Recently, I was sitting on the living room floor playing with my four beautiful dogs. I had just come from upstairs and they were so excited to see me that I couldn’t help but join them on the floor for some snuggle time. As I was petting them and taking their kisses, I said to them “I am so lucky to have your love.” As I said that, it came to me that I wasn’t lucky, I actually deserve their love. And they deserve mine.
I rephrased my original statement and said, “I deserve your love” and I can honestly tell you, it felt like I was receiving their love on a deeper level.
This got me thinking about a whole new way to perceive the love we have in our lives. Too often, we, as a society, attribute the positive things we encounter as “good fortune” or “a stroke of luck.” Luck implies that things come to us by chance. Yet, as spiritual people, we are typically open to the idea that there is a greater plan and all that comes to us is not based upon chance. More often than not, a spiritual person will attribute experiences to karma and synchronicity – both of which imply that there is an initial cause, reason, and plan.
This pondering of mine led me to realize that when we feel we are lucky to receive something, underneath that belief is the idea that we may not always deserve the good we get but that it comes to us just because. Yet, as extensions of our benign and loving Source, we are not limited to the confines of the conflicted and chaotic ego. Only the ego would say that we must sacrifice in order to receive love. The ego would also suggest that we are not worthy of love and therefore we don’t deserve it at all. Whereas Spirit would remind us that we are love and so it is natural for us to accept and express love to ourselves and all others.
From a truly spiritual perspective, our encounters with love are not due to some lucky event but are actually a continuation of the extension of love which we truly are. From this perspective, we can also extend the love which we truly are into our challenges and trials so they can be transformed and ultimately heal.
After eons of thinking with the conflicted and highly vulnerable ego mind, our self-esteem has suffered. Also, believing that we are disconnected from our Source leads us to feel unworthy of so many things. Yet, our worthiness is not dictated by the ego – our worthiness is dictated by our Source! As I like to say to my clients, “Who you truly are is not up for debate!” You are love itself and nothing, not even your mistaken belief in the ego identity, can change Who you truly are.
As we are reminded in A Course in Miracles, you can forget Who you truly are but your forgetfulness does not change Who you truly are.
When it comes to the good we encounter in our lives, we can begin to acknowledge that we deserve those expressions of love. Also, when we face a challenge, we can let love turn that challenge into an opportunity for healing and not a knock backwards which the ego would have it be.
I encourage you to turn the tables on the ego and its needless glorification of unworthiness, sacrifice, and limits. As a Child of Source, you deserve to accept and express the love which is your true identity. Can you imagine the change in your attitude if you welcomed love in all of its expressions purely because you deserve it? Perhaps in a certain relationship or situation, you can remind yourself that you deserve the love being offered you and that you are safe to express that love back. If you are given a compliment or someone thanks you for your time and effort, perhaps you’d be ready to accept that compliment and gratitude.
There are many situations throughout the day where you can invite a fresh and loving perception of yourself, and it all begins with recognizing that you deserve and are therefore worthy of love however it may show up.
