Years ago, it was obvious that one of my children was unhappy with me. I couldn't recall having done anything offensive, so I asked what was wrong.
āI feel like you donāt really care about me,ā he said.
āWhat makes you say that?ā I asked.
With a bitter tone he continued, āYou donāt love me any better than you love all those āReal Love people.ā
āSo what youāre saying is that I should give everyone else my B-grade love, but save the real stuffāthe A-grade stuffājust for you. Do I have that right?ā
He felt a bit silly, and we got through that moment.
Many people have complained that there was nobody they could really trust or feel loved by except me. I suppose I could feel flattered by such words, but Iām not, because I know what they really mean, and itās not about me.
If we have felt unloved and worthless for a lifetime, the pain is intolerable. Itās understandable that we would concludeāunconsciously, mind youāthat the cure for feeling worthless is to feel special. Weād want to find someone specialāa husband, a parent, a boss, the author of the Real Love booksāwhose āspecialā love will fill the enormous vacuum of our lives.
Regrettably, our insistence on special love makes it nearly impossible to feel unconditional love, because we have to prove ourselves to be special in order to earn this special love.
Whatās the solution to this need for special love? Simply to realize that we donāt need special love to fill our emptiness. We need only ENOUGH loveāunconditional, genuine love. We need to just be ourselvesāmistakes, weaknesses, and allāand accept the love we find from flawed people who are loving us as well as they can. And if we thoroughly trust them, our emptiness will be filled.
When weāre thirsty, we donāt need special water, just water. With love we need only to find it, drink it, trust it, treasure it, and remember it. And thatās how we find happiness.
Replace your anger & confusion with peace and happiness.
READ OR LISTEN TO: