Category: Love

  • To be loved…truly

    To be loved…truly

    Three things that make us whole…

    To be seen… Beyond the facade. To have the essence of who we are, known to those we trust and hold dear.

    To be heard… Not only when we cry out, but also when we speak gently of the troubles in our heart.

    To be loved… For more than how we make others feel, but to be loved for what we need in return, without having to claim it.

    In that order, because a voice without an identity is not a voice. It’s only a whisper in the wind.

    A face without a voice is only window dressing, or a trophy. And not a complete being.

    And love… Love without a reciprocal embrace…an embrace of what we hold within, as well as what we willingly give, is an empty love that taints towards bitterness, rather than beauty.

    Love beyond lust or infatuation is rare. True love is never abandoned.

    I see you. I hear you. I love you. Three of the most valuable gifts you could ever give. But, you cannot give what you don’t have. For this reason, you must first see, hear, and love who you are, before you will be able to share it with another.

  • Yearning for a simple life

    Yearning for a simple life

    Life is simple, but it’s not easy.

    It becomes complicated when we look for the easy way out.

    Doing the right thing is often complicated by our concern for the consequences with those around us.

    The greater our emphasis on those consequences, the more complicated life becomes because we have that much more to consider before we hold true to our convictions.

    Often, it’s the easiest way to lose sight of our convictions, or finding reason to compromise it until it becomes an empty shell of what we once believed to be sacred.

    A simple life, by definition, would lack such complexity.

    But in that lies the demand for courage and clarity of thought.

    The clearer our thinking, the easier it is to muster up our courage.

    Courage is therefore contaminated by an unhealthy fixation on potential outcomes.

    Worse still, by preempting outcomes and changing our convictions to avoid conflict, we deny others the opportunity to grow by protecting them from the truth that we hold within us.

    Thus, life threatens to be complicated, and unfulfilled, because what we express on the outside ceases to resonate on the inside.

    And finally, this opens the door for a bitterness or regret that can no longer be expressed because we surrendered our peace for a painful compromise.

    Hold on to your truth, and allow others the space to deal with the awkwardness of their insecurities as they slowly learn to embrace a new understanding.

  • Judge me fairly

    Judge me fairly

    How often do we build pedestals for people and then judge them for sitting on it?

    Judgement is inevitable. It’s how we make sense of our world.

    But are we aware of the basis of our judgement?

    When we judge anyone or anything, it’s based on our past experiences with troubled souls, and not on the present moment.

    The moment we shift our attention to the present moment, we’ll find ourselves seeking to understand, rather than to judge.

    That understanding will allow us to shift the basis of our judgement in future, because it allows us to test the knowledge that we gained from our past.

    The moment we avoid understanding, we’re responding to the fear of reliving a painful experience, rather than creating a new experience.

    Oh, gentle soul, many moments of beauty and joy are lost because of such fear.

    Sometimes, an entire lifetime of joy can be discarded because we lose sight of the fear that drives us, and believe it to be our conviction to protect ourselves from a cruel world.

    Slow down, beloved. Breathe. You’re in this moment because you rose above your past. Let that be the pedestal from which you look to your future.

  • Only you

    Only you

    “I’ve been incompatible with anyone else since I met you.”

    Sometimes, without warning, someone enters your life and challenges every assumption you ever made about what’s possible.

    What you thought you deserved was limited to what you were capable of achieving up to that point, and maybe just a quiet desire to acquire some peace beyond it.

    Until they see in you what you thought was your own delusions, and you see in them what you thought were only your dreams.

    Once you connect with that truth, nothing can convince you that anything less is what you must settle for.

    Settling becomes a vulgar thought, and fulfilment becomes incomplete without them.

    When that happens, the distance between love and torture grows, and you find yourself stretched between the two, with only shards of sanity to prevent you from being torn apart.

    Those shards will tear at your dreams and taunt your delusions until their embrace is secured.

    Until then, life becomes a dyslexic dance with insanity, and love remains elusive.


  • The beauty of perfection

    The beauty of perfection

    The beauty of perfection escapes the bitter heart.

    Bitterness is the toxin that we hold on to after we experience a betrayal of our trust in another.

