Baseline Love
When and how do we learn “baseline” unconditional love, and what does “baseline” mean, and “unconditional love” mean?
I have come to understand in my 39 years of life how impactful unconditional love is from a parent. I have come from a divorced home- and was raised by my mom. She showed me that no matter what I did, or what I said, or who I was- that she would love me regardless, unconditionally. She also shows that to others in her life. Her love is unconditional.
I witnessed that and fought it through my teen years. I also grew up with an absentee father. As a girl, growing up without a father, I really didn’t feel that impact at the time. I do recall moments of jealousy with my girlfriends whose fathers were at their soccer games or took them fishing on the weekend. But I had such a stable love in my mother, that I had a baseline of what unconditional love meant.
But as I grew and developed into a young woman, I did not know what a baseline of unconditional love meant from a man. I didn’t have a father to wipe my tears away, comfort me, tell me I was his girl, or tell me how proud he was of me. I had no baseline of love from my dad, and so I had to figure that out on my own.
I thought getting love from a man, was giving yourself to a man. To be wanted, liked, desired meant you had to be submissive to whatever it was he wanted and needed. I didn’t know my worth in the eyes of a man, and as a teenage girl, developing your worth early on is so important.
I didn’t have boyfriends; I saw myself as the “funny fat friend” throughout my adolescent years. I didn’t have much value because I wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough, wasn’t on the dance team, couldn’t buy the gap clothes, so I compensated in ways at the time I felt were right. I was my own guide then, and I need to figure out what it was to get others to like me. And then love me.
How do you understand how to receive love from a man, when you’ve never known it?
I had male role models in my life who were supportive, not consistent but a positive influence on my life. However, I didn’t know how to receive it- the supportive, encouragement. I didn’t know how to receive anything from a man really.
So how was I able to receive love from a man? Honestly, I am still figuring that one out.
And while figuring out baseline unconditional love from a man, I am divorcing my husband of eleven years.
He was my baseline love, and he did a damn good job of showing me it- but it wasn’t enough.
I look back at why I married him then- when I was twenty-seven.
Most of the men I “dated” were unstable or didn’t have the drive and desires I did in my early twenty’s. I graduated from college, bought a home, worked two jobs to pay the bills. I was a hustler then. I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. I was brainwashed into checking the boxes off in life. I wanted the picket fence, the husband, the kid, and the happy little family.
I signed up for that. I signed up for stability, safety, comfort, and Dave and those 11 years of marriage were most of that. I climbed the corporate ladder, literally had a white picket fence, and had a son. It all looked nice on the outside, and it wasn’t even bad on the inside.
That’s the thing. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t have a turmoil marriage, I didn’t have an abusive partner or a dead-beat dad. I just didn’t feel fulfilled. Like, there must be more to life than 40 hours a week checking off boxes for someone else, and then the rest of the hours in the week are spent checking off boxes for others. Mainly society. Having to be the perfect mom. Have a clean home. Have a well-decorated home, nice clothes, fancy cars, toys, etc. life.
Having checked off the boxes and realizing that it was eating me alive made me one resentful, angry bitch. And I am so serious about that. I was a bitch to many, and I blamed others for the way my life was unfolding.
So as the crazy year of 2020 started, I quit that corporate job, started my own business, had health issues, lost two family members to addiction and mental health, sold my home, and was in the process of divorcing my husband. All within 21 months. And that’s just some of the mountains I’ve climbed, there have been a tremendous number of hillsides I’ve climbed as well.
So, I look at myself now as a 21-month-old. Still learning to walk. Still learning about the world around me.
I am starting fresh. A new chapter in my life. What do I want and what do I desire? What can I manifest for myself? The answer, fucking everything.
What is unconditional love? First, it starts with me. Loving myself and accepting the days when I feel low, allowing my body and soul time for rest and rejuvenation through these hard times. Trusting myself and knowing I am on the right path. Embracing my past, and not allowing it to define me. Knowing that everything is happening for me, and not to me.
Making myself number one. Learning my boundaries. Learning how to understand me now through the eyes of source, mother earth, the universe- as it so beautifully sees me. And has always seen me.
The spiritual journey I am on of loving me starts with me checking outside of the box. Forging a new path. Seeing what I know is true, that I am a being, living in a physical body. That I am pure love and light. That I do shine. That I am worthy of loving myself first and foremost, so I can define what baseline unconditional love means to me, not by how I learned it from others.
Baseline love for me had to be learning to love myself.
Accepting myself. My faults. Mistakes. Missteps.
I hope that one day again, I find love with another person. But for the time being, I am enjoying falling in love with myself. and I know that when the day comes, and I find my “person”- that the person I find is a pure reflection of what baseline love is. That person will love themselves as well, and it will be magical and powerful. Just like me.
If you are looking at finding self-love and acceptance, I invite you to reach out for a complimentary hour of discovering yourself, what’s holding you back and how we can work together to move those mountains.
www.mygrowingspace.com
