Living a Life of Love Creates Love in Return

“It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves.”

John Bulwer

If there’s one thing we all want, it's to feel loved.

We want to feel deeply connected to other people, fully seen and appreciated by them, and secure in those relationships. We can have a million and one acquaintances online, but if none of our connections feel intimate and meaningful, we will ultimately feel alone. There’s actually some interesting research that shows we tend to value physical possessions less when we feel loved and accepted by others, because relationships can provide a sense of comfort, insurance, and protection. They truly are the most valuable things in our lives.

I see it happening all around me, and now again within myself. I see women forming bonds that they think will last for years, and I see romantic relationships (supposedly) blossoming all around me. Though I try day in and day out to open up to people close to me and create space for them to open up as well, I still feel alone, love-deprived, and terrified that these feelings will endure. I’m sure there are countless other people who’ve been in that place before: feeling isolated, disconnected, and confused about how to change it. Others still experience something different but related: They have meaningful friendships, but still feel there’s something lacking; like there could be more love coming their way, romantically or otherwise.

I’ve learned a lot about giving and receiving love over the last several years, and I’ve dramatically transformed my thinking and sense of connection as a result. If you’ve ever wanted to feel more loved, you may find these tips helpful:

Open Your Heart

1. Initiate meaningful conversations.

The first step to feeling more loved is creating close relationships, and that starts with meaningful, engaged conversations with people who actually CARE. These don’t necessarily need to be deep and spiritual in nature, they just need to be honest, authentic, and reciprocal.

You can initiate this type of exchange with anyone at almost any time simply by asking about the other person, fully listening to what they have to say, and then finding common ground. Naturally, some people will stay shut down, but it’s worth the risk of feeling vulnerable to find the ones who won’t.

2. Give the gift of your presence.

Often when we converse with people, we’re not fully listening; we’re formulating our response in our heads and waiting for our turn to talk. We’re not only doing the other person a disservice when we do this; we’re also shortchanging ourselves.

Think about the last time you really opened up to someone. It likely required you to feel a level of comfort and trust, even if you didn’t yet know that person very well. The act of opening up in itself is an offering of love. It’s an invitation to let someone in. In recognizing this and welcoming it by fully hearing other people, we are, in fact, receiving love.

3. Open up your love valve.

Just like a heart valve prevents blood from flowing backward, our love valve might block the flow of energy in our interactions. This generally happens when we get too caught up in our head, thinking, analyzing, and wanting more, instead of being present and allowing a natural give and take.

Come into the moment, take the pressure off the situation, and avoid the urge to fill silences with chatter. Instead, picture the interaction as something cyclical in nature, where there’s a balance of sharing and listening, giving and receiving.

Open Your Mind

4. Change your beliefs about the world and love.

When we tell ourselves the same things over and over again, we end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you tell yourself that people don’t care, you’ll put that energy into the world and then easily find evidence to back it up. If you tell yourself you’ll never experience love, you’ll create mental barriers and then subconsciously repel it.

Tell yourself a different story: There’s a lot of love in the world, there’s plenty to go around, you deserve it, and it’s coming to you every day.

5. Consider that love might look different than you visualized it.

In telling yourself that love is coming to you every day, you’re not merely lying to yourself; you’re taking responsibility for recognizing the love around you.

It might not be from the person you want to be with romantically. It might not meet the standards and criteria you defined in your head. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

When a friend pushes you to reach your potential, it’s an act of love. When a family member takes the time to listen to you, helping you form insights about your life, it’s an act of love. See and appreciate the love all around you and it will surely multiply because you’ll come to potential new relationships with a sense of wholeness instead of lack.

6. Give love when you’re tempted to judge.

Ultimately, this is how we all want to be loved: without judgment, pity, or condescension. Commit to giving this kind of love, both in your existing relationships and in new ones you might be tempted to avoid.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow your instincts when you feel like unsafe around someone. It just means you look below the surface, give people a chance, and in doing so create the potential for more meaningful, mutually supportive relationships.

Make the conscious choice to be understanding and compassionate. While getting isn’t the intention of giving, this will likely set the stage for you to receive the same consideration in return.

