate loveliness; I overlooked and did not appreciate the beautiful qualities I already have.
The love within has no connection to survival, it struggles not, it simply is – joyfully so without end.
This love I have connected to is so amazing and yet it is so normal at the same time. I realise this amazingness is just ordinary when it comes to connecting to and nurturing the Love I am. It is so grand and great yet it is completely common because it is in everyone, not just a chosen few, but in every, single, one – without measure or favour.
By Adrienne Hutchins, Brisbane, Australia
