If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

~Mother Theresa

Love breaks the boundaries to our heart and frees the pain inside. It is not an easy thing to experience, or suffer, love. To walk through the pain of loving, openly and freely, without limitations or preconceived notions of what it is to love, what love will give in return; that is no easy task. And it is no easy journey.

It seems to be a lesson of this life for me; love. Or lessons of one life after the other that are coming together into a healing process. I am slowly becoming aware of how complicated it is, and of how much pain that flows through me as I slowly venture deeper and deeper into my Self with love. It is the journey of the wounded healer, the wounded lover, and it is painful to the point of being unbearable. Because in that pain and confusion, as the love I feel and walk with picks at wounds in order to heal them, I lose myself; I lose control, and I end up hurting others. It is not a pain I want to inflict on anyone, and yet I do. I'm not a victim here, but the offender, who hurts people who get too close, who may even show me true friendship. I reward it with pain, with primitive gut reactions of doing unto them what has been done to me. And I wish I knew why. I don't yet. But reading Mother Theresa's quote touched something, a string, a nerve, and seeing how I instantly connected it to some things and patterns, I guess that it is true. There is a connection.

I've vowed Goddess, the Lady of Avalon, to live life loving and to let Her love shine through me. I do my very best to speak only love, to act from a place of love, but as the journey deepens and gets darker and more painful, it actually gets harder. Does that mean I am going into the wounded places; the places that need healing the most? And the lesson to learn is what? To maintain my Self and stay in a place of love even when it gets hard?

I feel rage bubbling up, I feel like I'm shaking in my fetters and when I break free I may lash out and hurt people; I feel egotism, ruthlessness, and such anger in the pain. And if I can't rein them in, I feel like I might just as well isolate myself; distance myself from the people who may care and get too close. I didn't choose to be born with the wounds I have; I didn't choose my past lives, all the things that are coming together, the seemingly endless line of wounds of love, wounds against love. If this pain is something I've felt before, I'm not surprised that I'm finding it so hard to fall in love. I love, but I don't fall in love. Way too risky. That way pain lies. And yes, I am aware that the only road to healing and to finding that true love; to entering that place in me that is only love, goes through the pained and wounded places. The challenge lies in doing it while remaining in a state of love. Probably more than anything, love and acceptance of myself. But I am not who I want to be; I don't act the way I want to do. There are things in me that make me do something other than what I wish I did; something makes me react in ways I didn't expect. And I want to change that, to be who I want to be. But how? Is the answer to ground myself in love? To accept myself in spite of all my flaws and mistakes so that I can ground myself in love? Let me tell you: not easy.

Whenever I think I've gotten somewhere, that I can love and accept myself the way I am, something happens that triggers doubt and brings up another wound to be healed. I am once again thrown into the cauldron. And it's getting tired; I am getting tired. For every step of the journey brings me deeper, and the deeper wounds are the most painful. Otherwise, why would I have buried them so deeply?

When will I have loved so deeply that there is no more pain; only love?