When someone loves you, it means they have love inside to give to you. It means they see a home for their love in you. It means they are capable, available, desirous, willing, and clear on how to give love to you.
It doesn’t mean you are inherently lovable.
When someone does not love you, it does not necessarily mean they do not have love inside themselves to give to you. It more likely means they do not see a home for their love in you. It means they are not capable, available, desirous, willing, or clear on how to give love to you.
It doesn’t mean they are inherently unloving.
These truths explain (in addition to a few others) why a person you might see as an asshole can be seen as an angel by someone else. There’s no conflict in this understanding of a person. They might be an asshole (to you) and an angel (to someone else). This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re disingenuous or untrustworthy. It means they do not have love inside themselves to give to you and they do have love inside themselves to give to someone else.
I’m making these points because there’s a lot of confusion in relation to what it means to be loveable, loved, and loving.
When someone loves you, it’s about them being capable, available, desirous, willing, and clear on how to give love to you. So, even though you are beautiful, brilliant, and blessed, receiving love is not, necessarily about you, at all. It’s about your counterpart’s availability, desire, willingness, and clarity. It’s important to note this because, one day, when you are not being beautiful, brilliant, and blessed, you’ll still be being lovable. Your lovability does not depend on your incidental state. It depends on the benevolent, governing declaration your Creator issued to establish, define, and perpetuate you as a living, breathing, moving being; your lovability does not depend on any person loving or not loving you (and there are plenty of people who do and will love you. Plenty. Trust me. There is no shortage of love in the world. Not even a little bit.).
This is true when you are or are not getting the love you want or think you need. If someone you want to love you does not love you, it does not mean you are unlovable. It means they are not capable, available, desirous, willing, or clear on how to give love to you. And that’s Ok. It doesn’t feel Ok, yet, it is Ok.
Why?
Because when you are getting love it’s Life showing you how love gets done:
- effortlessly – in an instant, without explanation or reason, deliriously, deliciously, and
- with hard, hard work – through relentless forgiveness, compromise, sacrifice, and dedication
And, when you are not getting love, it’s still Life showing you how love gets done:
- occasionally – without warning or pattern, without predictions, or expectations
- constantly – without prompting, earning, invitation, warning, or hesitation
Whether you are or think you are not getting love, Life, Light, and Love are still making available to you All that you need to receive and give love, Supremely: knowledge, wisdom, patience, anger, passion, faith, hope, sadness, memory, vision, FULLNESS. All Things.
So…
Meet the urge to self-blame and self-shame (when you think you’re not getting the love you want or imagine you need) with this truth:
When someone loves you, it means they have love inside to give to you. It means they see a home for their love in you. It means they are capable, available, desirous, willing, and clear on how to give love to you.
It doesn’t mean you are inherently lovable. A person loving or not loving you does not determine your worth, value, or desirability.
When someone does not love you, it does not necessarily mean they do not have love inside themselves to give to you. It more likely means they do not see a home for their love in you. It means they are not capable, available, desirous, willing, or clear on how to give love to you.
It doesn’t mean they are inherently unloving.
Remember these truths and release the belief that the presence or absence of a person signifies your loveabilty. You really are loveable and being loved because you are. You exist and that’s enough.
For more on this, learn more about Supreme Love here. Also, be in touch with me if you have any questions about these truths.
Jeanine Staples is Associate Professor of Literacy and Language & African American Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her book, The Revelations of Asher: Toward Supreme Love in Self, is an endarkened, feminist, new literacies event (Peter Lang, spring 2016). In it, she explores Black women’s terror in love. She produces research-based courses and methodologies that enable marginalized girls and women to realize internal revelations that fuel external revolutions.
Dr. Staples’ next book details the evolution of her acclaimed undergraduate course, The Philadelphia Urban Seminar. In it, she explores Supreme Love in schools. She shows how she generates curriculum and methodologies that incite anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist pedagogical stances among teachers interested in urban education and equity for all people in schools and society.