When love doesn't love you back: Loving yourself even when they can't love you

                                  

“Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.”

—	Meša Selimović

     Grab your Ben and Jerry's and Nicholas Sparks movies, It's about to get pretty "hopeless romantic-y". Initially, when thinking of love, the majority of us see it as something along the lines of two individuals who act as both each other's strengths and weaknesses in the most flattering way possible; what one is lacking, the other one makes up for. It's not the fact that she seems to have it all put together or that he was dead set on what he wanted to be when he grew up at the age of 10 that intrigues you, but all the kinks, quirks, loose screws and the fact that she despises that one hair that always falls out of place or that he stumbles over his words when he's nervous are the senseless things that somehow causes you to look at them as if they are the finest of wines. Love always seems to be a 'two-man-band', a dynamic duo, a personification of the "two peas in a pod" sentenia. But what happens when love is one sided? Much less glamorous huh?

Personally, I've been there several times... twice to be exact. It's as if my heart caters to the land of hopeless romantics and unrequite is our national anthem. One of my biggest mistakes however, was allowing others' inability to love me, alter my love for myself. I then also convinced myself that both love and men suck and protested the fact that I was going to live on my own on an island with 2 horses, 5 dogs, adopt an Etheopian child and have our food air-dropped to us. (This is no exageration, I often teater off the edge of melodramatic)
Truth is,  just because someone is unable to love you does not mean you are the problem, nor are you unlovable, and should not allow heartach to chagne your preception of yourself or love in itself. The heavinness you are feeling is not directly tied to love but to the failure of it to be returned. Love is not your enemy nor is it the cause of your pain; love is not a negative.

Un-doing the funk:
First things first, I realized I had to not only tell myself that my worth is not placed in the hands of others, but actually believe it.

Unfortunately, simply telling yourself is much easier than convincing yourself but with consistancy, it is no less than possible. Making a contious effort to remind yourself of what makes you lovely is key; remind yourself of all the reasons you should be loved and why you absoulutely deserve love. Remember the fact that there are people who love you; I've said in a post once before, the man who hung the stars for crying out loud loves and has never stopped persuing you, you are of the highest royalty, you belong to the King of kings and Lord of lords and THAT is the only place in which you should be finding your worth. Not in the stained hands of blind and misguided mortality. Also keep in mind, Royalty sees royalty. Someone who truly desreves you will be able to see your value undoubtedly, the first time around.

Another thing which needs to be understood is the fact that you have absolutely no control over whether or not someone falls for you and and quite frankly, neither do they. If that something simply is not there for them, they cannot force themselves to love you and to ask that of them or for them to attempt to would be unfair on the behalf of both parties. No matter which way you twist and turn it, forced 'love' is not love at all.

And with that being said, I'll leave you with this:
"You are what you love, not who loves (or fails to love ) you."

~ Nathia

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