At some point in your life, you have probably been cynical about love. In this context, "love" is usually romantic love, since most of the other kinds of love tend to fall off our collective radar screens entirely, and Hollywood and Harlequin romance novels reinforce this narrow view. So LOVE becomes love with a little "l," and eventually you have an experience that makes you think that love is a painful thing that you should probably avoid altogether.

We've all been there. We may have been embarrassed, rejected, dumped, cheated on, or treated like a plaything that's easily left behind once the thrill has worn off. If this happens often enough, we can get pretty darn cynical about love, which becomes equated with LOVE, and for some people, this can lead to bitterness, anger, and alienation. Unfortunately, it's very easy to put up emotional walls, but it's much harder to bring them down again.

The problem isn't really with LOVE or even love, however. The problem is that we are looking for LOVE in external places and, worse, we are expecting to get it that way. When that doesn't happen, we take it personally, as a referendum on our worth, and we feel a LACK of love. We project the inevitable upset that this causes us onto the person who, in our eyes, failed to give us what we need. And make no mistake:  we need LOVE. But it is not the responsibility of any other person to supply us with that.

Certainly, other people love us. We might wish that they loved us better, or expressed that love to us in a certain way, or behaved differently toward us, but these are just our expectations of how LOVE should look. Our expectations are usually unreasonable and ignore what is real:  the LOVE that is present and expressed to the best of another person's ability. And if someone does not love us, but we expect them to or even think we need them to, we are still chasing shadows. We are still seeing LACK in ourselves and looking to fill that hole from external sources.

Instead of seeking out validation from others that we are worthy and loveable, we must come to know these things for ourselves. When we feel devastated by the loss of someone's love (or a change in how that love expresses itself), we are experiencing our own lack of LOVE for ourselves. It is normal to be saddened by the break-up of any relationship, but if our self-esteem goes in the tank when the loved one goes out the door, we must take responsibility for what is ours. Blaming someone else for failing to recognize our worth is far easier than learning to recognize it for ourselves.

A cynic says, "Love hurts," but an open heart knows that "LOVE heals." Love heals when we drop our expectations of others, when we see what is given to us (however imperfectly), and when we understand that our worth is not defined by whether or how another person loves us. LOVE does not originate with the goodwill or tender affection of another, although it can certainly take that form. LOVE comes from within, from the source of All There Is. It is omnipresent, unchanging, and eternal. Remember.

Related articles:

• Opening the heart
• Is it love or attachment?
• Living as though you matter
• Making exceptions to Love