Unraveling the twists

Love can't be turned off, or on. It just is.

I like to remember that God loves us all, and that it is unconditional by its nature. Some religions teach conditions that must be met to receive his love, but I don't believe in those religions. I believe we are created in his likeness, and that what he is is love.

I do not need to insist on who will receive my love, nor who will extend their love to me. I can't really help loving, it just happens. If a condition of my love is me being in pain, then there is something else going on besides just love. If the person I am with can't stop abusing me, it is my job to move on. The pain the abuse causes blocks me from being able to feel free to express my love. That is toxicity, not love. It may be familiar, but it isn't love.

I don't, and can't, pretend the pain isn't there in some relationships anymore. I can, and do, avoid relationships where pain is present. Pain is not love. Nor is pressure or abuse love. When some form of a twist or turn has come into a relationship which blocks love, maybe the love blinds me for awhile from seeing the twist, or the condition. In those cases, I need to question the twist, not the love. Words saying one thing versus actions telling another story is a simple example of a twist. And it is a twist that can't be straightened out.

Love, in and of itself, doesn't hurt. Its the not having it reciprocated that causes the pain. In my case, "she doesn't love me!" If I want to be loved by someone who can't or doesn't love me, that is a twist that I try to ignore by insisting that love is present. Pretending that a lie I tell myself is true, rather than accepting the actual truth which is that I love someone who can't love, or at least doesn't love me. Many people live their wholes life being chased by this delusional thought system. But we don't have to!

I first learned about love as a child. I couldn't express, or understand the dynamics of it, but I was taught about it. I learned that love included abuse. I learned that love included pain. I was told I was loved. It didn't occur to me as a child that mom didn't love me. I just knew she did. I also knew she was mean and abusive sometimes. Through that twisted dynamic a message was learned by me about what love is....therapy helped me see these things. I still have more undoing what was done to do, lol.

We all get many chances to learn these things. And I think narc was put into my life to help me learn about love. And to learn about forgiveness. Funny, huh. Learning about love and forgiveness from someone who can't. We all want to feel loved, but somewhere along the path between childhood and where we are now things get twisted up. Maybe in that we aren't all that different from narcs. We have a hard time recognizing and letting go of toxic things, insisting instead that they be different.

I think that recovery is really about unraveling...unwrapping what we have learned, putting it all out on a table in front of us, and really looking at it. Examining it all, and finally taking the time and effort to challenge ourselves to look at what it is we really believe, and what we really know. And see how we have been operating under a false belief system learned as children.

Being a victim, believing we are victims, ignores reality. Being a victim is actually believing a story we tell ourselves about the past. Today, right now, those stories mean nothing. We choose the life we have.

Perhaps all of the conditions of our life can't be changed in one moment, but decisions can be made now that will change all of the conditions of the life we have into the future. All of our yesterdays got us to today. But decisions and actions made now will forever change our potential future. The paths that lead forward from here are infinite, and made that way out of the love that our creator has for each of us. We do have free will!

ds