618 thoughts on “Being Loved to Be Love”

1. ‘All of this is essentially saying I have a need to ‘be loved’ before I am willing to ‘be love’.’ This falsity is something we have all fallen for. I know I did myself. I felt valueless without it being confirmed back to me and with all the kids I have taught in my career I have clocked the huge resentment those have when they don’t feel met or feel loved by their parents. The immediate response is to react and shut down or give up. Shifting this consciousness will take some work, but like you Joel, understanding that I don’t need another to confirm the love inside that is already there and complete, that I just have to connect to it and express it has shifted mountains!

2. “I have a need to ‘be loved’ before I am willing to ‘be love’.” I so used to be like this. It didnt get me anywhere. Being willing to ‘be love’ is making a huge difference in my life.

3. I work with so many kids who are given up and disheartened because they don’t get the love and care they expect from their parents. Whilst I can understand this, at no time do we support kids to understand that if their parents can’t express in this way then maybe the kids have a responsibility to reflect that back to the parents given how much they understand what they are missing.

4. Joel, thank you for your blog. I have read it before, however today the greater understanding of what it is to Be Love is taking on a different dimension. I am back to saying to myself, all you have to be is love with yourself and all else will follow. The trick is to be my loving with self in my every day life.

5. “I need to be part of a certain group so I can feel loved and accepted etc.” This is a common belief and part of how I see myself compromise my truth and override my feelings to be accepted. It’s a strong pull to be accepted and included, and being ostracised, bullied or rejected can create hurts that cause us to want to be part of groups. It’s very understandable but there is so much more for us to receive by being the love we are and then taking that to others.

6. I used to think that being love meant transformation, that I was not love therefore had to work very hard to be love and I had to wait for someone to say eventually one day, ‘Yes, now, you are love.’ Now I know that it is simply a surrender to what I have always been.

   1. Beautiful Fumiyo. Surrendering to who we truly are inside – that”s it – we are love.

   2. Surrendering to who we innately are, to the love we are, keeps it simple, and makes sense.

7. God loves us all unconditionally and inspires us to love ourselves and each other equally and unconditionally.

8. How can you be love and judge people? – It’s impossible, yet have you ever walked into a presentation by a self-help presenter and felt like you were less because they know more? If the presenter holds themselves in that light, how can they help you to be more loving in your life if all you feel is their denigration?

9. I wonder if there comes a time when the conditions we place on being love are seen as excuses to not be responsible and bring the full power of our essence to the world?

10. Joel, this is a great analogy and makes sense as to why we cannot love another if we do not love ourselves; ‘if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.’

11. ‘can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?’ I know this is a huge chunk to copy and paste out of this. This and the examples of where I have sought love from – the having children to be loved was once huge. But it’s so apt.

    Can I love and accept myself regardless of whether other’s do? I’m coming to a point of actually feeling this as a possibility. I feel it’s a process – the being loved unconditionally I have experienced. It’s a tricky one to accept because I’m so used to putting conditions on myself. What if I lifted those conditions? How much lighter my life would be.

12. “Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” This is something I am learning at the moment, to relate to people by their essence and understand that the behaviours that are not love are resulting from hurts. The problem is the investments and pictures of how I want or expect people to be, instead of understanding where everyone is at.

    1. Bringing in understanding helps with letting go of how we expect people to behave.

    2. It helps to remember that behaviours that are not love are coming from hurts, and so not to take things personally, ‘Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?’

13. This is such a beautiful question – “can I be love without being loved?” – and one worth taking the time to ponder on. In the past, before I came to the presentations of Serge Benhayon, I probably would have said no, but 14 years on, and a whole lot wiser, my answer is – absolutely, yes. In fact, I know that it is from loving myself unconditionally that the love I have for others naturally flows, and it doesn’t stop at those around me but continues to flow on out to the world. Now this is something that once upon a time I wouldn’t have even considered possible, but now I know it is and that makes me smile, all over.

