vulnerability

Originally Posted on Thought Catalog

Why don’t they see how I need to be loved? Why do they continue to do this when they see how much it hurts me and how unlovable it makes me feel? What is wrong with me that no one can love me the way I need to be loved?

These are the ego thoughts that fill my brain as I drive down the road after arguing with a loved one and have tears streaming down my face. I am both angry and sad, and at this moment not connecting with my higher self in any form or fashion. By the time I get home, I have a face streaked in mascara, puffy eyes, my heart chakra is aching, but I am trying to move out of the little vibration that I have found myself in after the argument. I breathe and think a bit on “love” and what I am truly looking for out of not only this loved one, but also everyone in my life.

What I know to be true is there are so many types of “love” in our world, and truth be told, we are all broken in this area. It starts the moment that you cry as a baby and wonder why you’re not being picked up and soothed. It bridges all the way to when we are adults, lying on the floor crying, and wondering why our partner isn’t picking us up to hold us and soothe us; wondering what is wrong with them or us. No one makes it to adulthood without building up wounds based on love!

Although so many of these wounds are around the same general area of “love,” they present very differently. I almost dare to say that no emotional wound isn’t in some way attached to love. For one person, this may mean they always find themselves feeling abandoned just when they need the people that claim to love them to be present. For another, it may be not being able to be touched because their mother never held them, and so it brings up feeling unlovable. And yet for another, it may be that boyfriend that would yell and hit them and then hours later claim to love them and so they learned that love=pain. We even have love wounds around the friendships that were broken and bullying that may have taken place at some point proving the person wasn’t “lovable.”

And the wounding around love goes on and on…

How many of us have had thoughts about how we feel unlovable or how we are loveable but only to a certain point because, then, we are too much to be handled… “too much,” “not enough,” etc. We think people can only handle pieces of us because if they saw the entirety, then we assume they would hate what they saw. We tell ourselves that there is something inherently wrong with us OR we continue to blame everyone around us for not being good enough to love us.

The truth is that the problem lies somewhere amidst all of that Ego talk.

We are born open to love, but as we go through life, we pick up different hurts, habits, and inclinations for how we need to be loved.

Along with this, we learn to give love in a specific way. We attach love only to sex, only to affirmations, gifts, etc. The problem being that so has our partner/friends/families and so put all that mess and complicated wiring together, and no one is ever going to be able to love us just the “right” way in all situations.

One person could be giving all their energy towards loving someone, but if it’s not how that other person is able to receive love, then it will not bridge the “love chasm.” If we are lucky, then we will have people that can help open us to moments where we are filled and feel in complete and utter acceptance. A lover or friend that listens to us and understands our love language and how to get this love across to us the majority of the time, but they too will sometimes miss the boat!

What happens when someone needs a different kind of love?

Men and women as a whole (yes, stereotyping here) are wired to give and receive love in very different ways. The masculine tends to be more physical, and this physical connection leads to a greater ability to open to love. If I’m honest, many of the men I work with are disconnected from their heart chakras and so don’t realize how blocked they are from their feelings of love until it totally busts open and then is confused towards these intense feelings they find themselves playing in. However, in order for them to feel that deep love, they need the physical to bust it open, and they attempt to give love in the same fashion. Women tend to be more wired to receiving love in a more emotions/affirmations manner and so need to have their heart chakras opened first and then are able to feel the love with receptivity that is more physical. This causes difficulties when a man is trying to express his love physically but the woman is not translating this as love, and so is left feeling unloved… and vice versa.

On top of that, different people are able to give us different types of love, and no one person will be able to fill all these areas. For example, if I am talking with a friend, they are able to provide me with a soul-sister type of feminine love that my male lovers are not able to provide for me. If I am in need of love that is more passionate and intense, then my friends are not going to fill that need, but a lover is exactly what I need.

Another thing is that we block love from people based upon our wounding. Depending on where that wounding lies depends on how we receive or repel love. Love is a deeply vulnerable thing because when we allow someone into our deepest layers of our being, then we open ourselves up to pain. There is simply no getting around it. Love = Vulnerability. While our vulnerability is a necessary and beautiful process, it is also the reason we have been burned in the past in love. It requires work to heal these areas and lean into this vulnerability and the wounding.

So when dealing with others, we are always dealing with not only what they can provide based on their wounding, but also what we can provide and receive based upon our own wounding. The key is understanding that we are all coming from a place of wounding. Some of these wounds are easily remedied and worked through while others may be harder since they have become the very groundwork in which we have built our perceptions of the world and ourselves. Though if we know this, then we begin to approach each other and ourselves in a very different manner, a softer manner, and from more of a perception of growth versus defect.

The best way to not only get in touch with how to love others and also to love ourselves is to tune into the spirit.

We as humans ARE love at our core, and so when we take the time to focus in on this unadulterated spirit, we get closer to a true acceptance and giving of love. The truth is, no one is going to be able to love us just “right” in all situations, but we can work to accept the love that is truly all around us from family, friends, and the Universe. Also, to remember that if we don’t love ourselves, then we create a barrier against others loving us.

No one will love us right… but we can be loved magnificently if we open and allow!