For the first forty years of my life, I was not very good at love.
I often felt disconnected in my relationships and wondered whether others even liked me. It’s no surprise I would struggle to love others if I thought no one loved me back.
I still remember being 20 years old and standing in the kitchen of my childhood home, ready to dedicate the next year and a half of my life to being a missionary, and I had one really big concern…
“I think I’m supposed to love people to be a good missionary…and I don’t.”
I couldn’t even love the people at home. How could I love people in a different country?
I felt like an imposter. Like I had some major deficit that was sure to be my downfall.
Up until that point, I made up for my inability to love by overachieving so other people would love me first. But now I was suddenly faced with being thrown into a whole new world where none of my past achievements had any currency whatsoever. I could no longer fake it or earn it in the same way.
So I resolved then and there to work on love.
And I did.
ALL FROM MY HEAD.
I thought about it.
I studied it.
I memorized inspiring quotes about it.
I affirmed it.
And I trusted that if I just dedicated myself to serving others, eventually, my heart would open.
So did it work?
Only to a point.
I gave it my all, but I still had so much judgment of myself and others underneath all that mental trying.
It would take me another twenty years to realize that love wasn’t something I could work on from my mind alone.
So what has made all the difference for me, personally?
So many things…
Letting go of judgment in the ways I see myself and others and practicing acceptance has been a huge part of it.
And perhaps the biggest shift has come from learning to work with love from the level of the body and nervous system too.
Instead of trying to make myself more loving, I’ve learned to create the conditions where love feels accessible.
This has created bigger shifts than mental effort alone ever did.
I was recently interviewed by Leanne Austin of the More Lovin podcast, and we had a dynamite conversation all about love. One of my favorite moments is when we get into conditional and unconditional love—and why we actually need both. We talk about how to create the conditions where love can thrive.
Mother Nature has been the best teacher for me here, and I love getting to share my discoveries from this new perspective.
If you’ve ever struggled with love, then this episode is definitely for you.
Enjoy!
Namaste,
brooke
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