Stop Hoarding All the Love!
Have you ever noticed how much weight is attached to the words “I love you?”
It can make or break a relationship. Especially in the beginning.
Tell your lover “I love you,” don’t hear it back, and feel rejected and ashamed.
Or maybe your lover tells you “I love you” back and the relationship magically transforms into carrying all these expectations.
Expectation number 1: If you love me, you cannot leave me (no matter how you treat me over time).
Expectation number 2: If you love me, you cannot love anyone else. I am the one and only. Your love for someone else negates your love for me.
Expectation number 3: If you love me, you will become my everything: my best friend, therapist, housemate, play partner, co-parent, etc.
Whew, is anyone else sweating?
THAT’S A LOT OF WEIGHT.
No wonder folks hold onto the words “I love you” so tightly. No wonder why it feels so vulnerable to say these loaded words.
What if love didn’t have to feel so heavy?
What if it was light and fluffy?
You see, love is energy. It’s an emotion.
Image Source: "Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over." Your Health, edited by Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR, 30 Dec. 2013.
Emotions are literally just energy in motion. If you allow the energy to flow through your body, it will run its course in a matter of 90 seconds. That’s right. You can find relief knowing that emotions can’t last longer than 90 seconds. Can you take deep rhythmic breaths for 90 seconds? I believe in you :)
What is the impact of feeling an emotion (love) and holding it in? Remember how emotions are just energy in motion? Even suppressing one emotion can dilute the rest of your emotional experience. Holding back an emotion requires you to stiffen your energy. It’s like putting up a dam and not allowing the water to flow through. Except in this case, the water isn’t just love. It’s everything. Love, pleasure, guilt, shame, happiness, sadness, etc. Building up a wall to keep your energy to yourself gives you a predictable outcome - hiding your emotions keeps you from feeling vulnerable. But at what cost?
I find it fascinating how the human mind categorizes emotions into the binary of “good” or “bad”. In reality, emotions are just energy. Energy just is - it’s not good or bad. Anger doesn’t make you violent, for example. That’s an old narrative constructed by the hetero-patriarchy. There are infinite ways to express emotions (AKA - release energy from the body).
So if you’re suppressing your “bad” emotions, you’re also suppressing your “good” emotions. Cuz when you turn on that self defense and stiffen up your energetic aura, all of the energy is suppressed. So, then, when you do let your guard down and spill the words “I love you,” it can make you feel extremely vulnerable because ALL of your emotions are coming to the surface. The flood gates are open!
Now, let’s return to these heavy expectations that are attached to the words “I love you.”
Expectation number 1: If you love me, you cannot leave me (no matter how you treat me over time).
Expectation number 2: If you love me, you cannot love anyone else. I am the one and only. Your love for someone else negates your love for me.
Expectation number 3: If you love me, you will become my everything: my best friend, therapist, housemate, play partner, co-parent, etc.
Is it becoming clear to you how these heavy expectations put a lot of weight on love, thus encouraging you to hoard it?
This is rooted in an old paradigm. A paradigm where love is scarce. Love scarcity is a trauma response rooted in mono-normative, patriarchal violence. (More on this in an upcoming blog post. Subscribe to my newsletter to stay tuned.)
Love scarcity is a lie.
It’s a social construct. The truth is that love is abundant.
To embody abundant love, you must free the energy that runs through your body on a daily basis. Let go of resistance, let go of hoarding, and allow the energy to flow through you.
Human beings are like nodes. We are conductors of energy. We can hold onto energy and allow it to ferment in our bodies or we can relax our nervous system enough (through somatic grounding practices like meditation, breath work, EFT, dance, etc.) and allow them to flow freely.
What happens when you allow energy to flow freely through your body? Well, you become POWERFUL. You gain back agency in your life. You're no longer the victim to your emotions. You begin to live in more alignment with your values because you’re making conscious choices. You can choose to alchemize anger into love. You can choose what energy you wish to channel and who you wish to channel it with.
Did you just get the chills reading that? Because within American pop culture it’s truly revolutionary.
Befriend your emotions and become the master of your own life. You're in the driver's seat. Just imagine how much more energized you’ll feel throughout the day when you’re not exerting so much energy on suppressing and hiding. You start to live in alignment with your experience - your truth. You start living in integrity, which builds self trust and confidence.
