The more I coach, the more I realise that people are just looking for love, and that love is everywhere.
We are starved of love not because it doesn’t exist. However, because of how we ourselves were loved, we demand and express only a specific type of love. Recognising only our way of loving, we are unable to see another person’s way of giving love.
Insisting on receiving only the form of love we are familiar with, we become disheartened, thinking of the world as a lonely and unfeeling place. But it is not. Everywhere, every day, people are expressing their own forms of love, however broken or idiosyncratic.
If only we could listen beyond the cacophony of 7 billion voices, to hear the chorus of the very same song echoing in each of our hearts.
If only we could look through the parade of 7 billion costumes to see a single uniformed contingent marching to the very same heartbeat.
How many of us hide away our loving and vulnerable selves because we’re afraid the world won’t accept the love we express? We show our hardened selves to the world – the part of us that performs, achieves, demands, conforms, pleases.
There is a part in each of us that loves, that is generous, that just wants to connect. It is innocent, joyful, radiant. But it seldom gets to see the light of day, so obsessed we are with trying to protect it. “I wish to be seen for who I truly am,” we mime through our thick masks and layers of armour.
Despite our efforts to shield, hide, and protect this indefinable yet very palpable part of us, the best in us yearns for expression. We yearn to give and receive love.
So let us appreciate and acknowledge whatever love we receive. Let us give and express love with courage. Let us not withdraw from the fear of being misunderstood or rejected.
Let us belt our love songs. Someone out there, with pricked ears, is listening.
Let us shine our lights. Someone out there, in the dark, is searching for a beacon. May we glow, ever bright, ever strong, evermore.
