Column 10 – Is Your Light Hidden by The FlyLady, Marla Cilley

 My bathtub is my place of meditation. I surround myself with warm water and open my mind and heart to listen. Robert calls them God Breezes. When they come in the middle of the night, we refer to them as the Midnight Editor and when I get them in the tub; they are bathtub epiphanies. This morning the subject was love! 

Robert and I have spent the last hour and a half talking about love! Not our love but the love that is in us all. For most of us, all we have ever wanted is to be loved. I can remember a time when all I wanted was to just feel loved. It didn’t matter if I was really loved or not just as long as I felt like I was loved. I guess that is just affection. Any way love is not something we can make happen.

I don’t care how much you try to make someone love you it is never going to happen. You cannot earn love. Respect maybe, but not love. It is either there or it isn’t. This is why I have told you for years that you have to get the house in order for you. You are never going to get your home clean enough to make someone love you more or at all. Even as the house gets cleaner this person is never going to love you if they don’t love you with a dirty house. Do you understand this? The house is not the problem with the lack of love. If the love is there all things are possible even a small spark of love is enough. You cannot buy love with gifts either. If you are not loved for you then no gift is ever going to satisfy the need you have to be loved by this person or family member.

Do you remember the first time you walked into your kitchen after you shined your sink? If you have not shined that sink yet then go do it now. You feasted your eyes upon a reflection that made you smile. You didn’t know why it made you smile but that feeling emanated from the very core of your being. That feeling was love! I know you don’t believe me. When that sink greeted you and you smiled, you felt something that changed you forever. I know it seems so simple and maybe a bit corny but that sink is a reflection of you.

When you take care of the sink; just look what that care does for the way you feel each and every day! This is the beginning of you accepting the love that has been hidden inside of you forever.  For years we have pushed that love down deep and had forgotten about it because we were too busy trying to work hard enough to earn that love from others. It is time we uncovered that eternal love and cultivated it so that love can be shared with the world.

Now I am in great big purple puddles. Think about all the songs that have been sung over the years. As a little child in Sunday school we sang the song about hiding our little light under a bushel. Then we would yell NO! I am going to let it shine! That little light is your love and your connection to God and the world. That love has always been there, we have just kept it hidden; especially from ourselves. Some of us have even been told it was wrong to love ourselves. Well to this I say you cannot love anyone else till you love yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself means you have to love yourself to be able to reflect that love to others.

Did you know that when you are loving yourself that you attack love back to you. You become a love magnet. Not only are you reflecting that love to others but that love is coming back to you and the best part is that it is multiplied! And it all starts with you! Have you shined that sink yet? This is your first uncovering of that love that has been hiding underneath all the self-loathing and pain you have suffered your whole life.

All we have ever wanted was to feel loved! We can do this for ourselves without having to depend on anyone else for what we need. We deserve to be happy! This little ray of hope, happiness, peace and love has always been inside of you! We all remember the Wizard of Oz and the good witch telling Dorothy that she had the power to go home; that it was always inside of her. This is how I feel about FLYing! Your love is just waiting for you to open up the doors and windows then let the sun shine from within you to light up the world!

Love makes the world go round; it is the energy that keeps us moving when all is lost. Love is always with us, we just have to start with babysteps to rekindle the love that we have locked away. Start now. Go shine that sink of yours, get dressed to shoes and do something sweet for you.  If you don’t take care of you; who will?

May the force be with you! Are you ready to FLY?

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