If you get an A grade at school I will love you.
If you make the first team in sports I will love you.
If you earn 50K a year I will love you.
If you give me a grandchild I will love you.
If you lose 20 lbs I will love you.
If you follow in my footsteps and carry on the family business I will love you.
If you reach the top of your profession I will love you.
If you are a success I will love you.
If you do this for me I will love you.
If you change this about yourself I will love you.
If you…
Only then will I love you.
And so we push ourselves more and more trying so desperately to earn that love.
Perhaps it originates from our parents, a teacher or society.
Then… we replace the original figure with a lover, a partner, a friend and even when there is no one left to earn that love from we find the bloody pattern continues all by itself!!!
As I sit with that burnt out, exhausted, disappointed child who has been pushing tirelessly for so long to earn somebody, anybody’s love, it is with a heavy heart as it is realised that all the effort was in vain, built on nothing more than a lie.
It is recognised that they will love you or not and it has very little to do with you. It never mattered whether you achieved those things and more than likely there was always something more.
That child now rests in my arms no longer striving for a love that is earned.
He recognises that the love he so urgently sought after was here all along.
I serenade him with “I will always love you, whatever you do or don’t do. You are enough, always”.