14. Our ability to love another is founded on us first loving ourselves and we all flourish from that expansion. But when we come at love from the other direction with the need and expectation for another to love us first we completely disempower ourselves.

    1. Absolutely, start with a strong foundation of loving ourselves first.

15. ‘Am I willing to love myself’ – that is a great question to ask ourselves.

16. Recently I got a new job and I realised how much effort I’ve always put in to be part of a group, this time it wasn’t there as much. My connection with myself is first and when I do place myself second my body is loud and clear in telling me this is not the way to go.

17. If we all believed this, someone would have to be love first or no one would be love, when we go down the path of ‘you show me your love first’ it is the start of an arrangement. Yet when we are just love with no conditions we are already complete.

    1. Loving, with no conditions, is truly loving.

18. This absolutely makes sense; ‘the message was/is that to ‘be love’ you need to first ‘self love’.’ I have found that by taking care of myself and being self-loving that I am more able to love and trust myself and as a result of this to naturally love others. This is a very simple but profound message and one that I have found to be true.

19. I find it can be challenging or seemingly challenging to always love yourself even when others around you don’t do the same or don’t love or like you. Yet is one of the most beautiful things to do.

    1. It is beautiful to love ourselves, and even more so if that love is not coming from around us.

       1. Great to ponder, and/or live this Joel, ‘Can I be love without being loved?’

20. An amazing sharing on love and the need we have to be loved to show love, only when we are loved first. Wow what a manipulation we have managed to come to, when the fact is that we are all love innately, and when in love with ourselves we are in love with everyone. A great pondering on the reality of it all.

21. Once we’re born we love with no conditions as we come full of it, very open, and very trustful…but we get hurt by not receiving the same love back from outside. Healing these hurts is key to start the way back to us, to be again the amazing beings we really are.

    1. When we are born, we are all beautiful little bodies pulsating with love and joy, and without conditions we radiate this out to those around us. So I wonder what happens in our early years to change all that, with us ending up making our love conditional – ‘I will love you, if you love me first’. But I can feel the way of loving as a baby is still within us, simply covered over with life’s hurts and experiences, and if this is so, we can make the choice to return to this way any time we choose.

22. Thanks Joel for sharing such a relatable experience. These days I’m noticing that being love means just being me, and this doesn’t always have to be accepted by others. For so long I too waited for being loved, I’ve tried hard to fit in and it didn’t matter if I was feeling not okay inside. Your words inspire me to hold and love myself no matter what. I’m learning to be steady in the tension that is felt when some of my choices are not really understood, or when I notice that someone is making gossip behind my back…but for the very first time in my life I’m in a process to not wait anymore to be who I really am, and with that I can really love others, accepting and embracing everyone. After all, regardless of the apparent differences on the outside we are all the same inside.

    1. Inma reading your comment was a reminder that the only person I can rely on to give me love is myself, everyone else is making their way back to their own love in their own way and time, and they need space to do that.

23. Its funny how we have tended to ‘put the cart in front of the horse’ so to speak… that is putting the doing, the expectations, the wants, the pictures, another’s love before ourselves. If we self-love first, this buoyed feeling is consistent and one is not at the mercy of responses from others. Any response is then a confirmation of the love we feel & know of ourselves.

24. Some great questions at the end of your post Joel. “Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” I shall carry this with me today. Thankyou.

25. “All of this is essentially saying I have a need to ‘be loved’ before I am willing to ‘be love’. So many of us have had this belief system. ‘i’ll go there if you show mw you love me first…’ So no-one goes there and separation continues. Serge Benhayon however has shown us a new way. He knows and loves himself deeply so has no issue around others loving and accepting him. He just continues to love everyone he comes into contact with – what a beautiful reflection and role model for us all.

26. Am I willing? We have a choice, always, and we choose what we prioritise: connecting to and fuelling ourselves with our own love from the inside, or always seeking it from without – somewhere or something else. The former takes a willingness – our own choice to surrender and to let go and just fully accept ourselves, as we are right now, committed to being in life but with no need to improve or make better any part of it. There is great healing when we say yes in full to whatever is in front of us and fully accept it, and our part in it.

