Love First

         I have long believed that if I want anything to change – in myself or in any situation I encounter – I must love it first.

         This brief piece of writing was shared in group last night.  (Thanks, Ann.)  Each time I read it, it deepens within me.  Maybe it will touch you, too.

         “In the end, so much of the conflict we feel in our hearts is because we’ve split ourselves off from the very life we are living. We partition ourselves from the things with which we are at odds, treating them as unbelonging even as we live them.

         “We vaguely imagine some other place, some better job, some other lover—but the irony is that so much of what makes us unhappy is our own rejection of the life we have made.

         “Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own. We must look at it squarely, with all its unbecoming qualities, and find a way to love it anyway. Only from that complete embrace can a life begin to grow into what it is meant to become.”

         Excerpt from Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner (belongingbook.com)