In the Interplay of Intimacy and Solitude – We Will Love Ourselves
About Intimacy
Sometimes you need the support of others to be who you are. Sometimes you need others to tell you that it’s okay to feel and how you feel. Sometimes you need someone to hold your hand, embrace you, and pat you on the back and say, “everything will be okay.” It’s important to have that in life. It’s important to have such people by your side. They will teach you faith in goodness, people, friendship, and ultimately love. Those people will give you a refuge, a place to return to whenever you wander off your path. That is your foundation, your oasis of peace and security. Your people. It’s your happiness if you have such people by your side.
About Solitude
But sometimes those people won’t be there. It will be difficult then. It will be dark, empty, and lonely inside you and your heart. There will be a wall, repulsion, distrust. Everything that is inside you, you won’t be able to show to anyone. Those days, years, will pass with a sense of nostalgia, melancholy, and eventually sadness that, if prolonged, can turn into bitterness.
In the Interplay
In the interplay of intimacy and solitude, there lies an infinitely boundless space of love that you can give to yourself.
At first, it may not be much. Small signs of attention, noticing the tightness in your chest, taking a deep breath, pausing for a moment, or a gentle touch.
Maybe you won’t have much to give to yourself. You won’t know how. After all, who taught us that? Dad was always busy, mom always cared for everyone else. How does one learn to love oneself? Who can grasp that wisdom?
Little by little, your body will send you signals. Day by day, from hour to hour, you will feel a knot in your stomach, a lump in your throat, pressure in your head. Your body will force you to pay attention. Day by day, your body will speak a clearer and clearer “no” to every falsely spoken “yes” from you. Your body doesn’t lie; you lie to yourself.
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Then, all those safe havens and oases of peace will disappear. Life will make sure to remove them from your path. Whether life will distance you from them or unfortunately irreversibly take them away from you. Then, day by day, you will contemplate how to love yourself as those people loved you. You will cry, suffer, wait for someone to love you in the same way, but even that won’t make sense anymore. In everyone else, you will seek a part of yourself, love, and what you will eventually realize that no one else knows howto give you.
You will realize that a void has now emerged, a void that no one else knows how to fill but you yourself.
We Will Love Ourselves
And at one moment, when everything seems meaningless, it will become clear to you. It will be as if someone suddenly, strongly, and forcefully hits you on the head. You must love yourself. That will be your final decision and judgment. You must because, at one moment, your life will depend on it. And no matter how little you think you have to offer yourself, that little will be enough.
And that little bit will become, day by day, your safe harbor, your oasis of peace and sanctuary.
The love you find within yourself will be a beacon of hope for all others searching for self-love.
In the space between intimacy and solitude, others will also dare to find that boundless space where our unbreakable, enduring, and powerful self-love lies.
Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash
Read also: Life Becomes Easier When We Don’t Have to Please Everyone
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