27. Something that I’ve been bringing more awareness to within myself is if there are conditions that I put on love, as in is there a point or moment where I essentially ditch being love and choose to react emotionally to something instead… And observing this without any judgement but from a place of readiness to learn can bring a deeper insight on our expression and being more loving…

28. The precision and order of the universe is exquisite as I find myself clicking on this blog this morning, this is so relevant to how I am with myself and others and I am aware that a shift is required to go deeper into a surrender where I am Love, because I am Love not because anyone has made it safe, accepted me, or told me I am. Thank you Deeply.

29. Profound questioning, what a well and true question we all can deepen with. Are we still waiting to be loved ? Can we actually start with ourselves first ? The answer is Yes.

30. If only we would be love, we would realise that we are Love, and have no need for anyone to offer anything to make us feel resolved and complete.

31. Ha so your saying it is essential to fall in love with ourselves Elizabeth, what wonderful medicine!

32. Can so relate to this Joel. Especially holding myself to ransom of wanting others to be love first.

33. Joel these are great questions at the end of your blog that touch on pretty much every part of human life. In the times when I have been able to be love I have felt so completely myself, undeniably me, and when I’m not able to be that love it’s a shadow of who I am, I am pretty much missing. The conditions we come up with to manage our hurts around love are understandable, yet at the same time they make no sense because we are missing out on being the fullness of our essence – love. The love we are is what we really miss the most. It’s such a mixed up world how we have made love into emotional attachment and also something that comes from another (the illusive One) when every fibre of our being is actually love. Then we can fritter our whole lives away focusing on the hurts, when the untouched power of love lives inside us untapped. It’s a huge topic to explore.

    1. Absolutely huge! Whole industries are invested in keeping us trapped into thinking everything is about attachment, and this makes so much sense from an observational point of view but it completely misses the point that we are energetic beings full of divine particles.

    2. Are we simply a being of love, a being who has in many instances become distracted from feeling, emanating, and living that love?

34. The last line hit home for me Joel “Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” That is something I’m learning as well to hold myself even though people might react, but what I’ve discovered as well is that when we see the love in people and focus on that much more than the sometimes not so great behaviour, other people have the chance to resurrect themselves out of that behaviour.

    1. It’s the love that truly connects us.

    2. How true your words Matts. I have found the same when I see the love or essence of the person first, not the reaction, how change happens for us both. The power of “Being Love”.

35. Our current standards in society impose that we follow its rule in order for us to fit in, belong and feel accepted and valued. And so, it is in society that we seek to be loved. Yet we are already that which we seek and initiating and developing a self-loving relationship with our essence is how we begin to realise and understand that being love is our innate way of being and living impulsed by this quality is the true standard we are born to live by.

36. It is a fascinating game we constantly play with others measuring how much love we can or will be with them. Yet when we open up the doors to love we cannot not love everyone equally and so by doing so be loved. So often though we can put the blinkers on and miss this seeking love from another. What I have found is that the more love I am with myself then the more love I am with everyone else.

37. I total corker of a sharing, exposing what so many people live with. I sure do and it is really recent that I have started to love me for me and feel I am worth spending the time doing this.

    1. Thanks Vanessa for your comment, it’s a valid point to love ourselves for ourselves, because this cuts out the need for others to love us first.

38. There’s a lot we have to do to be loved, but only to be, to be love.

    1. So wisely said Michael – our surrender to all that we are is how we can truly be free.

    2. So much of life revolves around what you have shared Michael, we do so much to be loved – study, fashion, work, compromise, money, etc, yet to be love just requires us to reconnect to all we are, and this love is a stillness, and not at all like the desperation of the million plus ways we use to be liked, accepted, recognised, etc, in the hope of being loved. Whole industries even exist tapping into this need to be loved.

       1. Entire industries created to keep us being who we are not… we’ve got to ask the question – What is it that would happen if we were to be who we truly are that requires so much time, energy and effort put in to making sure it doesn’t happen?

