Self focus or Love? – 2017-11-01
Often
Self focus can look like making mountains out of molehills…
Love can look like making molehills out of mountains…
Self focus can look like winning at all costs;
Love can look like doing your best, playing to win, and being satisfied with the results – win or lose.
Self focus can look like fixing everyone else to take the light off your deficiencies (yes, we all have them);
Love can look like working on your own stuff so you can be a be a better part of the relationship.
Self focus can look like twisting words or refusing to hear others’ voice and heart;
Love can look like hearing, compassion, and recognizing that our timing, our goals – no matter how altruistic they may appear – are not loving if someone else must bear the burden for our actions.
Self focus can look like boundary-busting, refusing to recognize others’ boundaries and needs;
Love can look like recognizing and honoring boundaries of others.
Self focus can look like walking all over someone when they are down;
Love can look like bringing a glass of cool water, a bucket of bandaids and sitting beside someone when they are down
Self focus can look like playing God: judging, criticizing, condemning;
Love can look like extending a hand, an encouraging word, a hearing ear, a loving heart.
Self focus can look like disdain for someone who is down and unable to meet our needs;
Love can look like someone who has been down, and knows the comfort of hope extended by love when they were there, love can look like loving even when the other person has hit bottom, and has been so emptied, they have nothing left to give.
When I look in the mirror each morning, I ask, do I look like my self, or do I look like love? The face I work on most in the mirror is not the external face, but the internal that is visible only to those who choose to love deeper…