I came from a culture where love is not discussed or even shown. In my childhood memory, I only saw my parents holding hands and the more I think about it, I only saw that as a teenager… does that count as “childhood?” Even though my family comes from the country of endless Bollywood films (most of which are about love) it made me very uncomfortable. I remember that when I went over to a friend’s house, I would see my friend’s parents showing affection to one another I would not know how to react, but to my friend it was completely normal. Now as an adult I’ve realized how beautiful it is to show the ones you love that you love them.
Recently, I was saying my goodbyes to my 6 year old nephew. I told him that I loved him and his response to me was not the typical, “I love you too,” it was, “I know you love me Auntie!” At first I couldn’t help but laugh in admiration for his boldness, but then I quickly realized how beautiful it was that my nephew KNOWS that he is loved! My laughter turned to tears, tears of joy. What an amazing gift you can give any child in your life, the foundation of unconditional love and acceptance.
Of course this one event took me down a spiral into my own childhood and how hard it was for me to simply say the word “love.” What was so daunting about this 4 letter word that it takes so much thought and energy to say one syllable out loud? It was my conditioning, my upbringing. I always thought that showing that level of vulnerability was a sign of weakness, it simply was not done. Check out this post on how I subconsciously internalized love as being wrong. I have always been more into feeling people’s energy and listening to my intuition that words did not matter so much, if that is true then why was it bothering me so much?
So let's time travel a bit and go into my childhood. I was exposed to war and violence as a kid, that’s what was normal to me. Let me elaborate a little, the news was always on in my house, the only thing that made it on the news was about how one country was attacking another. The news also told me about how rough my neighborhood was. I can count all of the names and faces of the classmates that were lost to violence. Forget about all of the wars on the TV, I was living in the middle of a war zone with decade old gang wars in my neighborhood. Then at school, in order to avoid being bullied I had to build myself up so that no one would bother me … “thick skin” they’d call it. Now you can see how in my reality there was little room for being soft and expressing love.
These past few years I have been living away from that environment. New people with a different outlook on life are now what surrounds me. I have also learned that I don’t HAVE to watch the news, I’ve made a choice to not put my energy on learning about how messed up the world is. So I know that if there is something that I absolutely must know, I will hear about it in some way, shape or form. By changing my environment and changing my lifestyle, my outlook began to change and I realized that I could not function without the 4 letter word I’ve been dreading to say my entire life, the emotion I was scared to show.
My entire outlook was shaken and I began to understand the entire world in terms of love. Everything happens because we love and we love because things happen. Sun and Earth are entangled in this dance for as long as we can imagine simply because they love each other enough to make life possible. While I was going through this transition, there was a point with one of my best friends that shook my beliefs. I have found that it is far more easier and less draining to love than to show hate and anger.
I was going through a rough patch in life and like any good friend she was there for me. Our conversation was coming to an end and just before hanging up the phone she said those words. She said, "I love you." Before I responded, I stopped to think about what I should say back. On the other end of the phone was my best friend, someone I call my sister. This woman knew me better than I knew myself… so why did I hesitate? To this day I cannot imagine my life without her, but why was it so hard to tell her I loved her too? My pride stopped me… the fear that I would be seen as weak made me think twice before I responded. Yet the woman on the other end has been by my side through hell and back … so who cares about being seen as weak? So I said, "I love you too," I hung up the phone and felt a huge sigh on my soul because it felt good and it was my truth. Tell the people you love that you love them, who knows when you’ll have another opportunity.
Not too long ago, someone was expressing their confusion to me about how people use the word “love” in such a nonchalant way. I couldn't help but think if it’s the truth, why not? Everything came into existence because love was there to nurture it. The only moment that actually exists and matters is now, the past is gone and the future is unpromised and unwritten. With this in mind, why wouldn't you show and tell the ones you love that you love them? You may be thinking that I am over simplifying this, but my question to you is why make things more complicated?
Lead with your heart, and be fearless in love.