The whole deal about loving truly and for real and with all you’ve got has everything to do with letting those we love see us. Silence makes hard things harder than they need to be. It creates a secret you’re too beautiful to keep. Telling has a way of dispersing things.
— Cheryl Strayed, Brave Enough, p. 87
Expectations are fear based. They are an effort to grab what you want instead of letting it come to you. The more afraid you are of not getting what you want, the more expectations you have on your list. Expectations are frustrating because they arise from an attitude of getting that blocks receptivity. They create an agenda that acts like a wall between you and the other person. Love doesn’t have an agenda, because an attitude of love is really based on being rather than on getting and receiving. In other words, love helps you to be what you want to give and receive.
— Robert Holden, Loveability
It is not only to those whose spiritual windows are of the same shape as your own that you are to be a neighbor.
— George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, chapter 20, quoted in Knowing the Heart of God, p. 325.
Needs make us think that we lack something that can only be fulfilled through a certain situation. They give us tunnel vision, so we limit the amount of response, fulfillment, or resolution that we can have in any situation.
Creativity is a way of looking at the world or any situation from an expansive viewpoint. It reaches out because it comes from our love for others.
— Chuck Spezzano, If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love, p. 23
Healthy dependency allows you to ask for help, to be open to inspiration, to cooperate with others, and not to try to do life by yourself. Unhealthy dependency arises when you feel unloveable and see others as the source of your love. This causes you to enroll your mother, your partner, or your children, for instance, into making you feel more loveable. They may not know it, but they have a contract of employment. You believe it’s their job to make you feel whole, secure, and connected to the world, to heal your wounds, and validate you. Inevitably, though, when you make someone your source of love, they will also be a source of pain. No one does a very good job making someone feel loveable, mostly because it’s an impossible task.
Robert Holden, Loveability, p. 146
Love and fear have an opposite effect on you. The principal effect of fear is that it prevents you from seeing where love is present, whereas love helps you to see where you are afraid. Love makes you conscious. It switches a light on in your mind. This light brings everything into view. You can see into every corner of your mind. Love does not judge, so nothing is hidden. Love does not condemn, so there is no deception. Love does not censure, so all is revealed. Love exposes the fears you identify with, the secret shame you haven’t forgiven, the old wounds not yet released, and every other unloving thought that blocks the awareness of love’s presence.
— Robert Holden, Loveability, p. 139
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
— Cheryl Strayed, Brave Enough, p. 43.
If it’s true that there is only one love (with different expressions, not different types), then it could also be true that there is only one fear. Love can express itself in ten thousand ways, but it’s all the same love, so maybe fear can also express itself in ten thousand ways, and it’s all the same fear. Looked at this way, all love is an extension of the basic truth “I am loveable,” and all fear is a projection of the basic fear “I am not loveable.”
— Robert Holden, PhD, Loveability, p. 134-135
If someone is in your life it is because they have a gift for you and you have a gift for them. “I love you” is a spontaneous song we sing when we want to tell someone, “Your presence is a gift in my life.” “I love you” means “Thank you for helping me to love and be loved” and “Thank you for helping me to heal” and “Thank you for helping me to grow.” The people we love are our friends, our teachers, and our healers. They are the essential life support we need for our journey.
— Robert Holden, Loveability, p. 105
When someone says to you, “I love you,” and says it from the heart, it is because he or she is a witness to the essence of who you are. In simple translation, “I love you” means “I see you.” Love has turned this person into a seer. Unlike love’s imposters, infatuation and lust, which offer only a partial perception, love sees with the heart and it sees the whole person. Love sees your eternal loveliness. Love sees how loveable you really are.
When people say to you, “I love you,” and it is meant truly, they are not relating to you as just a body; they see your soul. Love is not blind; it is visionary. Love sees past physical appearances. Someone who loves you sees that you have a body, but doesn’t think you are a body. How you look is not who you are. Similarly, someone who loves you recognizes you are a good person, a kind person, and a loving person, for example, but sees beyond that too. This person recognizes that you have a personality, but knows you are not just an image or a set of behaviors. Love sees something more. In essence, love is what you experience when your soul sees the soul of another.
— Robert Holden, Loveability, p. 97-98