Whew, that was a doozie! Just spent 5 days knocked out flat with the flu. Yowza. But I’m back in the world of the living, and blogging! And I came across this quote this morning and it inspired today’s post…

You want to be loved because you do not love; but the moment you love, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you. ~ J. Krishnamurti

All I could think was Yes Yes Yes. This is the key to a joyful life. To love. To stop needing love and to be the lover. Start by loving yourself, I am always saying that but it is the key to all love I believe. Love yourself and when you are full up to the rim with love, true love starts to spill out of you and then the good stuff starts. Then you truly love. Then life is filled with joy and riches beyond belief because we are not walking around looking for love. Most of us spend our lives, unconsciously, looking to fill some hole, some need in us, maybe from some early wound, not enough love as a child, I’m no longer totally sure it matters what the reason. It mostly matters that as adults we fill that deep well ourselves. Otherwise our happiness is dependent on others, our moods are determined by how nice other people are to us, we live blown in the wind of other people’s ability to love, not the other way around. We must fill our own need for love to be able to truly love and truly live. We do this two ways, one is connecting to the infinite source of love. I call it the universe, others call it God, or Allah or Buddha or Great Spirit or probably 8700 other names. I believe they are all spokes of the same wheel. The source is unconditional love. Connect to that source. Sit silently in the woods or just picture the woods while you sit in your apartment on West 48th Street. As Van Morrison said, “It’s everpresent everywhere.” Love that. It will teach you how to love yourself. And that’s step 2. Love yourself unconditionally, radically freely, accept all your weaknesses and imperfections just as they are and love yourself. This is how we start a truly joyful life because once we have filled ourselves with love we have learned how to truly love and the world is such a different place when you walk around in it full of love.

Most of us spend our days hoping our spouse is nice, the dry cleaner smiles at us, that our kids are nice to us, etc. We need need neeeeed. We are walking the earth looking to be loved in big ways and small all day long. Our whole lives. When you can love yourself unconditionally, purely and totally, you fill that need and you awake each morning full. Shining. And you walk around giving love instead of looking for it. You smile at the dry cleaner, you are kind to your children, and they flourish, etc. Of course we all have our moments. My kids think I’m possessed by the devil some days as I slam around my kitchen. I’m a work in progress! And of course we all hope for good experiences in our days, but the truth is a decent percentage of the experiences we are having are caused by how much love we are putting out there. We might come across someone crabby, but then if we are gentle and give a little humor and love, most people soften right up (and if you’re self loving you wont really care about the few who don’t!). But there is a fundamental shift that can happen, a deep shift where once we fill our own need for love, once we know how to self love and to connect to universal love, we can truly love others for the first time. A love not based on need, but on giving. A love that is pure. And then, as the brilliant quote states, we don’t even really care who loves us. We care, one one level, of course. But in a deeper sense, no. We are free of the need for it to be reciprocated, fair, 50/50. That stuff is of the small soul. The big endless universal part of our soul just loves. And loves to receive love. But it doesn’t need it from others. It’s nice. But it’s not searching every face, every gesture, every relationship to find another nugget of love to plunk in its empty bucket. When we stop needing love and we love freely the whole world is a glorious place. A place where we don’t have to fear. Where we can live and love fearlessly and joyfully without worry about approval or loss. It’s a pretty gorgeous place to wake up to every morning. And it’s there for all of us, every day. It’s the real life. Where the good stuff starts.