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Akinola asked me to write on love so I decided to write on lessons I learnt this year pertaining to love. Shout out to you Akinmore.com. Guys you should check out his blog, he has good stuff that will bless your soul.

Speaking to Eugenia a year ago, I told her love hurts. I told her I wanted to go back to being the girl who had her walls up high shielding her from anything or anyone that threatened to break her heart.

Being the emotional person I am, my narratives on love seemed so different from that of people I came across. This year , I set out to learn and unlearn narratives of love and believe me when I say, it was hard. But it was certainly worth it.

Lessons learnt on love this year;

#1. Love is not a choice, it’s a command.
Previously, I would spend days trying to decide whether someone I came across was worth loving or the attitude of the person warranted love or not. I moved with the mentality that, not everyone deserved my love.

I was wrong. Everyone deserves my love; because I was commanded to give it. No matter the character or personality of the person, it is a duty to love. I don’t have a choice,technically.

Approaching life from this perspective has made life easier. Now I do not search for reasons to or not to love someone, I just offer love the best way I can and it has cut me a lot of slack as far as hurt is concerned.

#2. Everyone loves differently, allow them to love you how best they know how.
Because my love language mainly is words of affirmation, I find myself speaking endlessly about people I love. I write telling them how I feel about them and I am very open about the reasons I love them.

Most of the people I love however, are mostly silent about their love for me. You never hear, “I love you” from them. Why would you be so mean to deprive me of that? I need to know why you love me if you do.

I learnt rather painfully and accepted that everyone loves differently. Not everyone would be comfortable with endearing words but might have other ways of showing their love.

Identifying the love language of your loved ones is very crucial for the survival of your relationship. Mother, sister, friend, beloved — whoever — find their love language and allow them love you how they know how to.

#3. You can’t give what you don’t have.

I figured a lot of my struggle with love was because I did not love myself enough.
Having to show love in ways I wasn’t familiar with left me drained.

Learning how to love myself saved me from unnecessary headache and made loving (others) a lot easier.

If you don’t love yourself, you will be thriving on expectations which will hurt you and your loved ones.

#4. Love should be without expectations.

Love is an embodiment of sacrifice from both parties. It’s natural to expect that your partner puts in as much effort as you do but sometimes, they can’t do as much as you do and you should be able to reconcile with that.

You deserve all the love you can get but sometimes, placing too much expectation on someone blinds you from seeing all the wonderful things the person is doing for you.

Mom said during one of our bedtime moments that, “sometimes in love, you have to be a fool and play the fool’s part.”
Practising this has really been of help to me emotionally.

#5.Love is beautiful.

God’s love, mom’s love, love from friendship — love from everywhere — is beautiful. Just open your heart to receive. Allow yourself to be loved by those who want to love you.

In the coming year, I hope I am able to love more as I ought to.
Chrismas is a season of love, don’t forget to show love to those who matter.

Share your lessons on love with me, will you?

Until tomorrow.

Love,

Afiya