Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Love is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves, and others. Why then are we so afraid to love, to accept our own flaws and those of others?
“He loved constantly, instantly, spontaneously, without thought or words. That’s what he taught me. Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell. That was his gift.” — Christopher Moore, Lamb.
Love. A simple word, yet complex in reality. I love how the author, Christopher Moore, calls Love a gift in one of his quotes about love. It truly is the best gift you can give to yourself and others.
A pure and spontaneous emotion. Yet many find it exhausting and challenging to love others. They are afraid to open their minds and place their trust in someone else, open their hearts to being vulnerable and love, lest they get hurt.
But love is an essential aspect of our integral being. It is the magic key to the door that has several gifts in store. Where there is love, there is trust, faith, respect, patience, hope, kindness, forgiveness, and truth.
The key begins with the complete acceptance and love for the self. Self-love is not selfishness; it is kindness to yourself. Doesn’t charity begin at home? So start looking for love from within. Hug and love yourself every single day. Including those scars and flaws, some visible, many invisible.
But there’s a catch. Love without being attached, even to yourself. Since there is a thin line between kindness to yourself and narcissism. Too many people are consumed with loving themselves such that they cannot see beyond their noses.
Narcissism and love cannot coexist. Narcissism loves to pick on the flaws in others and publicly ridicule them. It is sadism to gloat over someone’s weakness, disability, and failure and raise yourself up at the cost of someone’s sorrow.
Every one of us is flawed and broken. We make mistakes day in and day out. Maybe we can try to put ourselves in someone’s shoes and understand their journey. Maybe we’ll discover and learn something new; better still experience Love in an unexpected place. As someone wise rightly said, “It is nice to be important, but more important to be nice.”
Love is freedom. To love wholeheartedly without any expectations or attachment is the most liberating experience. Freedom from the aggrandising importance of the self. Freedom from bias and the fear of loving others different from us.
Love sees everyone as equal. It is cognizant that we are all related, worthy of love, and construct humankind. Love is the essence of life, and one must never stop loving because of traumatic experiences.
It doesn’t mean we put on blinders and love everyone. It means adopting a holistic outlook and judging others from an objective space. With prudence, empathy, patience, and even hope. What’s there to life without love and hope after all!
Love is a courageous act in times of hatred, and it manifests in words and deeds of kindness and forgiveness. So love in all consciousness.
Image credits: Fernanda Reyes/Getty Images via Canva Pro
First published here.
Author, poet, and marketer, know more about Tina Sequeira here: www.thetinaedit.com read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address