I’m here to tell you love is abundant! And you can start living in alignment with that truth.
Here’s how to move from scarcity to abundance.
Old Paradigm: If you love me, you cannot leave me (no matter how you treat me over time).
New Paradigm: You can both love someone and hold boundaries with compassion.
I’ve definitely found myself using logic to remain in a toxic relationship at the expense of my spiritual/emotional health because “We love each other. What else am I supposed to do?”
The turning point for me was when I decided I loved myself too much to allow my father to treat me with disrespect and physical/emotional abuse. I both love my dad - my heart’s deepest desire is to connect with him on an emotional level. But - sigh - I have come to accept the difficult truth that he is unwilling to seek out his own healing. I can both love him and hold a boundary that I will not allow him to project his pain onto me. It’s simply not mine to hold.
It’s been 4 years since we’ve been estranged now. If I didn’t love him, it wouldn’t weigh on my heart so heavily. Yet, boundaries are “the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously” according to Prentis Hemphill. If I were to allow him to continue to abuse me, I wouldn’t be loving myself. And how much can I love someone else when I don’t have love inside of myself? Boundaries do not negate love. Boundaries are an act of love. Boundaries help sustain a relationship. Who knows? Maybe one day the space that I have gifted my father will help inspire him to tend to those wounded parts inside.
Old Paradigm: If you love me, you cannot love anyone else. I am the one and only. Your love for someone else negates your love for me.
New Paradigm: Love is abundant. It is the energy that creates life. You are surrounded by life force energy and you can tap into it at any moment. It does not deplete.
When a parent loves their first child, does it negate their love for their second child? Of course not. Then why would it be any different in romantic relationships? When someone is not allowed to allow the energy of love to flow freely through their vessel, it creates health problems. What if we celebrated our partners’ ability to feel and be in touch with their emotions? Now, that’s sexy!
If you feel is it not safe to express love in your environment, turn inwards. Love is abundant inside of your vessel. Here are some ways to channel love towards yourself:
Words of affirmation: Look into the mirror and speak to your inner child. “I see you. I’m proud of you. You are well. You are safe. Everything is going to be OK. I’ve got you. I love you.”
Physical affection: hug yourself every morning when you wake up, kiss your arms/hands, gently caress your face, grab some lotion and give yourself a foot massage, etc. Self touch produces oxytocin, the love hormone. Oxytocin reduces blood pressure and cortisol, which relieves stress. It also increases feelings of trust, safety, calm, connectedness and compassion.
Ritual/Routine: Following through with promises to yourself builds self trust. How do you want to wake up every morning? Choose one thing you can commit to to start your day: journaling, stretching, dancing, meditation, breathwork, EFT, etc. Your choice! Consistency helps you feel grounded, which is an act of service to yourself.
Gifts: Buy (or pick) yourself some flowers, gift yourself a bubble bath, a massage, acupuncture, etc. Pretend like you’re dating yourself - What would you want your lover to gift you?
Quality Time: Carve out a spot in your calendar to do things you LOVE to do. Some examples - hiking, singing, picnicking, cooking, reading, dancing, creating art, writing, masturbating, laying in the grass, etc.
Old Paradigm: If you love me, you will become my everything: my best friend, therapist, housemate, play partner, co-parent, etc.
New Paradigm: Love is an ocean. There are many fish in the sea.
The old paradigm is rooted in co-dependency and encourages enmeshment. Relying on one person to provide you with the majority of your needs is risky, unrealistic, and fosters resentment. Just think - if that person is unavailable for any reason (death in the family [emotionally unavailable], traveling for work [physically unavailable], exhausted after a long day of work [emotionally unavailable], etc.) it leaves you without access to the majority of your resources. That's a vulnerable place to be!
Social capital is also a form of wealth. When you have interdependent relationships with the entire community, you’re much more able to meet your needs when one of your resources is unavailable. Plus, your social health with thank you! Human beings are wired to be in community with one another. It’s how we’ve survived this long! Even if you’re introverted, social health is part of health.
Instead of measuring love by exclusivity, which is rooted in scarcity, what if you measured it by quality of connection?
In conclusion, I invite you to say “I love you” today. Tell your friends, your family, your pets, your loved ones, and just notice how your body feels.
Do you feel energized? Free?
Do you feel excited to be alive?
Afterall, what’s the purpose of life if it’s not to love?
