“What I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and mess. That’s all any of us can do. That’s what we’re here for.” ~ Shauna Niequist

Until we have become whole, we will attract those who are meant to teach us lessons about who we are.

This isn’t about just learning to love who we are, but about welcoming each and every part of ourselves without shying away from the aspects we see as contradictions.

To love is a journey that first begins with the formation of our true self.

While many of us have grasped the idea that there is no one out there who can truly be our other half, we still are learning lessons about ourselves or who we choose to be with.

Every single one of us is on a different path, with different philosophy about love. Yet we all have similar lessons to learn.

To be whole means that we’ve discovered the truth about who we are. Not who we have been told we are, or who we have been conditioned to be—but our truest self—apart from anyone else’s expectations.

This means that we have to make the conscious choice to follow our intuition—our hearts will lead us in an authentic direction. This can be one of the most difficult aspects of life, because we are taught to consider others in our choices.

But in reality, we are not living our life for anyone else.

Until we can feel comfortable with who we are, then we will continue to attract individuals who teach us lessons about ourselves.

Personally, part of my journey toward love has involved learning that sometimes what I thought I wanted was the very thing I didn’t need. I was raised as the “good girl.” I never wanted to disappoint my loved ones and I upheld the conservative norms that were expected of me. But during this period of my life I never stopped to actually consider whether my actions truly aligned with who I was. It was easier to continue blindly doing what I thought I should, instead of stopping to whether it what I really wanted.

So at the time, I didn’t attract a whole person, but another half who was meant to cause chaos and upheaval in my life forcing me to awaken to who I wanted to be.

It wasn’t easy and it also wasn’t the end of my journey or lessons on self-love.

To be able to identify as whole we first have to discover exactly what we are made of, and what our purpose is here on Earth. For many of us, we can only experience these lessons with someone who reflects back our insecurities and our past wounds.

One time I chose a man who was emotionally unavailable, because I hadn’t yet become comfortable with my own truth or ask for exactly what I needed.

Honestly, I still hadn’t accepted the truth of what I wanted, so I didn’t expect anyone else to either.

I desperately tried to blend in and fulfill his needs, swallowing down my own truth, and start on the path of traditional love, fulfilling the typical pinnacle moments that many identify as lasting love, such as marriage and children.

Yet, no matter how much I tried to utter the words he needed to hear, I just never could.

I was just a half, trying to find completion by fulfilling the needs of another. I was trying on his capes that I was never meant to wear. Instead I finally made the choice to take them off and become the woman who I really was all along.

Truthfully, I had been scared of her for a long time.

She was different, her thoughts didn’t align with what everyone else was doing and it seemed that what she wanted things that didn’t exist. This woman didn’t just dance to the beat of her own drum; she flat out created her own music. The most frustrating aspect of her was that even to me, she never made sense.

She was wiser than her years and experiences. She didn’t fit into one box comfortably, and seemed to enjoy so many things that it was impossible to decide which her favorite was.

But one evening, I sat her down and looked her in the eyes, realizing that in order to become whole, I needed to accept her.

I needed to love her exactly for who she was, and instead of trying to fit her into someone else’s life, I needed to let her create her own life.

This isn’t an act that was done overnight, or without tears or heartbreak but once we let ourselves balloon out in our entirely whole, beautiful selves, we will finally be in the position to welcome another whole individual into our lives.

We won’t try fitting into their molds, or cutting their sharp corners in an attempt to make them fit into ours. We simply will finally be in a place to accept another exactly for who they, because we have learned to accept ourselves for who we truly are.

Until we have made the choice to love who we really are—contradictions and all—we will continue to attract those who only love a fraction of ourselves.

Relephant:

One of the best things in life:

~

Author: Kate Rose

Image: Deviantart/Chris Hay 

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock