Love is Contagious

08 May

Joffre McClung Love, Self-love 0 0

Three people who lacked self-love.

They forgot that love is contagious. In the last few years, I have had the privilege of being with three loved ones as they faced the end of their lives. Two died in their senior years, and one, decades too soon. As each one reflected on their lives, such as the mistakes they thought they had made, the things they wish they had done and didn’t, as well as things they wish they hadn’t done but did – there was one dominating disappointment that kept coming back to them. They all regretted not loving themselves more. and it starts with themselves.

We are keeping love from being contagious

When we look outside of ourselves for our value, our worthiness of love, or proof that our loving and expression of that love is good enough, we are not only handing over our power to others, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Social media is a perfect example. One like or click feels good for a moment – then you need ten for the next post to feel good about yourself, and then suddenly you have to have 30 or 50 or 200 to feel good. And if someone says something negative or dislikes something we post – we crash. This “yo-yoing” on our feelings isn’t social media’s fault. People are wrongly accusing social media of being the culprit for how we feel about ourselves, but we’re the culprits. If love is contagious then why do we stop it from ourselves?

We can rescue ourselves.

The good news is if we are the culprits, then we are also the ones to rescue ourselves. I did all the techniques, exercises, affirmations, and rituals to change my life, but nothing lasted until I decided to go to the root of the problem – my lack of self-love. This is why self-love matters. So I started the journey for myself. I wanted to love myself. What I didn’t know is -love is contagious.

A twist in the story

I found as my self-love grew, it began to have unexpected and long-lasting side effects I had not anticipated. As I taught myself to have self-compassion for my stumbles and mistakes –and there were many, my compassion for others’ stumbles and mistakes grew. And I as began to feel and know I was worthy of love, good enough in my loving and valued. I began to see everyone else as also being worthy, good enough, and valuable. I was beginning g to see that- love is contagious.

Love is contagious.

And though my quest had begun with a simple desire to find a bit more self-love for myself – what I had forgotten was that self-love is about love. And love is contagious. You cannot contain it in just one area of your life. It will spread. I think it is time we all expand our sense of self-love. We deserve nothing less.