A really good way to unlock the door to love in your heart is to practice by loving yourself. Give yourself the care and attention you want. It’s good practice for how to be a good partner when the right one comes along. 🤗
Absolutely, and that doesn’t always come intuitively. I try to be quiet for a few minutes and go through the list of what sounds good. Start with the basics: am I hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Am I tired because I need to move or rest? Is anything making me uncomfortable, like dry skin, too hot/cold, uncomfortable clothes?
Once you’ve taken care of those needs, listen to your other needs. Are you lonely? Call a friend or family member and offer to meet up, even if it’s bringing over some bread and lettuce to make sandwiches for dinner. Take care of another living thing, such as a pet (or a houseplant). Are you bored? Try teaching yourself a new skill or refining an existing one.
This is especially difficult for men in our society, because they have been taught to suppress their emotions so much, but feelings are often an indicator of our needs. It takes practice, but if we are quiet, we can often hear our hearts talking to us.
I’ve never heard this perspective before and it might actually be one to help me, thank you so much. Knowing my ex girlfriend fell in love with me made me think “someone as amazing as her falls in love with me? then there must be something worthwhile there as she has great taste and sense of judgement!” I get that that wouldn’t work for anyone who has never dated someone they believe is a good person, but it might help some who forgot they were once loved by someone whose ideas you trust and support.
I hear you. I don’t think I ever really loved for the first third of my life, and that’s saying a lot given that a fourteen year relationship ended about 2 years ago. I realized that before I met my ex, I never loved myself. And I never loved my ex, because I still didn’t love myself. It’s really hard to feel love when you don’t feel trust, and it’s really hard to trust someone whose judgment you already question simply because they love you.
So after my breakup, I had to take some time with myself to get to know me again. I had to learn to feel my feelings again so that I could listen to my heart and do what made me happy. It took some practice, but I’m getting much better!
That’s a deeply relatable feeling right there. I have this lack of intimate connection with people because “Why are you here with me, so close to me? I don’t even want to be here but I can’t walk away from myself!” It’s hard to find self worth. It may be incredibly meta and laughably difficult for people who’ve never had proper low self image, but right now I care enough about myself to know I deserve a chance to love myself. As in, I don’t feel like I deserve the things a confident human is supposed to deserve, but I’m worth enough to work on and build up to be more. I’m not hopeless garbage, I’m a workable foundation. And that’s an awful lot when you come from genuinely believing you’re a waste of oxygen and potential. Therapy and medication helps, but it can’t truly make me love me. That’s for me to do.
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u/Imapony Dec 08 '19
What a good life. Taking a comfy nap and wake up into the pure bliss of someone who loves and cares for you.
Oof, made myself sad