Let Them Love You

You are ready to receive love and the acclaim you deserve.

You have chosen this card today, as you are not allowing those around you to love you. Who are you refusing love from and how? Is it a friend or partner, or is this more about letting others love and admire your gifts expressed through your work, artistic endeavours or a bold and innovative idea?

We all think that we have fully allowed others into our life. However, our behaviours and experiences often show otherwise. You feel alone because your fear of being obligated or vulnerable won’t allow you the intimacy of showing your true self and as a result you don’t feel heard or acknowledged.

Your self-esteem does not allow you to recognise or accept the signs of love. Do you push others away through criticism or judgement? Or do you hide by over-giving of yourself so that the other person doesn’t know you? To be given love you need to be seen not special. Everyone has a personal rulebook of love. The model was taught to them by their parents and then modified and expanded upon by significant events, adults and friends. In this model are the rules of how you expect to receive love, how you love yourself and how you allow yourself to receive love from others. That love can be received through recognition, financial well-being, a wonderful relationship or anything else you desire that is a reflection of the exchange of love.

The rulebook has three categories. The first is your layer of identity, whether it forms, how it forms and whether or not you are judged for this identity. The second category is how you form relationships based on this identity. For instance, if your core being has been judged by others to be ‘wrong’ or ‘deficient’ in some way you may become a people pleaser in order to win back their favour. But a people pleaser forms pseudo-relationships (in order to receive acceptance), and pseudo-relationships do not allow the exchange of love. The third category in the rulebook of love contains all the behaviours you associate with love, such as spoken words of appreciation, tone of voice, presents, shared projects or shared silence, how someone responds to your sharing, nicknames, and so on. Your love model has com-plex sensory information built into it, such as your mum’s baking, a warm summer’s day, the sun on your back, a child’s laughter, building boats with granddad. Every interaction you experienced as a child that made you feel connected with another human being is added to your model.

The rulebook dictates whether you connect or disconnect from your inner core and therefore to self, to flow and the abundance of love. Any difficulties in receiving love indicate that your rulebook is filled with distorted messages based on the foundation of your identity, which means you disconnect from love. The key is to understand that every experience is filtered through this rulebook in order to help you recognise love and therefore feel protected and safe. The rulebook defines all your ‘love signals’ (how you expect to be treated in order to receive and feel love) even if this includes abusive behaviour. For instance, a daughter understands that her critical mother with both a loving hand and an iron fist still loves her and keeps her safe.

In choosing this card you have identified a part of you that cannot receive love from those around you because it conflicts with your rulebook. You want to feel love but you don’t recognise love. You can’t feel it for yourself because your rulebook is distorted.

A way to identify all of what is included in your personal rulebook of love is to look at the people that come into your life, such as friends, teachers, colleagues. How do they experience, show and receive love? Is the tap of energy on or off ? Do they stop listening when you open up to them? Are they passive or active in giving and receiving? What have you observed in others? How you respond to those around you will help you identify the rules you live by. For instance, do you feel connected when you are praised or do you become an observer, dissociated from the praise you deserve? Your discomfort is a doorway for tuning in to your love channel.

To walk through that doorway look at the first model that you were taught about how you receive love. Your parents taught you what they knew about love through their relationship with you, with each other and themselves. What did they teach you about love? Both good and bad experiences are included in the rulebook. Does your programme include a loving smile, encouragement, praise, enjoyment of you as a small child, safety and laughter? Or did you learn that love was silent, unapproachable and could only be earned through hard work? In your desire to experience love do you consciously choose the opposite of what your parents taught you? Did they express their love in ways that confused you as a child? If they couldn’t express love to you or each other how did you protect yourself ?

When you struggle to open up to love, the feeling at your core is that you cannot protect yourself.

Now that you have identified your model of love, it’s time to update it so that you can feel the love that is freely available to you every day. You can’t feel what you cannot perceive. In connecting to yourself you will be able to perceive love in a different light with a new set of rules.

You are now ready to receive love and the acclaim you deserve. Let those around you love you and show you the ways to love yourself.