Let’s Normalize saying, “I Love You”
Lately I’ve been feeling different from within, a feeling that I cannot explain, however, it is a calm comforting feeling that I’ve never really felt before, so I had to explore this feeling within, a little deeper. I’ve also been on a mission to find my purpose through my passion, so I automatically thought that it’s my passion being stirred up, which I will write about in my next post.
Since these feeling have surfaced, I’ve found myself watching shows like “Black Love” on OWN, I’m really intrigued about Love and wanting to know more about these couples who were open enough to share their journey with the world.
While watching the episodes, naturally I’m thinking to myself, “I cannot wait to experience that kind of pure love”, but then for some reason I started thinking a little further beyond relationship/couples kind of love and intimacy, I started thinking of the different levels of love that already exist, like amongst family, friends, self and with God. As I watched the majority of the couples on the show share how they had to find a deeper love for themselves, within themselves and for/with God in order for something to have changed within their lives and their relationships, It was like an “Ah ha” moment for me, not that I didn’t know this but because the feeling that I was feeling was just that I was craving something much more deeper within myself.
Throughout my life I’ve felt that I have given unconditional love to everyone that I’ve come in contact with, whether it be family, friends and/or intimate relationships, that often times I ended up hurt because I felt that the love I gave I never received it back in return. So, the “ah ha” moment connected these dots for me in a major way.
For the past couple of months, I’ve been going through the most, which also made me start reflecting on a lot, like my finances, past and present decisions, life goals and mainly my relationships of course. I started reading more and reading what the Bible says about giving and receiving love, praying and trying to gain a better understanding of what true unconditional love is how to give it and how to receive it. With doing this I realized that often times we overlook the ones that come into our lives and are truly genuine with everything that they do because we are too worried about the ones that we do for and hope and pray that they would realize and start acting “right”. Also, we tend to look at these genuine people sideways and question their motives because we have been hurt by others. During a conversation with a good friend of mines, I asked her if she watched the shows I’d been watching and then I asked “why is it that we are afraid to express our love for someone of the opposite sex, especially if it’s not in a romantic kind of a way?” she responded and said she’s is no longer afraid of doing that and that she think it’s because people are conditioned to believe there is something more to it or that it's inappropriate to say things like that. I agreed and added that I think that the person that is being told “I love you” may feel pressured to feel the same if they don’t already feel that way, we both agreed and expressed that people should be able to express how they feel without feeling afraid or intimidate.
For me personally, I have felt the need to hold back from telling someone “I love you” because I was afraid that they’d take it in a manner that I didn’t mean it or I didn’t want to make that person feel awkward lol. But I’ve also realized that often times even telling someone of the same sex can be just as difficult as well, I’ve learned from my own reflecting, it’s because I lacked hearing it and saying it growing up, on just a friendly level and even to my family members. When I thought of “love” growing up, it was always thought of in a way of being “in love”, which is also a thing that is undefined to me as well, like how do you know you’re “in love”? But that’s for another post. Now, I know that you don’t only have to “be in love” to say I Love You, I urge you to spread love, we as human beings deserve to be loved and to love properly. Love is a great thing, hearing I love you should be uplifting, encouraging, an esteem builder not an ego stroker, people operate better knowing that they are loved!!
Give love the way that you’d like to receive it on all levels, don’t forget to pray and love yourself as well and ultimately that intimate everlasting love will come about and flourish just the way it’s meant to happen in your life. Thank you for taking the time out to read my thoughts.
” Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1Corinthians 13:7 esv
Originally posted Nov 2019
Don’t be afraid to love,
