A four letter word.

One of my classes this semester is a 3400 level course called "Stress Management". 

I know what you're thinking. Ha Ha, Jess could SURE use that class! Well, you're right. It's been great. 

Last weekend I was reading the chapters to prepare for a quiz and there was a whole chapter called "The Psychology of Stress". There were sections all through the chapter relating all sorts of things we all endure to stress. They had a section of worrying, guilt, the stages of grief, ect. 

I got to the section entitled "The Lessons of Self Love" and I felt like it was scripture speaking right to me. 

"Love, as a viable motivational force and healing tool [that] has recently moved out of the anthologies of poetry and Hollywood cinema and into classrooms, corporate board rooms and operating rooms.--Love is now recognized as a powerful inner resources much too important to ignore." 

I have been told that love is the strongest emotion we feel. There is a reason for that. Heavenly Father did not create such a feeling to just mainly hurt us, or elate us, or inspire us. He created it to do all of those things and more. 

The chapter goes on to explain why self love is important, how it relates to self esteem and how it can destroy us if we let it, like anything else. 

Not unlike many, I too have had my heart broken. I have looked Love in the face and had it ripped out from right underneath me. I blamed the emotion itself. I hated it. I thought, how can something that is supposed to be SO great cause me SO much pain?  

Despite fairy-tale endings in which love conquers all with relative ease, love takes much work. Continuous work. 

I thought that once I found it that everything would just magically fall into place. Two plus two would always equal four, and the puzzle pieces would fit all the time, and into all of the right places. 

I learned through what I thought was losing love, however, that sometimes two plus two equals five, and puzzles are really hard to finish. 

BUT, just because love isn't what you think it should be-doesn't mean it's not what it's supposed to be for you in that exact time and place. I didn't lose love. I gained a different version of it. 

"Love is Love"-says Dr. Buscaglia, "For love and the self are one, and the discovery of either is the realization of both."

When I read this, I couldn't believe how true that rang to me. You hear all the time how we have to learn how to love ourselves before we can love another. We have to understand what love means to us before we can explain it to anyone else. 

I believe that with self love brings the ability of love unconditionally to ones self, and to others. One cannot give what one does not possess. To give love, you have to possess love. 

Love left unattended becomes bitter, angry, and misunderstood. 

I know this, because I let it. 

I'm not saying i'm perfect when it comes to loving, because I am definitely not. I still have to learn to love myself, and those around me that make it really hard. However, when practiced, made apparent, and nurtured-love grows. It grows in places you never would have thought it so. 

I think a lot of us just think that love is a fairy-tale. Part of that is so true. Love can heal disease, broken hearts, and is the reason for so many deserved second chances.

Yet, It can also come with just being a good friend even though you want more.It can come as a listening ear when you would rather be doing anything but.  It can be shown by showing up when you had better things to do, or taking out the trash, even if it wasn't your turn. 

It is shown through sacrifice, through acts of service, and even can be disguised as other strong emotions like fear and anger. Love drives us. 

It's why our Savior did what He did so we could live with the knowledge of the emotion. Even more than that--so we knew what it was like to feel it. 

I love you. Know that. Let it drive you today.