“I love you.”
“And how do you love me?”
“I love you as you are.”

It’s a fallacy really.
A lie told to one’s self.
To believe that we see someone clearly enough to love them “as they are.”
We like to think that we can see people clearly.
Our parents, our kids, our lovers, our life partners and friends….

Our ego tells us that we see people for their best.
We see them as their highest self.
We see the good in them.
We see their potential.

And maybe we do.
And maybe we don’t.
And more likely, maybe we can’t.

We like to think that we know the people that are closest to us.
And I suppose that we often get close to knowing those closest.
And close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

So, what do I mean?
What is all this about?

It is about the truth that how we see someone else is completely veiled by everything we have experienced up to now.
Good, bad, and ugly.
We see those around us behind the veil of all our past programming.

We started as a clean slate,
Tabula Rasa.
A computer devoid of any software.
Just the pure consciousness and biological bag of mush that we came into this world with.
And as we grew we accepted the truths that were around us.
The truths of our environment, our religion, our parents, our culture, our society.

We began labeling things as “good” or “bad.”
Emotions, behaviors, desires…
We took traumas on that our parents never healed, or theirs before them.
We internalized wrongs done upon us, often accepting them as wrongness within us.
Not enoughness, not worthy.
Because why else would someone abandon me?

At a young age we don’t understand the complexity of the world, so our brain makes up the story to make sense of it.
We don’t understand that it has nothing to do with us, it has to do with the pain that person is experiencing, and the pain they are carrying from their own childhood.
Pain that wasn’t theirs either, that their little brain made up a program around, and a narrative.

“I don’t deserve…love, acceptance”
“I don’t belong, fit in…”
“I’m not important, special…”

Their unworthiness and not enoughness is then passed down from one generation to the next.

In the name of survival, our brain started compiling programs.
Narratives around why the things around us are happening.
It sorts and sifts and creates lists of “whys” related to its own experience.

“This behavior gets me this….I’d like more of that” – good
“This behavior got me that….I don’t want that experience again” – bad

All this happening unconsciously before we even know how to read chapter books, AND PREDICATED on the response, more accurately REACTION, of those around us,
Meaning we implicitly accept the world view and actions of others.

And we layered and uploaded all of these programs into the greatest calculator known to man.
The human brain.
More neural connections than stars in the Milky Way.

These programs were set and installed by the time you were 7.

And as we grow, each time a new experience occurs, our brain cues the appropriate program, the one created when we were sorting and sifting how to get through life as a child.

Over the years these programs run.
Uninterrupted often.
For years.
We gravitate towards situations and scenarios that keep us away from the dreaded TRIGGER.
We avoid this person, we stay away from that situation, because it TRIGGERS our past hurt or everything we have labeled as “bad.”

And often we should, especially if we are not willing to face the pain that can be our past.
Especially if we are too tender to face whatever burdens were passed down to us, forced upon us, taken out on us.

We often don’t realize we’re triggered and we say things like “I don’t like that person” or “that’s just not for me.”
Unconscious words we utter that are part of the programs that we installed and never upgraded.
Those patterns and programs run uninterrupted and create a strong neural pathway, complete with neurotransmitters and hormones that give you the full experience.

That program, whatever program it is, may run your WHOLE LIFE.
Do you ever see patterns emerging over and over again for you?
It’s one of your inaccurate and now inappropriate computer programs.
And you just need an upgrade my friend.
Which isn’t easy.

The only difference between a grave and a rut, is the depth.
And these thought grooves get traveled over and over and over again across the years,
Creating deep ruts within our subconscious,
Creating strong neural connections, that often we travel all the way to our graves.

We are no longer on our own path,
And possibly we never were.
We are on the path set forth by programming we incurred before we could complete long division…

So who’s path are you walking?
Be terrified that you are on someone else’s path,
Be terrified that it’s a pre-determined program.
And use that fear to question everything.
Question every story and truth you have been telling yourself.

Like a curious and brilliant scientist, start fresh in every moment with a new hypothesis about how the experiment may turn out.
Instead of sitting in fear and anxiety that it will turn out as it has in the past.
Again…not easy.

Alas I circle back to the fallacy of saying, “I love you as you are.”

NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU AS YOU ARE.
Because no one will every truly understand who you are.

They can make a best guess.
And that guess will always be based off their own experience.
Their own programming.
Their own thought grooves.

A cruel and beautiful plight that we all walk as humans.
No one will ever understand fully who we are.

No matter how much I write to express the depth of my emotion, the peaks of my joy, the fullness of my love and the hurricane forces of power and emotion within me, my words will always pale compared to the experience within.
Like trying to describe a mountain vista, a wooded glen, a beautiful painting…words will never do it justice.

It is my experience alone to feel.

I can try to express who I am. I can try to be understood.
And many have done this before me.
Through great story, rhyme, song, poetry, film….
For millennia we humans have attempted to communicate our experience of this grand life.
Attempted to help you know me.
Attempts to be understood, seen, and heard in OUR human experience…
To be recognized, loved, accepted, understood, known and SEEN.

To love someone is NEVER about loving them AS THEY ARE.
We love people AS WE ARE.

I don’t love you AS YOU ARE.
I love you AS I AM.

No one can ever truly know you.
Only you can.
Make it your life mission.
Every trigger, every thought groove, every moment of discomfort are clues and moments for you to get to know you…
Again, I implore you to make it your life mission.
So that when you get to your grave, it’s not by way of a rut,
It’s by way of a new path, a fresh experience, a curiosity and a lightness of joy and play.
Never knowing the outcome, and choosing to walk the path anyway.
Like the curious scientists.

Take your own hand and walk the path less traveled,
Write new programs,
Wake up to your unconsciousness,
Go down the rabbit hole of your own self discovery.
Take the red pill.

Your path is illuminated and reflected by those around you.
So love all of it, love all of them, choose your path wisely and not without conscious intention.

And know that we cannot ever love someone as they are.
We can only love them as WE ARE.
So love your self.
Know your self.
Hug and nurture your self.
And those that do the same for them selves will naturally align with you.
And you’ll get to share, reflect, and enjoy this wondrous thing called life!

What a joy, what a wonder, what a wonder filled life.

How well do you know your self? What cycles do you find your self repeating? Drop it in the comments, loves!