Being loved anyway

Only the beginning of February and all the hopeless romantics are coming out of the woodwork! Well, what's one more :)

This is a article on LOVE i read many years ago and found it such fantastic advice...i actually wrote it down. I did not come up with this, someone called Ellen Goodman did... but i have found this to be the best relationship advice i have ever come across.

My father would get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say "You're no bargain..." Many years later he explained this ritual to me... If you start your day looking your own flaws in the face, you might work up a good attitude for gratitude before breakfast. If you know you are the one with more flaws in the morning, by evening you could be overflowing with appreciation for someone who actually loves you anyway.

The glue of any long term attachment then is Being Loved Anyway.

There are at least two ingredients to this 'sticky' business:

1. You have to know your own worst, and
2. You have to find someone who also knows it; but doesn't think it's all that awful.

Being loved anyway is not being seen as perfect but being accepted as imperfect. If there is a constant in life, it must be the human fear of being unlovable. Insecurity was invented by the first child who was caught misbehaving and asked his mother, 'Do you love me anyway?'

That child lives on in all of us. That child is the one making choices every day between the safety of hiding and the risk of being discovered but being loved anyway.

We are told people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, or because of luck! But part of it at least has got to be about forgiveness and gratefulness.

The understanding that though you're not perfect, you love and you are loved ANYWAY.