Give yourself permission to live and love

Only two things are key to living life in all its glory. Acceptance and vulnerability. I can’t stress enough on these two because of the societal conditioning we have received about success and love. Unless you are willing to fail, you cannot live life. Unless you are willing to get hurt, you cannot find love.

Give yourself permission to fail. Unless you feel it is Okay to fail, you have not even started living life. Courage to venture is based on willingness to be a failure. Willingness to fail can only come from complete acceptance of yourself. We are conditioned to believe in winning at all costs or success as elixir of happiness. It may be difficult for you to imagine it is okay not to win or succeed. Life is not about winning or losing but just living, exploring and enjoying yourself. If you cannot accept yourself as a failure, it is impossible for you to have enough courage to live your life. This may have been a strong conditioning from your parents. Your parents may have placed too much importance on success. Mostly, in comparison with your siblings or peers. But as an adult, check on your own levels of happiness. Where did this focus on success take you? Do you really believe it is success that brings you happiness? Is it really that important for you as an adult now? Or is it contentment and a joy in life? We spend half a life-time chasing success and suddenly realise actually it doesn’t give as much satisfaction as we hoped. By then, several years are lost irrevocable.

Allow yourself to feel pain. If you are afraid of pain - of failure, of hurt or of rejection, you will stop yourself from finding love. It is Okay to feel pain. It perfectly okay be rejected, it is perfectly okay to not have someone to love you. To feel worthy of love, you do not need someone's validation. Unless you are perfectly okay with not being loved, you will not dare to even make connection or open up enough to receive love. Vulnerability is foundation of intimacy and true love. Anyone in love knows how vulnerable it is to give and receive love, to be in intimate relationships. One major misconception we carry is, relationships are about finding safety. It is not true. This expectation is coming from your relationship with parents. Parents may provide you safety and you equate it with love. But intimate partners are not bound to provide you with safety and security. It’s not their primary purpose. Partner means someone on equal ground. You just cannot have same expectations as you had with your parents. Relationships are about willingness to sacrifice your fear of getting hurt. Unless you can stay vulnerable, you cannot connect with another person. In loving, you are willing to give your entire heart at the risk of being rejected. And there is absolutely no other way to love.

Have enough self-acceptance to be okay with your failures. Have enough self-love to be okay with hurt of rejection.

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