A friend who was facing cancer once spoke of her gratitude for a dirty gas station toilet to throw up in. I’ve never forgotten that image because it is a stark reminder of how easy it is to focus on what is not going right in your life rather than the simple gifts hiding in plain sight. Incredibly, needs are being met, even in the middle of chaos and challenge. A chair to sit in, the roof over your head, a pen between your fingers, a tree providing shade, the soothing purr of a cat.

A few years ago, as I was in the throes of parenting young kids through a pandemic and caregiving for my ailing father, I began to wonder if I was running out of love. My patience had grown razor-thin, and I felt like I was failing at parenting AND caregiving. Oh, and I was also thrashing through early sobriety. Panic attacks and hot flashes became daily occurrences, yet I hardly recognized the symptoms. I thought I was somehow immune to those lows, too strong to fail at such deceptively simple life demands. Every morning I would tell myself I wasn’t going to raise my voice at my kids that day, get frustrated with my father’s memory loss, or become short with my husband.

Mostly, I failed. Day after day after day.

Out of desperation, I started pondering love, my favorite subject. Love has been a constant in my life, showered unconditionally on me since I was a child. Keenly aware of the rare gift I’ve been given, I have long practiced conscious gratitude. But love itself was beginning to feel less tangible, and I wondered if my capacity to love had been capped since it had gotten harder to give and receive. 

Also, the larger world and many around me seemed to be in a constant state of panic, fear, and anger. Was the world’s love somehow running out? Could there be an end to love?

It’s not as if there is a central LOVE checking account, I reasoned, out of which we all draw funds, the balance getting lower and lower until, nope…sorry, all gone, the account is overdrawn and no more love available to you, over spender. 

If love is without end, eternal (and I believe it is), and life-giving, I didn’t need to manufacture it, to force my will on it. Instead, I needed to stop turning away from a source of goodness and holding fiercely to what was clearly not working. I softened my expectations, my reactions, and most of all my judgment of myself and my loved ones. Instead of trying to prove that I was capable! I could handle this! I tested love and allowed it to seep into the broken places, the cracks I was trying so hard to fill with plans, answers, discipline, daily caretaking, and schedules. Trusting that love was true and powerful, I handed over the controls. 

My new approach didn’t work immediately (and in all honesty, I continue to be a work in progress), but gradually I stopped feeling panicked and judgmental, and alone. I began to reach out to friends and the sober community, to take more walks and hikes, and to allow my children to be themselves instead of constantly directing them. My sense of humor returned, even to the point of gently joking with my dad about the hallucinations he was having because of a reaction to medication. Holy cow, I can elevate the dialog with my family rather than drag it into the mud of conflict! There was no getting out of bed in the morning unless I’d thought of five things to be grateful for, even as simple as having a bed in the first place (I highly recommend this practice; it sets a great tone for the coming day). 

Perhaps it comes down to simply realizing you are worthy of love, even with all your imperfections and failures and daily yelling (OK, I’ll admit it was daily screaming for a little while there). And if you are worthy, isn’t everyone else? Loving yourself does not have to be tied to ego, or forced, it’s more of a willingness, an opening. Allowing love takes strength, but so do rejection and judgment, and which of those two paths is more fun, anyway? 

“…you are not beyond love.”~ David Whyte