Friday, August 20, 2021
Love is sacrificial. Love is a skill. Love is educational. But when we sacrifice too much, when we give up on ourselves in the hopeless attempt to please and help others, love’s energy dies on the vine. The true self can only tolerate so much self-sacrifice before it awakens and stirs the soul. Any relationship that feels overly sacrificial is contributing to the decay of the truth, the truth of self-love. The false self will try to suffocate the truth of who you are. But the true self, the one that really wants to be known to you, to be able to express its uniqueness in the world, will eventually prevail. It always breaks through the prison that we build around it, in our self-denying obsession with making others happy.
The truth of who you need to be, what you need to do, and where you need to go in this world wants to be revealed to you, if you don’t sacrifice the space of inner discovery. In other words, don’t lose yourself in the needs, the pain, and trials of others. They are going through their own trials to learn the same lesson you’re trying to learn, but let life teach them. You cannot protect those that you love from themselves, from their own obsessive over-thinking, and from their own self-betrayal. You can only protect yourself from such nonsense.
Total denial of your inner, self-expressive love, will never help you love others more. Self-denial is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is giving up something that’s important to you, for the sake of love, but doesn’t create a total breakdown of inner attentiveness. Total and constant denial of your own needs will only make you feel empty and withered on the inside. Pay attention to how your true self wants to break through, to teach you the skill of real love, and to open your eyes to the beauty and wonder of who you are! Don’t sacrifice your inner path to self-love, for the sake of others. They need you to be stronger than that, and to set the example, so they can break through their own trials of self-denial.