Love isn’t sacrifice …

Love isn’t sacrifice

Love isn’t should’s or obligations

Love is doing something out of love

That feeling is expansive

That feeling is GOOD

When we sacrifice things for ‘love’ I don’t know, if sacrifice is the right word to truly describe something that’s a loving action. It’s not sacrifice when we are choosing love, out of love. Maybe I don’t have the words to explain what I mean, so I will use examples from my own life.

I think I relate to the words, when people say ‘love is sacrifice’ in a negative way. A way of shoulds. Obligations. Which can cause resentment. Especially when the person you have sacrificed for doesn’t reciprocate those same ‘sacrifices’. When what you would do for them, they you wouldn’t do for you. But to me that’s the wrong type of sacrifice, if it’s out of obligation or feeling like you should do something. A ‘sacrifice’ where you choose to be loving, to give love at the cost of something else, well that’s not a sacrifice because your love is worth more. So you can’t harbour resentment because you did it out of love because you wanted to. It felt good. It felt better.

But when we sacrifice because we feel we should. When we give something up that we want for someone because we feel we should, even though it’s not what we truly want, that doesn’t win for anyone. It can cause resentment. It can harbour feelings of resentment.

When I look back on a relationship, I feel I sacrificed a lot for it. And that triggers things in me, feelings I don’t want to share but one feeling I will address- resentment.

When I think of what I gave up, how I put this person first out of an obligation when they would never do the same for me, and now it’s over, I feel resentment. I feel, I could have handled things differently. Because a lot of those actions weren’t out of the right sort of love. The love that is so expansive and true that I wanted to do those things. I did them because I felt I should. And now I feel resentment. Bitter. Angry.

If I’d have done things out of love, not sacrifice and obligation. Perhaps things wouldn’t have ended the way they ended, I’m not necessarily in the right for doing all that I did, if it leaves me feeling so angry that they did not reciprocate. Sure, they never asked me to do those things. They never stopped me but… they could have done better, but is my love true when I resent that I gave it? When I feel bitter over it?

Another example… last year I messaged someone because I felt I ‘should’. That i should try. Make the effort. This person never replied to me. I actually can’t even remember if I was low-key pissed off or not but.. okay, bad example because I don’t remember. But I think I did bring it up to people that I love. That I’d messaged and they’d not replied. So I must have felt some type of way. But the truth is, this message hadn’t come out of love. Or genuine feelings of expansion. Love. That sort of thing. I did it because I thought I should try. Make the effort. And like I said. Should’s don’t bring wins! In my opinion, I intend to live from the heart, and for me, a lot of ‘should’s’ don’t really align with that. If I feel I should be doing something then… I’m not sure it’s for me.

But, take an example of love. A few weeks ago I messaged someone out of love. They didn’t reply to me but I actually don’t care. 1) I know we’re good and two. I didn’t message them out of anything other than the desire to give love from my heart. So the fact they didn’t reply to me doesn’t affect me, I gave love, they received it in whatever way was correct for them, and it’s all good. It came from a place of love, genuine, pure intentions. So it’s all good.

I don’t really have much else to say on this topic. I’m just pondering after meditation, delving into ‘silence’ (or attempting to) for thirty minutes. Obviously the mind chatters and I seriously need to take a detox from all things Taylor Swift because it’s not normal how much I think about her 😂 so! Anyway! I’m gonna do a couple other meditations / affirmations now. Let me know your thoughts. ❤️

A caption from an IG post a few weeks ago:

In service of my heart, irrelevant of logic, should’s, obligations or sacrifices

✨💫 ps this pic is from 2020 but I don’t think I shared it and I thought it was cool

And if you want to know the story behind this, other than the fact I found this photo of me 😉 I ended up stopping somewhere on a journey home, a place which technically I’d prefer to boycott, but my heart said yes to visiting there this eve. And the thing is, yes, I am boycotting them. But my heart told me to go, and who knows, well, I do. We were clearly supposed to go there that evening, maybe the staff who was working that evening needed us, maybe our smile made her day (not that I actually went in and smiled at anyone, but you catch my drift). Our heart is the compass! (Inspired by White Buffalo Calf Woman from the Divine Feminine Deck by Meggan Watterson- our heart being the compass). Also, photo mentioned I can’t upload because I currently don’t have any storage space on my WordPress to upload new pics. Need to change that. 😉 you can find it on my IG though, if you fancy… @AphroditesKiss555 x