True Love

Love is the deepest and most fulfilling connection to the world. Yet it is sadly ironic that most of us don’t know what love is.

Storybook Love

I grew up with a romanticized notion of love: One day my prince would come and life would be perfect. I still have my vision of him: A big, tall, dark and handsome dominate male, the stallion, who would rescue me, worship my feminine traits, but not possess me (except in the bedroom). Aside from the attributes in parenthesis, my fantasy man came straight from the Disney Princess movies of my childhood. That’s not true love, although I admit I still long for this fantasy man of my dreams. Thanks a lot, Disney.

I’ve been “in love” a few times. I met John when I was 15 years old. He taught me what it was to be loved. John was my protector, my knight in shining armor who rescued his princess many times. Joe was three-years older than me. He swept me off my feet on his white horse (a Chevelle) and ultimately shattered my illusion of love. And then there was Bob who cherished me. He called me his beautiful Czechoslovakian doll and wrote me poetry. Bob is the closest I’ve come to my Prince Charming and I married him when I was 19 years old. But life has not been perfect. There are two other men I have loved but our relationships were never consummated.

My storybook love ideal caused pain in these relationships. I was looking for someone else to make me feel complete, to satisfy all my needs, to make my life perfect. These precious men truly were deserving of my love. But I did not know how to love myself. And I did not know how to love them. That’s not true love. That was me being selfish. Truth is, I ultimately shattered my illusion of love, not Joe. It took me a long time to understand that love is an “inside job.”

Finding Myself

Decades pass and thorough them I go from fit to overweight to obese, then back to overweight and finally back to fit. And it was not until recently that I was able to love the person who was: That obese woman who used to look back at me in the mirror. Late last year I began a spiritual journey toward finding myself. I believe this important step in our transformation after weight loss is often overlooked. It took a series of catastrophes within relationships with people who were very important to me, to bring me to my knees and ask “what is the meaning of all this?” Fate delivered a spiritual guide to me.

I stumbled a lot at first. Jen, a weight-loss surgery/plastic surgery friend, during our interview about love after obesity told me “change requires being open to being guided and looking for the lessons and messages in that guidance.” I remained open to the messages the universe was sending. I kept searching for what I was supposed to learn. I counseled with Rev. Mark, who also is a metaphysician, one of the most enlightened spiritual leaders I’ve met; I read a few books (good read: Return to Love) and countless articles; I did guided meditation and visualization; I did the

I reacquainted myself with my spirituality and my philosophy on life from a time long ago when my heart was filled only with love. It was the time before I became overweight and had used food to insulate my quiet inner voice of love from the frantic assault of the outside world.

Finding True Love

Finding true love is an inside job, means we must establish a sense of wholeness and intimacy within ourselves, first. Once I had unconditional love for myself, I was able to stop beating myself up for past failures. I was able to love me even though I made mistakes. And then… I was able to love others even though they made mistakes; even though they did not live into my fantasy of Prince Charming.

I saw past the shell of these men and recognized their love given me through acts of service, gifts of quality time, and physical touch (good read: The 5 Love Languages). I was able to see the love given me because I had accepted myself as someone who could be loved. Previously I had seen myself as unlovable and therefore had doubted and tested the love given me.

I saw their vulnerabilities and their faults and accepted these men just as they were, without judgement of how I thought they should be. Loving your idealized image of someone until they disappoint you with who they really are is not true love. That’s possessive love: I love you but only if you behave in the way in which I think you should be. That’s love with strings attached. I was able to love them with their flaws because I had accepted the flaws within myself.

I was able to see their pain and how they had been hurt by me, whereas in the past I only could experience my pain and how they had hurt me. In doing so, I experienced what it is to love unconditionally, to experience self sacrifice for the good of another. Rev. Mark told me that is the deepest love there is. He called it soul love.

The Resurrection of Love

I had been reaching outside myself to men for the wholeness and intimacy that I was missing inside myself. Before expecting to find wholeness and intimacy externally, we must love ourselves as we are rather than trying to find someone to make us feel complete, to fix us, or to be who we want them to be rather than who they are. That is not what love is about. Every person in the world was born with the same incredible gift: the ability to love oneself and others unconditionally. We can resurrect that love at any point in our lives.

I believe that forming a loving connection with another person (not necessarily a sexual relationship) is one of the most rewarding of life’s experiences and a crucial step in our growth into wholeness. If you don't know how to do that, how to really love someone else, then you will ultimately shatter the love that you have with anyone else, including with your mate.

According to Maddisen K. Krown, M.A., “When we establish this awareness and loving connection, we establish a wholeness and intimacy with ourselves, which will very likely be projected and reflected back to us by others in the form of the loving, whole, and intimate relationships we have always longed for.”

What have you done to discover true love of self after weight loss? Please share your story in the comment section below.

Want more love? Read about soul mates and twin flames in Soul Relationships or learn to manifest your heart's desire in No Fear. No Regrets.

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