15 September 2021 — LOVE IS IN THE AIR

The first verse of the song by John Paul Young reads:

‘Love is in the air everywhere I look around/love is in the air every sight and every sound/I don’t know if I’m being foolish, I don’t know if I’m being wise/but its something I must believe in/and its there when I look in your eyes/Love is in the air in the whisper of the trees, love is in the air in the thunder of the sea/but I don’t know if I’m dreaming, I don’t know if I feel safe. but its something I must believe in, it’s there when you call out my name.’

I’m fortunate to have a few friends for whom the words of the song ring true in that seeing them or hearing from them makes me feel good and I care very much about them.

However, at the very outset LOVE starts with one’s self — if we do not love ourselves, then the reaction we are likely to crave from others is one which makes us feel we are special to them. We cease then to be our own person and are unlikely to feel at peace with ourselves.

The question arises ‘How can we expect others to love us if we do not love ourselves?’ ACCEPTANCE, ENDURANCE, FORBEARANCE are perhaps key words here which leads to the understanding that we do not have to be PERFECT in order to be loved or loveable and to judge and criticise ourselves is the OPPOSITE OF LOVE and achieves absolutely nothing other than to make us feel bad and lacking in SELF ESTEEM.

To LOVE ONE’S SELF WARTS AND ALL IS THE KEY to being able to love our surroundings and the people around us without judgement.

PONDER POINTS: The times when I felt love WAS all around have been…. how I feel about the idea of loving myself warts and all is ….I feel I have been able to love myself warts and all when ….the times when I am critical of myself are …