Open Your Eyes

7. Value the people who are there, not the ones who just pretend when they need you.

Sometimes we get so caught up looking for romantic love that we forget to appreciate the friends and family who are always there, offering their support. At least I do. I tend to cling to the ones who don't give a shit in hopes they someday will, instead of giving credit where it is due to the ones who are there by my side until the end.

I know you might be thinking that friendships aren’t the same as romantic affection, and I understand. I felt this way too. But we don’t attract romantic love into our lives by focusing on what’s missing. We attract potential partners by radiating love.

Take an inventory of all the people who care, and shift your focus to them. There are likely far more than you realize.

8. Recognize the love you’re not giving.

It’s far easier to pinpoint what we’re not getting than it is, to be honest with ourselves about what we’re not giving. Perhaps you want people to check-in with your more frequently. Are you checking in with them? Maybe you want people to ask more about your personal life. Are you asking them about theirs?

Give the type of love you want to receive. Give praise. Notice the little things. Go above and beyond. Offer help without it being asked of you.

I'm not suggesting you should always be the one giving. If it feels like a constant one-way street in my world, and if that's the case with you, then it might be time to reevaluate your relationships. But in most healthy ones, giving more freely creates an environment of consideration and generosity.

And then, of course, there’s the other side of this coin: Ask for what you need! There’s one relationship in my life that’s often felt unbalanced.

9. Look deeply at your needs and intentions.

Sometimes when we go out looking for love, we’re really trying to avoid giving ourselves what we need. There’s pain in our past we don’t want to acknowledge, or there’s an emptiness inside that we don’t want to fill on our own.

If you’re feeling a hole somewhere inside, take a close look at what might have caused it, then stay away from it. Be strong enough to acknowledge what you need to do for you, whether it’s having a long overdue conversation with a family member, working on your self-esteem, or finding a sense of purpose in life.

We all deserve to feel loved by the people we love in our lives, but first, we need to be willing and able to love ourselves. That’s what it takes to feel deeply connected: to feel deeply connected to ourselves and confident in what we can give.

Feeling Homesick, but not for Home

There is no feeling quite as lonely as the feeling of being homesick. It’s a lingering feeling of acute isolation that washes over your entire body. It’s a vacant feeling of being sorely disconnected. It’s one of the most pressingly painful feelings.

At times, the feeling seems to manifest itself into a jilted, jarring sensation not dissimilar to heartbreak. Your heart begins to feel heavy in your chest. You lose your appetite. It feels worse than loneliness, sort of like complete alienation. The emptiness follows you everywhere you go, and even though you try your best not to, you associate and relate it to past occurrences or even people of your past.  Even booze and happy pills can’t fill the lonely gaps.

There are times, you feel overcome with an incessant longing for familiarity, and you have no idea what it is. Everything feels unknown. Even the pleasant smells of what used to make your heart pitter-patter…voices of certain people that would melt your skin and send a euphoria through your veins like nothing else would. Often times, you just cry into your pillow wondering why you feel the way you do. Sometimes you feel like you could dissipate into the thin air and not a soul would notice you were gone.

You sift through the days as if everything is fine and plaster on a stiff smile at work. Sometimes at night, you physically can’t even cry. Instead, you find myself staring blankly at the wall, numbing yourself because you knew if you allowed yourself to feel, you would fall into the same familiar grey vortex of hopelessness that your past put you in many, many times before.

You keep yourself immersed in blankness, but somewhere deep down, you ache for that old connection you once had before. Not the excessive abuse or lack of sympathy and love; but the good times; those great times. The times when even though it seems fake and unreal now, those good times had you in the moment and feeling like you were the best thing that ever happened to them. Even though they have proved time and time again that you meant nothing.

How could you be feeling so desperately homesick for a place that doesn’t want you home? Guilt and confusion join forces and invade your brain, and nothing makes sense. Immersing yourself in everything that usually makes you feel safe and connected is simply not working. Nothing provides relief, and you’ve realized it’s because you're not homesick for a place: You're homesick for a familiar feeling.