    Sometimes that trust is so dear, that we hold on to the poison of its mishandling to protect ourselves from ever being vulnerable to such hurt again.

    Sadly, in doing so, we also deny ourselves the opportunity to experience the beauty that may be the remedy to heal the wound of that unkind betrayal.

    Thus, we anchor ourself in the same past that we wish we could forget, or undo.

    Inevitably, the ones who offer the beauty that we need to breathe fully again are the ones who receive the caustic treatment intended to protect us from such future pain.

    Without realising it, we pay the pain forward, and become part of the cycle that stole our innocence by destroying the innocence of another.

    Break the cycle, beautiful soul. Break the cycle. It will raise your station above the toxic one so that you won’t find yourself looking at the world from their vantage point any longer.

  • Allow healing to begin

    Allow healing to begin

    Don’t wait for someone to speak of your pain before you allow your wounds to heal.

    Your wounds will fester and taint everything around you as you look for reason to feel appreciated for the struggle that you have endured, or may still be enduring.

    You may even convince yourself that your struggle is important enough to be noticed by those important enough to you.

    But, while waiting for them to notice your pain, you suffer.

    You stop noticing what is being tainted by your festering wound.

    And each time you glare at them, looking for evidence of understanding, and only sometimes finding sympathy instead, you look within and notice that sympathy is only ever a dressing to cover the wound, but never to heal it.

    Sympathy only provides a comfortable space in which to nurture the wound, but doesn’t cure it.

    A wound caused by betrayal can only be healed through an accepting embrace.

    An embrace of everything you were before being wounded, and an embrace that loves everything you are capable of being despite your wound.

    An embrace that sees you beyond your wounds, and reconnects you with every innocent belief that you held true, deep within, before that unkind cut gouged your soul.

    There is beauty and peace beyond that wound. But only if you allow its healing to be administered by a heart other than the ones who betrayed you.

  • For the love of peace

    For the love of peace

    The night is only as peaceful as the day’s indulgence, and the day’s indulgence is only as focused as the reflections of the night.

    What we court in quiet moments reflects our beliefs, but what we pursue in our efforts with others reflects our convictions.

    When the two are aligned, sleep becomes a spiritual experience, and love…love becomes a way of life.

    When the two are in conflict, life becomes torturous, and love…love becomes our enemy.


  • The nuance of a good life

    The nuance of a good life

    It’s not the blatant acts of disrespect or rejection that hurt us the most, it’s the subtle gestures that leave room for doubt or interpretation that leave deep scars.

    Nuance thrives in those subtle gestures because nuance is what allows us to avoid conflict, or resist commitment. It allows us a graceful exit for just-in-case so that we can claim that we didn’t mean it that way, or that they misunderstood.

    Nuance is the art of saying more than you’re willing to say without actually saying it. Like the subtle brush of your hand against your partner in company when a full-blown embrace or heavy patting may be frowned upon. Or perhaps when you smile a half smile and don’t return the kiss to avoid an argument.

    Nuance allows us to test boundaries, and to test our significance in someone else’s life. We throw subtle hints about what we want, but won’t speak out openly about it because we don’t want to create reason for doubt within ourselves about whether they responded out of obligation, or because they sincerely wanted to make us happy.

    Nuance allows us to see if someone is ready to accept what we want to offer, without actually offering it, so that we protect ourselves from a hurtful rejection.

    There are parts of who we are that we’ve embraced so fiercely that no amount of ridicule will ever shame us about it. But there are parts of ourselves that we hide because we want to only give that one special person the power to handle it. It defines the sanctity of who we are, and solemnises the trust that we wish to place in them.

    It’s a vulnerability that we embrace and cherish because in its handling lies the essence of the bond that we wish to share with that special one.

    It’s the expectation willingly courted that holds the joy of fulfilment if fulfilled, or destroys hope if left hopelessly ignored.

    Once spoken, doubt is subdued and expectation justified.

    The unspoken word has destroyed more hope and created more angst than any revelation of love, or its denial.

    If left unspoken, it remains a torture within, without any claim to relief from the one in whose hands your joy rests, waiting to be roused into being.

    Perhaps it is in our efforts to protect ourselves or others through withholding what we don’t wish to impose on them that we destroy the very joy that we hope they will find without us, or us without them.