Love is that four letter word that has gotten some pretty bad press.  It’s been used and abused, mostly for personal agenda by those who don’t have a clue what love really is.

It’s been used to manipulate, with proclamations such as, If you love me you will….if you cared, you should have, you wouldn’t…….(fill in the blank.)

Love has been conflated with things like taking care of others before self, sacrificing for others, being obligated to and responsible for others emotionally.  Making sure they are comfortable in their unconscious state.

And not just for family and friends, but for humanity in general.

It can get very confusing for those who are in their ascension process to try to reconcile their anger, their impatience, and their sense of detachment with the old call to be all-loving.

This new place we find ourselves in seems to go against our old reflex response of being accommodating, and available for others.  No, this is not a new topic but it’s an important one.

Many people in our sphere were used to that old response in us.  Some try even now to pull us back into it.  And even when we stay true to ourselves, and do not give in, there is that residual guilt, and even shame.

FALLING FOR IT

A few years ago, I gave into the guilt, and went out to dinner with someone, when I really wanted to pass.  It was Thanksgiving, and I worked really diligently on not being available for holiday celebrations.  I even told this friend that I would rather pass, but I gave in.

Before we sat down to eat, I fell down a short staircase at the restaurant and sprained my ankle.  I knew immediately what was happening.  I hobbled around in pain, but did stay at least for dinner.

Afterward, the friend actually thanked me for going to dinner with him, saying that he appreciated that I knew how much it meant to him, even though I didn’t really want to do it.

Essentially, he was thanking me for sacrificing in the name of love.

That is a dangerous message to send to our mates, our children, and our friends.  And it’s not a new one, it’s been used for eons of time.  Sacrifice in the name of love.  Small sacrifices, and large ones.

But the experience helped me to see where I was still holding onto guilt, and that holding onto it was becoming too dangerous for me.

NO MORE FEEDING

As we move into our enlightenment, it becomes increasingly important to be true to our own self, in small and large ways.  Because if we keep giving into the small ways, they lead to the large ones.

There are those less conscious who will take advantage of our need to accommodate.  And it’s a gateway to feeding on our energies.  It’s not always easy to spot, because it often comes from nice enough folks.

And it’s not just locally, with family, friends, and neighbors.  It’s humanity writ large.  It’s accomodaring all the thoughts and emotions flying around out there.  The pain, and suffering.  It’s a seductive energy for sure. And for the most part we have moved past those, and we have compassion for human kind, while not indulging in sympathy, or even empathy with them.

Compassion is defined as understanding where they are, but not taking on their suffering along with them.  Because as soon as we tap into their wounds, and even our old ones, we are not in our freedom.

Our freedom will not come to us if we insist on continuing to sacrifice and suffer.  Whether it’s as light workers, or as women.  The need to nurture those who are not interested in their own self-nurturance will only serve to delay our own freedom.

We become sensitive to the red flags of emotional dependency and neediness from others.  In the past we may have welcomed that dependency as a sign that we were important and were fulfilling our role as light workers and as women.

But now it’s not such a good feeling when it comes up.  And that’s a good sign.  It’s a sign we are getting closer to understanding what love is about, and what it means to own our freedom.

Love is about self-acceptance and compassion for our self, first and foremost.

It’s not, I will love everyone else first, and whatever is left I will then use to love myself.  It’s loving ourself first, nurturing ourself first, and whatever is left over, then, and only then to share that love as it feels appropriate.

This of course goes against everything we were taught about love.

We are not here to regurgitate old ways of being and feeling.  We chose this arduous path for a reason.  Many of us wanted to experience a true love and a true freedom, a freedom which is our birthright.  But it took the bravest of souls to claim that freedom, and that love.

Our expanded self, our soul, our eternal self…whatever you want to name it…is already free, and is already in love with itself, and in love with us, its human counterpart.

IT’S SAFE

As the human we may never completely release the old wounds which led us into needing to over-nurture and take on emotionally what others are not willing to take on themselves.

But the good news is, we don’t have to be completely free of our past patterns.  We can, however, align ourselves more and more with our eternal counterpart.  And that part of us can take care of those wounds for us.

Allowing our soul to do its thing more and more is not dangerous.  It’s not going to hurt us.  It will actually make life easier for us.  Because our soul isn’t willing to compromise its own joy and freedom for anyone or anything.

For the human whose life has been largely built on compromise, it seems like a far-fetched proposition.  This freedom thing sounds unrealistic in a world in which love and compromise are synonymous.

But at this point, there seems to be a momentum pulling us more and more into doing less of that which does not bring us joy.  Even if the alternative is just some boredom.  Many of us will take our chances on feeling dispassioned rather than compromise our energies on anyone or anything that doesn’t line up with our soul.

And even those in our life, with whom we have established relationships, are sensing something different with us.  That’s good.  Don’t take it as a bad sign.  We are going to affect those around us.  It doesn’t mean we don’t love them, or care about them, but it does mean that we are discovering and putting into practice our new and improved perspective on love.

How they respond to that is not our problem.  Detaching from outcomes is good.  We are in a safe space now, because we are creating a 5th dimensional reality for ourselves.  Not for others.  They will need to do that for themselves as well, in their own time.

We are being coaxed into a new way of perceiving reality.  For each of us it’s an intensely personal experience, yet there are common denominators that connect us all.  One of which is that we can’t straddle both the old way of self-sacrifice and the new one of self-love indefinitely.