Love thy neighbor AS THYSELF

I just learned that my divorce is final, as of yesterday.

I'm not sure whether to be "happy" or sad.

I've worked through most of the sad feelings, the denial, the hurt, the anger, the betrayal, the stress, the shock, the pain, the devastation. I've worked through the feelings that somehow I did it again... I chose another relationship that didn't last. You see, this is my second divorce.

I thought, a few times... what is wrong with me? I know that I got an answer from God both times I got married that I was supposed to marry that person. So, why did things end this way? I thought this would be forever? I thought we were "made for each other".

But, in truth, I didn't really know what love is. I didn't know how to give or receive true love. I didn't know that to love myself was my most important priority. I thought that I had to completely lose myself in the service and love of other people in order to be "enough". In order to be "ok". In order to be "loved".

So, after my first marriage ended, I jumped right into another relationship. I didn't take the time to take care of myself and learn what I could have done differently in choosing my first husband. Consequently, I didn't realize that my second marriage was really just a much stronger form of the codependency that had been feeding my life.

Carol Tuttle, in her book Remembering Wholeness says this:
            "Life is a mirror reflecting back at us what we believe about ourselves. If we don't learn the lesson, the experience will repeat itself and become more and more intense until we pay attention, get the information, and change our beliefs."

Marriage is a work in progress. Both partners have to be committed to the transformation that occurs when the initial attraction, the "eros" wears off. When both of my marriages started to get difficult, I thought that I just needed to try harder, to serve more, to become more. When all of my "changes" didn't work, I would try to "change" my husband. This is not the way to create a deeper connection and stronger relationship.

A year ago I started to learn about codependency. I started to dismantle the careful web of control that I had wrapped around my life. I started to take care of myself, and let others take care of themselves. If felt like my life was imploding. Frankly, it was terrifying. I remember full blown panic attacks, complete with sobbing, hyperventilating, and shaking.

Needless to say, it has been a long and difficult road. I feel like I have been through the wringer. But, as I slowly let go of that control, my energy and vibration started to raise. My eyes started to open for the first time to all that I had attracted into my life. I am learning that the Law of Attraction truly works - in both positive and negative manifestations. We get to choose what we attract.

Most of my life, I have attracted people that "needed" me to "take care of them", because I needed people to take care of. I never realized that the most important person to take care of was myself.

Now - putting yourself first may sound "selfish" to some of you - and the opposite of what you have thought your whole life. What was actually selfish was my way of being. I was like a parasite - not able to function and "be ok" unless I had other people's problems to take care of.

You may have heard of the commandment to "Love thy neighbor AS THYSELF." ... Heather Madder opened my eyes on that one. How can we love another person IF WE DON'T FIRST LOVE OURSELVES?

We can't. We cannot give love to another person if we don't have any love to give. We can only have a reservoir of love big enough to share if we have stocked that reservoir full of love for ourselves first. Of course, we need to love God first. That is the number one priority. And, our loving Father asks us to love OURSELVES, and our NEIGHBORS in return for the love that he gives us.

Carol Tuttle:
            "We come into this world with the need to be validated that we are loveable. We are looking for someone -- primarily our parents -- to tell us that we are important, we are loved and cherished, and that we count, free of any conditions. Even though our spirit knows we are loveable, our cognitive physical self needs to hear that. We need to be validated through our infancy, childhood, and teen years as we move through different developmental stages. If we were not given that message and our environment caused us to feel threatened or unsafe, we are still looking to have the message that we are loveable given to us as adults. We are stuck in patterns of codependency: looking for love and validation outside of ourselves."

"I am worthy of real love. I deserve to be loved and admired by a healthy, loving person. I am attracting people that can and want to create healthy, loving relationships with me. I am ending relationships that cannot be healthy. God loves me, and I love myself."

And that, my friends, is why I know I'll be ok even though I have been divorced twice. Because now I know how to give myself the love and validation that I've been looking for all my life. And I know that I deserve to attract a healthy, loving relationship.

And that is why I can now feel peace and gratitude for the opportunity to move on.