One of the skills I think every human being should have is the ability to love. Oddly enough, that’s not a skill that gets taught in our culture.
If it is, then it’s taught incorrectly, which only brings toxicity to our lives and others’. In a society built on capitalism, the notion is that if you want to learn to love, you’re going to need to gain something.
More, more, more.
It could be material things like a desirable income, or it could be something intangible like status. Can you name all the books out there that show you how to gain confidence?
I’d like to take a different approach to love. I have said this before, knowledge is the increase of something.
Wisdom is when you take things away.
To be better at loving, we must remove the barriers that keep us from love.
The Sufi poet Rumi said it best, “Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
It’s something I subscribe to 100%. After years of trying to be someone for somebody in my twenties, it’s time for me to peel back some layers.
Earlier in life, I would be paralyzed by love because fear would overtake it. Most of it was due to just overthinking.
When it comes to romantic relationships, I think we get caught up in what we want. What I truly mean is that we create a checklist of what we want in a potential partner. If they don’t meet these criteria, it’s a no for me, dawg.
In certain jobs I’ve had, I was unable to build relationships with others because they had certain expectations of me. Expectations are typical in the workplace, but they’re incompatible with love.
Keep Your Heart Open
Love comes from within. It’s hard to love when past traumas build a wall. We fear love because we are afraid to get hurt again.
We give all we can to a certain someone or situation, to get nothing but pain in return.
They say that love is a battlefield. Sometimes we have to fight for the love that we want. That means we will get hurt during the battle. Yet, we still fight for love. The wounds become our battle stories.
If we truly want to love, we have to give ourselves away to another. This makes us vulnerable, but without this vulnerability, there is no chance for love. Giving love is the only way to ensure that you’ll receive love back.
The common phrase we hear about our hard work is to guard it. That easily becomes a barrier.
Sometimes we don’t go after what we love because we are afraid of the outcome. We don’t open up that business because working 9-5 is more stable, even if we have no passion for it.
Settling in this way diminishes the fire of our heart. It dwindles our passion for the things we want in life. We think it’ll keep us safe, but there’s no such thing. Everything we do is a risk. Why not commit to risks that our hearts yearn for?
No Expectations
If we see love as a gift to be given freely to those we love, we should remember to do so without expecting anything in return.
Part of the reason why we were hurt in the past was that we had an expectation of another person. They didn’t live up to the ideas that we had of them in our heads.
It gets very difficult when we go deeper into parental issues.
We should expect a mother to be loving, compassionate, and caring, but not everyone shares the same experience. We should love people for their own sake. This is one of the biggest barriers to being loved.
I’m getting hits of anxiety just writing this because I know I fell into the trap of expectations. Let’s treat love as a gift, and every day is Christmas.
Let Love Find You
When society talks to us about love, it teaches us that masculinity means to chase. If we’re talking about gender norms, women seem to do a better job of letting love come as they are taught that the man does the work to establish a relationship.
Maybe the song’s issue isn’t that we’re looking for love in all the wrong places, but that we are looking for love. I would rather have love flow to me. It takes much of the unnecessary pressure to find a mate.
We all sense the desperation of someone on the prowl, and it’s never a good look. There are plenty of opportunities to rest with another person and let love happen.
Let’s not worry about what society has to say, what your auntie has to say, or our biological clock, even if it is ticking. Better to find love with someone you know you’ll spend the majority of your life with rather than finding pregnancy out of desperation.
Small Acts of Kindness Build Love
If you’re looking to find love, doing small things for people can certainly help. It could be something as simple as just flashing a smile.
Love is an action.
At the same time, love without action isn’t love at all. Your friendly nature is a measure of love and should be shared with all.
I don’t really think people understand the power of kindness and compassion. I don’t mean being nice. When I speak of compassion, I mean performing an action in which a person is in no position to pay you back.
Love is a gift.
People are only nice to those who can reciprocate, but love is not here. For instance, a person can take another person on a date. Pay for the date, only to expect something in return.
This is not love. This is a transaction.
If I could summarize this blog in a key takeaway, I would say that fear is by far the biggest barrier to love.
In most cases, we have to go through fear to reach love. We stray away because we are afraid of uncertainty, and don’t want our comfortable lives to be uncomfortable.
It’s crazy to believe that we want and even pray for that husband, or entrepreneurial venture, but when the opportunity presents itself, we close up.
Today, we break that cycle. We wake up every day with the intention of being loved and showing love to others.
There’s nothing to expect in return. We don’t provide the receipts when we’ve been hurt. The only reason to love is for love’s sake.
It’s a learning process. We have to unlearn what society’s given us and become the change that we want to see.
Are you coming with me?
Questions and Responses
Love involves emotional intelligence, empathy, and the ability to build meaningful connections. Like any skill, it requires practice, reflection, and personal growth to master.
Societal norms often frame love as transactional, tied to material gain or status. This perspective can create unrealistic expectations and toxic behaviors that hinder genuine connections.
Removing barriers to love involves identifying and addressing fears, traumas, and expectations that prevent openness and vulnerability, allowing love to flow freely.
Fear of rejection, uncertainty, or past hurts can build emotional walls, making it difficult to give or receive love authentically.
Loving without expectations fosters genuine connections by eliminating disappointment and resentment when others don’t meet preconceived ideas.
Letting love find you involves releasing societal pressures to chase relationships and allowing connections to develop naturally and authentically.
Small, selfless actions like smiling or helping others create a foundation of trust, compassion, and mutual respect, which are essential for cultivating love.
Love is demonstrated through consistent, meaningful actions rather than mere words or intentions. True love involves giving without expecting anything in return.
While fear can initially coexist with love, addressing and overcoming fear is essential for love to thrive. Love flourishes in an environment of trust and openness.
Unlearning toxic ideas about love requires self-reflection, challenging societal expectations, and adopting healthier, more compassionate ways of connecting with others.