The Walls That Keep Love Away

Do you feel loved? Or, like many in this world today, do you feel a hole in your heart? A lack of completeness? A constant tugging, tearing, subtle reminder that you still are searching for something you haven’t found yet?

I remember sitting at my desk one day while I was working in my home office. It had been a rough time for a little while, and there was emotional pain in my heart from the circumstances. I remember consciously thinking that things would feel better if I could feel a true loving connection from another person. Not the romantic type, just the type that says that someone cares deeply about me as a person.

As I sat there that day, my youngest daughter suddenly walked in. “Dad, I colored you a picture” she said as she handed me a scribbled drawing that made no sense to me. “It’s for you."

I thanked her and shooed her out of the office. I remember expressly thinking “I don’t need a scribbled picture!” As I continued to sit at my desk that day though, my heart started to ask some deeper questions. I found myself in a debate with myself, with the debate going something along the following lines:

“Your daughter loves you, why didn’t you accept and feel that?”

“Because I don’t feel love through scribbles. I feel love differently.”

“Does your two-year-old daughter have any other way to show you love in the way you think you feel it?” 

“No, of course not.”

“So can you never feel love from a child?”

“No, I can’t. I need deeper conversations with people.”

“Does that mean that you can only feel love from certain types of people?”

“Yes, there aren’t many that I relate to super well.”

“So is it other people’s fault that you don’t feel loved?”

“Yes, other people have to communicate love in order for me to feel it.”

“Your daughter did communicate love though. She did her part. Why didn’t you feel it?”

“Because I just don’t feel love that way.”

“Is love something that has to be communicated in a particular way, or is it something you have to choose to receive and accept?”

I didn’t have an immediate answer for that question, and I spent some time thinking on it. When my daughter handed me the page with scribbles on it, she was communicating love. Why didn’t I feel it?

I am still learning about myself and what is inside me, but in that process, I am learning that I put up walls to protect myself. And, some of those walls that exist are there to protect me from feeling love.

You read that right. Part of my conscious self feels the need to protect me from feeling loved. I would venture to guess that many in the world today are protecting themselves from feeling love as well.

We are dual beings. Parts of us can long for and pursue something, while other parts of us work to protect us or stop us from finding that which we long for. We have to understand that there is darkness and light inside all of us, and each works to try and prevent the other from gaining additional footholds inside of us.

If we feel love inside, love eradicates darkness. It changes our very nature and being when it permeates down into the depths of the darkness we carry inside. Since the darkness is in us, it has life while it is there, and so it works to keep love out as love brings death to the darkness. The darkness we carry inside builds walls that stop us from feeling love from others. It is a self-protection mechanism for the darkness.

However, when we can feel that darkness inside, we desire and long for peace, happiness, contentment, love, etc. This causes us to look for it in many places, but we will never find those things until we address the walls inside of us.

Along with this experience, I had another dark time in my life where I sought for a blessing from an Elder in my Church. He blessed me at that time, and told me that God loved me. I remembered feeling a sensation of being hugged by something I could not see, but I remember well that the sensation only went skin deep. No feeling of love or connection made it past my surface, and the darkness remained strong inside.

“Why would I hold onto darkness though?” I asked myself. “Why would I not feel God’s love? Can’t He chase away the darkness?”

My mind searched and searched for answers. Ultimately, I have come to learn that we hold on to the darkness inside, because light, love, and truth require things of us that are not always comfortable. While darkness is not pleasant and can be quite miserable to carry inside of us, it is predictable. Light, love, and truth, on the other hand, require that we be honest about who we are and what we can do.

In other words, to feel and accept love from another person or from God, I have to acknowledge and accept that I am a being worth loving. This alone requires a fundamental change in the way I interact with the world, and it forces me to confront and do away with many limiting beliefs that I carry. If I am a being worth loving, it also means that I am a being that has something to contribute to others. Or, it means I have worth, infinite worth, and worth means that I have value to contribute to others, and if I have value, I have a responsibility to do my part.

Consider my daughter again. My time and presence with her means the world to her. If I can give my little girl the world just by being with her and focusing on her, then it means that I need to adjust all of my other priorities to truly feel and accept the love she has for me. To feel the love from her, I have to have the same love for her at the same level of priority as she has for me.

It is impossible for me to feel light, love, and truth about who I really am if I am not living true to who I really am. I cannot honestly feel that I am worth loving if I am walking away from or not pursuing my potential.

When we live beneath our potential, we have to place walls up to protect against the feelings of guilt and shame that go with that lifestyle. Those walls keep the love and light out, as the love and light pushes us to change and live true to who we are. The walls protect the darkness, or the motivations we have to stay in a realm beneath our potential.

Do you believe you have an important purpose on this earth? Do you feel that you are supposed to do something with your life? Do you feel the whisper or call inside to do something more than you are doing?

To break these destructive cycles, we have to adopt beliefs about ourselves that may be difficult or painful because they require us to change, and change is not a pain-free process. We have to believe that we are worth loving, that we have something of value to share with others, and that we can rise to our potential in order to have motivation to do the work and go through the pain necessary to change.

In other words, I am learning that if we don’t feel love, it may be due to what is going on inside of us, rather than on those around us. God always loves us, and His love is always present. If we cannot feel His love for us, then we may want to consider if we have something dark we are protecting  inside, as His love can remove all darkness and wipe away all tears.

His love, and the love of others, is available to us if we do the work necessary to eliminate our walls inside and make the changes necessary to live true to who we are inside.

I should feel a great amount of love when my young daughter hands me scribbles on a page. She used all of the means she had available to share her love with me, and there is nothing about love that requires it be shown a particular way. While love languages and the like may help us understand paths we haven’t yet walled off to feeling love, we can feel love through other paths or means if we open our heart to it.

To do that though, we have to be willing to change, to heed the truths that are inside, to be intentional about eliminating the darkness. As we do, we start to find a better version of us, and we have to live true to our potential by continuing to change, address weaknesses, and sacrifice many things that are comfortable or pleasing to the darkness inside.

During this time, I wrote a poem describing some of the thoughts I had. The poem states:

I once believed that life was good for me

Till I lived and saw what life could be

Darkness filled the voids of space

Stretching its reach to every place

I wanted the light but felt it dim

Within, even, my own heart within

“Oh why” I cried “is it this way?”

“Oh why” I cried “does it have to stay?”

Life brought pain, hard work, and toil

Life brought suffering, conflict, and turmoil

As I sat reflecting on the darkness within

I wondered at where it all began

Etched in my hand was a line

Connecting me back to my home divine

As I stared at the line, memories appeared

Of love, belonging, and those who had cheered

At the prospect of life and the prospect of love

At the journey of leaving a home above

To find within our own souls the flame

Kindled in us by He who overcame

The flame is there, waiting for me

To light the way, to share, to see

Darkness leaves when I hold up my light

Giving me the power to change my plight

Life is what I make it to be

Life is what I choose to believe and see

The darkness below, or the light above

The pain of evil, or the joy of love

When I believe that life is good for me

I change my actions to what they should be

As I change, I find the light within

And life is worth living, again.

The change is worth it, and as we start to walk this journey, life gains great meaning, connections gain vibrancy, and our hearts gain love. What more could we really ask for?

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At Believe, we aim to eliminate internal darkness and promote internal light. We strive to remove darkness from ourselves, our families, our connections, our communities, our nations, and our world, and replace it with light. We believe strongly that light will prevail. We would love to have you join us. You will never be the same.