The most important Love?

Does February remind you of an obligation to show your love through physical gifts and heart shaped items, or rather makes you roll your eyes up in the air - “love is to be celebrated every day!”.

I agree - Love is to be celebrated and shown every day. Love, the feeling that has many shapes, goes to different faces, but at the core is always the same - incredibly liberating feeling we live for, the one through which we exist.

What is the most important love of all? Love towards your parents or your children? Love towards your partner or friends? Love towards your mission in life or the mindful activities you lean on to keep yourself sane? What is the Love that truly matters no matter what? Where do you find it and how’s it look?

The answer is simple - it’s You. The love you most need is the love you have to give yourself. The same enormous feeling of liberation and fulfilment that vibrates in your chest, expands outwards and sweeps everything on its way. The love you long for to feel complete, to feel happy, to feel content is the pure love that you need to give yourself.

But… How come? Isn’t this selfish?

No.

It’s not selfish, it’s self care. Your capacity to love unconditionally must start from within and expand outwards. The relationship you most need is the one you need to build with yourself in order to share a loving partnership with someone else. Because you can only give what you already have and not the other way around. The more compassionate and loving you are to the person you are most critical towards (yourself) is the key to building a deep, meaningful relationship with anyone else.

During celebrations like Valentine’s day we often put ourselves in a certain group of people, depending on our marital status. If we’re single - we root for self-love. If we’re in a relationship - towards romantic love. I’ve seen people change and take sides depending on the year. I’ve been one of them too - choosing a certain side depending on the moment. But what we all really must understand and accept is ourselves and the love we must give ourselves first.

Nobody else is you, nobody knows what’s inside of you. Nobody will ever be as close as your own Self, nobody can feel your emotions like you do. So let’s start there first. Not just once a year pumped up by the bombarding marketing from all directions, but every day in privacy. For you from you. Because you deserve Love and Love is all you need to allow yourself to give yourself in order to receive. Rest will follow.

With Love and Gratitude,
Mariya

The Love you constantly give out is not going to fill you in

How many times have you given all of your love to anyone else but yourself? How often do you fool yourself that if you show how deep and carrying your love is same will come back to you and fill you? Which person you usually put first - your child, your spouse, your family, etc. ?

Don’t get me wrong - giving love is the best you can do. And for sure the love and kindness you give out will come back to you in some way, share or form. But what you’re looking for outside of yourself will never complete you, will never make you feel the way you’re longing so desperately at times to feel.

There are different kinds of love, although the core feeling is the same. What we miss to acknowledge many times in our lives, especially when we’re young or unexperienced, is that the love we want is only possible to be received from someone or something outside of us. The love that we want has never been and will never be anywhere else but inside of our own Self.

The true ability to love and care about others is first reflected on the ability to love yourself. The way you treat yourself is crucial. We tent to give more than we actually have, emptying our own cup completely dry, giving to those we love from desperation and lack rather than abundance and fulfilment. What happens then? - we need up with a burn out, illness, relationship collapse and satisfaction. We say we did everything for them, we did everything they wanted, but what did we do for ourselves, what did you did for you?

How many times you neglected your own needs to please someone else, even if it’s your own child, to then receive unappreciation that made you feel even emptier? It’s hard to say no and ignore the needs of your loved ones, but you cannot give what you don’t have already. If you try to, and we all have done it, you do both party a disservice - you end up lacking value for them and drying out inside. A so called ‘act of love’ turns into a demonstration of toxic trades, patterns and behaviours.

Even on the plane they say “put your own oxygen mask first” - you can’t help outers if you don’t take care of yourself First. This is not a selfish act, but a necessity. It’s not something to be ashamed about, rather the contrary - showing act of self care is the way to teach your children and loved ones the importance and benefits of self-care, value and potential there is in the act.

So next time you feel tired, want to spent time with yourself, have a desire to nurture yourself in any way - do it! Do it for you, for your inner child and that will reflect on your current relationships. Your children will be happier to spent time with self-fulfiller parent, who let them drink from their overflowing cup.

You deserve it by birth right.

New Year Resolution: Break a Life Time Pattern

Patterns… not an easy thing to break. Especially if they’re so integrated in your conscious that it’s hard enough to realise them as something that is harming you. Here I am starting the new year looking at one of the oldest problems I’ve had - pleasing people who don’t appreciate me.

You’ve heard about empaths and narcissist, but can you differentiate it clearly every time? Can you see the traces of somebody who’s somehow in the middle of both worlds, who passionately dislike behaviours in others but don’t see that he owns the very same of them? Can you remove yourself easily form somebody you grow loving feelings towards when they make you feel drained rather than energised? When was the last time you used to blame yourself for things that are not even yours? Did you make it out or you’re still there hoping they might see your potential or how much you actually do for them?

Many questions the answers of which are often uncomfortable.

You can make it out, but you need to spent time with yourself. The only way to see who you really are is by speeding time by yourself with yourself and conscious making the effort to get to know yourself - your light and your shadow.

It took me years to be able to see it, yet my pattern is still pulling me to the familiar pain instead of me going towards the less familiar but healthy way of being and living. Many, if not all of my intimate relationships have been toxic. They used me, abused me, left me, blamed me and I still looked towards my faults and how I can better myself so they can “take me back”.

What a waste of precious time.

The truth is my dear is that love, friendship and companionship are not supposed to be hard. They are not supposed to be a way to use one another or for blackmailing. They are not supposed to blame and hurt, but rather respect, support and help towards healing. None of us is perfect, but pointing finger towards the other person is simply avoiding your own responsibility of actions.

Pay attention to what gives you energy and what takes it form you, and that especially includes people close to you. Family is something you need to figure out as you grow and often hared to separe from. However friends and lovers that you let in on your own justice should not make you feel drained, used, belittle and unappreciated. If you don’t feel well, accept it and find a way to let them go. It’s okay.

It’s okay to choose you. It’s okay to walk away from something that is hurting you. It’s okay to put yourself first. It is okay. In fact it is necessary. Nobody else but you knows exactly what You need, and how You feel. So the only way to take care of yourself is to listen to yourself. to make the necessary adjustment and move on in a way that is good for You first.

When was the last time you spent time by yourself for yourself?

Do You Love Yourself?

Can you answer me this question truthfully?

Do you love yourself when you remove the clothes, the accessories, all the labels and pamper sessions you have done? Do you love yourself when it’s hard to love yourself? When you see your own mistakes, when you acknowledge all the pain you’ve caused, when all you want to do is hide from the world and even from yourself?

Do you love yourself when you’re not the best vision of you, when you’re in lack or down the negative spiral of thoughts? Do you love yourself when you’re blamed, shamed, taken for granted?

It’s easy to love yourself when things are going well, when you fell on top of the world, when you’re so happy and fulfilled that you forget how it feels to suffer. It’s easy to say to others “love yourself for who you are, for what you do, for what you’ve been through”, but do you feel the love when you say it to yourself?

Do you love yourself when you know you have to level up for your own good, when you know you can’t stay in the mud anymore? Do you love yourself when you go to bed alone for endless night in a roll, wondering why you’re not in a loving relationship or what you did wrong to all those who broke up with you blaming you?

Do you love yourself when you see how different you are from everybody you grew up with, from all the people you know your whole life - the family, the friends, all of them who are supposed to understand you the best and supports you in everything you do?

Do you love yourself when you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel? Do you love yourself when your outside world feels complete but you feel emptier than even? Do you lovingly help yourself go through the darkness?

Loving yourself is not only about the pampering, belongings or being proud of yourself when things are going well. Truly loving yourself means doing it when the coin has flips the other way around.