Your feeling of homesick isn’t a tangible place. You feel like you’ve let others cause you to lose sight of who you are, nowhere in the world will ever feel like home at this point. Even if those familiar arms wrapped around you so tight, there would still be that feeling of complete emptiness.

You're homesick for a time that no longer exists. A time when you actually trusted people. A time when you thought you were loved much more than you were.

As we get older and briskly move forward in our lives, we somehow expect home to magically stand still. We think that home is a constant, that it will never change and that everything will look and feel the same no matter how long we abandon it. The truth is, home changes as much as we do.

We are all homesick for that fairy tale love fantasy. We are homesick for that person who will eventually see our worth and everything we can offer. We are homesick for someone we don’t even know yet. I learned home isn’t a place. It’s not a shattered memory of the person we once were. It’s not in the familiar faces and smells. And it's not in your warm, loving home...

It’s in you.

And when we can learn to make peace with ourselves and understand reality, then we’ll learn to feel at home.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation and my place for safety. He will cover me with his feathers and cloak; under His wings, I shall trust Him; His truth shall be my shield.

Psalm 18:2, Psalm 91:4

Who makes up your circle?

While lying in bed last night trying my best to get my mind to stop it's treacherous roller coaster ride, I couldn't help but reflect on several recent situations I have encountered over the past couple of months with different people. I have analyzed a few awkward moments with people, and the common denominator with them all seems to be me offering a positive spin on the situation or comment being thrown at me. I have learned, these comments and discussions are being thrown at me with the expectation that I will think the same way as them and join in on the judgmental world of negativity. Problem is, my mind has a way of thinking 'benefit of the doubt', so my first instinct is not going to be to think about the situation the same way.

I was in a discussion about some Facebook picture drama added with an assumed negative meaning behind it. When I offered my positive view as a way to ease this person's mind about it negatively effecting them, I was flipped off. Yes, I got the finger.

I was in a discussion about a particular person's relationship status. After listening, I saw another side of the situation and tried sharing my positive light on it. This quickly resulted in offensive comments about the way I saw the situation; simply because I didn't join in on talking ill about it.

I posted a general Facebook status about how I was 'praying for a close friend and their current life situation', and I was asked by that friend if the post was pertaining to them - thinking maybe they would be grateful like 100% of all humans beings are when others pray for them. When my answer was 'maybe', I was asked to delete it...two weeks later, still no word from her. Apparently her situation isn't as bad as it's being portrayed to be by the multiple phone calls and all the support I've had to dish out over the YEARS. Just an FYI: If you're praying for me, keep on keeping on. I don't have to display my drama to appreciate prayer any day.

My attempt at keeping this post short-ish has already failed. But I assure you, I have 3 more scenarios that also result in someone becoming distant or getting pissed off due to me not taking interest in the negative spin with their particular dramatic fiasco. It is apparent that everyone on this planet at some point in the their life will need to seek attention in some way. Some do it through made-up drama, some make situations up out of thin air, and some literally find negativity in everything. Like in a perfect double rainbow WITH a pot of gold actually sitting at the end. PSA: I strive to not be one of those people, and I don't want to be included in the discussion if my views and take on the situation aren't welcomed. Newsflash - People can have discussions and have different views. That's how different views on the same situation are seen and brought to light.

So, I will close with this: We cannot continue to throw around comments and meme posts about how we strive to be better than we were yesterday and how we need to be a positive venue for others if we don't put in the effort to make it happen within ourselves. If the {constant} work I am doing with myself, my life, my thoughts and my reactions causes your dramatic and negative mindset to suddenly come to a screeching halt (aside from your childish behavior of getting butt-hurt), then my work is definitely paying off.

And because I'm human & the devil knows I'm trying hard, there will come a day when he will win and cause me to slip up, have a moment and find negativity where it just doesn't belong. But when that day comes, I hope I have friends like myself who will return the favor and offer peace and simplicity to my mind by offering up their POSITIVE two cents in an effort to straighten me up. I'm not a friend who requires much; actually, I require nothing at all. But as much as I do and give to others, If you can't give back in that simple way, then you don't need my friendship. Better yet - I don't need your type of friendship holding me back from being my best self.