I'm going through a period where I've convinced myself that if I make mistakes that I won't be loved by you. Because of that, I've chosen to live my life in this shrinking comfort zone where I bottle my magnificence and beauty while more or less avoiding mistakes (and of course the reprecussions from them). Seeing that, I feel like I need to "move through this" and when I get to the other side THEN you will love me.
But guess what, the real issue is that I play it safe because I don't love myself. In the midst of this messiness, I don't accept myself for exactly who I am because it's messy. I've learned that I can act myself into right thinking. But by playing it safe, I'm acting myself into limited thinking. I love me as long as I'm not crossing the line and dealing with consequences.
To see it so clearly and honestly is jarring.
I'm not in an abyss of suicidal darkness right now, I've been there and I know exactly how it feels, this isn't it. It's more like I'm on a boat riding big waves and there are no guard rails to hold onto. I honestly don't feel like I'm going to fall out and drown, but I feel the threat of the drowning so I won't dive in.
I love to play basketball and am a confident, good shooter. I can shoot 5 straight times and miss, but almost always, I'll take the 6th shot because I know it will eventually go in. I have a proven inner knowing. Right now, in many areas of my life if I miss once I'll stop shooting or I may not even shoot at all. I've lost touch with my inner knowing, my true north.
Your love for me may come and go, because like me, you're human. And I see that my love for me is gone right now too because I'm human. But "getting" you to love me involves me controlling and managing my life which I've proven does not work. I need a model of love that never changes to reflect onto myself.
And my God's love never leaves me and God never punishes me for thinking that it has. My God's love has no conditions. And when I trust and rely and my God, I have specific proof that literally miraculous things happen.
So for now, my eyes and heart are open to the many signs I get each day that I'm loved, even when I'm Captain Messy Man like I am right now. However, I'm not going to invest in trying to "produce" those signs from you. Liberation is beyond the signs themselves.
It's okay that I'm a mess right now. And I don't need to "act as if" I'm not. I also don't need to get through it to "find" love, it's already there. My inner knowing right now is the absolute certainty that I have the capacity to love myself whether or not I do. That's liberation.
I'm gripping with all of my might to the boat without guardrails for fear that the waves will swallow me and toss me back to a familiar and unrewarding shore. But maybe the boat I see without the rails is actually a surfboard. And perahps these waves, while turbulent, are the propulsion that I can tap into to feel the power and energy of what is now and trust and rely that it's taking me somewhere I've never been before.