Love and Hurt
Being human is difficult. It isn’t easy having emotions or being emotional. I think as humans can we tend to avoid our emotions, stifle them or project them on other people or things. That is a big generalization but I will make it based on my experience.
I have avoided love for a very long time. The fear of loving isn’t the answer. The fear of being hurt is what was keeping me from love. I always thought boy, “I don’t want to hurt this person” or “I don’t want to hurt that person” but when we insulate ourselves from potentially hurting someone then we can shut ourselves down from connection. And we can’t own our actions, then we are unable to make mistakes, and rectify. It’s really a catch 22 if you can see what I mean. This is the duality of emotion. You are potentially going to hurt people but especially when you can’t open yourself to love. You are hurting people when you aren’t able to love them and you can hurt them if you love them.
Love and hurt is on the same spectrum. Think about it this way. If I am too afraid to hurt someone, then I am unable to take the risk of loving someone. Love will come with hurt. Think about your parents, your family, your animal family, your friends, YOURSELF. How can you NOT hurt if you loose that which you love? And then what do we do when we do not want to hurt. We stuff it down, avoid and/or project. We also avoid, stuff or project this love within ourselves and we don’t admit our love - most importantly to ourselves. This is being responsible for our emotions and really allowing love.
I would like you to consider this. If we are avoiding our own hurts in this life, then are we are avoiding love? My sense is if you work through your hurts then you leave room for love and if you have the capacity for love, then you can and are able to work through the hurt. The embracing of our emotions doesn’t put us on a crazy emotional train, it gives us the capacity and know how to learn how to work with our emotions. It’s when we ignore, project, or stuff when we get into trouble. It causes dis-ease, emotional roller coasters and lack of love.
When we allow ourselves to be loved, to love and be beloved, then we are in our power. Our holy grail of love. Our divine connection with ourselves, our God, and with others. Both able to give and to receive love. When we are in the power of who we truly are and that no one can hurt us if we haven’t worked through your trauma’s and hurts, then we will always be in a place of non-love whether we use all those tactics of avoiding the pain or not. Even if we do get hurt, we can forgive and re-relate to that source of hurt and see other people’s way of hurting us is their acting out their pain. It isn’t personal.
Now it takes time to get to this point. Am I there? I am working on it. But the wisdom that comes through me is the same wisdom that comes through each and every one of us. The message may not always be the same but the theme is. We are love, we are loved and we are capable of a great amount of love.
I think this is part of being a human. How do we live in the world of hurt while still being love? Well how are you in relationship to all that is? Are you angry all the time? Are you hurt all the time? How do you get to a place of love? Well, the only way is through your soul and connection to your God/Source/Creator/Love. Whatever you want to call it. Anything other than that and you will fall short. In my experience, we can’t do it alone. It does take a village and we are meant to work through this thing called life together. How else are we meant to be? And what is important in your life?
It’s funny when I was younger I thought it was important to have career, go places, do things and be someone in my career. But now that I have hit 55 I am sitting here really re-evaluating myself and my life. It must be because I am on the 2nd part of a full life (presumably). I have now gained the wisdom of the last 55 years of what works and what doesn’t, now how do I live a better life? The question isn’t anymore those questions, it more like, who do I want to be? What traits do I want to embody? What do I want to represent? What is really important to me? What is my purpose in this lifetime? What and who am I meant to make an impact on? How can I make a difference in this world today?
The only way I get those answers is to pray to God….literally….How may I be of service today? So I am grateful to the Divine for the opportunity to learn on a deep deep level the duality of love and hurt/pain and to really be human and to allow love just as much as I allow pain. I can be human and grounded in the human experience and to accept my emotional state whatever that may be and to love myself, my God, and others deeper and deeper everyday. That is what I pray for. What do you pray for?
In honour of our emotions, our emotional mastery and being human, I pray this reaches you if you are fighting your love or your pain. I pray that you accept your humanity, your emotions and accept who you are and how you feel right now in this moment and know, we are all made in God’s image and we are all meant to feel all of this no matter how it shows up. You are enough no matter what pain, love and all. The question is….”How do you want to show up for yourself?”
God Bless you and Happy Valentines Day,
Jackie Gutknecht