39. Yes we often seem to get love confused with expectation, neediness and demands. It is revealing to honestly look at what we have reduced ‘love’ to be, which may not have any relationship with truth and true intimacy.

40. While we ever look for love ‘from’ someone we have separated from the connection to the love we naturally are. Love is not something we can get from outside of us. I’m sure many of us have tried and tested this and know it to be true.

41. Yes imagine if we all waited for someone else to make the first move to express love, be willing to be transparent and open…. trusting ourselves and each other. When I do meet others in this way they most often respond with love.

42. We have been sold many lies about love, it was not until I meet Serge Benhayon that I understood and felt the truth about love and how we have disconnected from this immense love that is within us all.

    1. I agree it is only Serge Benhayon that really exposed the false ideals of love.

43. “In truth, that last one, “they need to be love first” is a big one. In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else.” It is quite amazing how much we do this – hold ourselves ransom based on either behaviours or situations. I have recently being working on a busy project, and I have held myself ransom as such to the busy-ness of the project and put my love for myself, and self-care second – behind the needs of the project. And as a result of that, I am so tired.

    1. Oh this is so easy to do! The need for recognition is taught so young it is a real automatic go to. Rather than always knowing you are the most important part in the quality of love.

    2. Putting work, relationships, the ‘should dos’ or ‘got to’ before the basic needs of our bodies just doesn’t work out over the long term. It’s a process of letting go of the pictures of what we think we need to do and just learning to do what is there to be done, in that moment; not pushing or disregarding our bodies in the process. It’s ironic because we rush around thinking we’re saving the world but making ourselves exhausted and ill in the process- and then a burden on the world whose problems we were trying to solve! If we all started with taking deep care ourselves first we’d have a lot more energy for what really needed to be done, and to support others.

44. Our pictures of what love is can differ drastically depending on what we see as love. My now deceased mother had a picture that if you were helping her out with things like decorating, taking her out, fixing things around the house then it proved that we loved her. At the time I could not understand why she came over all needy all of the time and then it was explained to me that was her idea of what love is.

    1. I can relate to this, I have pictures around what love is in friendship, certain actions and behaviours I consider to be support. Then I had a friend phone at a time when I was stewing over the lack of these actions from friends, and all I felt was this amazing connection between us, it didn’t fit the picture but it delivered so much in its own way. I realised how invested I was in people treating me a certain way, but it was placing limitations over my relationships and leaving me open to a lot of reaction. Investments (or needs) like that can be hard to let go of because we believe they will deliver love, but they truly take us away from our own love and being open to how love constellates differently between people. We can actually miss the beauty of the love that is present there with us.

45. True there are many more layers..But it is a good one to start with. As when we see one layer – we make space for the next layer ahead. Meaning that when we open up to the possibility that we need to live love ourselves first, we can then see the layers that we have put in the way of us truly loving us.

46. It is a big question, and is a great reminder, a timely one, too, as I was finding it hard to be love in the face of lovelessness felt from outside and there’s hurt. And it’s really weird because sometimes I treat ‘being love’ and ‘loving myself’ as if it’s the hardest thing ever, something I really have to try not to fight against. And writing this, I can feel how it’s in this complexity that love gets lost and I feel like I don’t know what to do as so many justifications/excuses stand in the way. Coming back to my breath, connecting with my essence that knows that I am love brings back simplicity and settlement in my body.

    1. Thank you for sharing it helps expose so many ways we avoid the simplicity luxury of life and what’s on offer.

    2. Keeping things simple, staying connected with our essence, and our breath are all supportive in us simply being love.

47. We have a thousand ways to build jails for us. The condition: I need to be loved before I am love is just one example.

    1. This is great Eduardo, as is the visual, it brings the responsibility and power back to ourselves.

    2. It is a jail Eduardo very toxic hideous hell hole that refuses to let go of it’s incarceration. Until you do just surrender, so I have heard at least with those who have we can be inspired to love truly ourselves and others.

48. I know this one very well. I’ve seen many conditions show their face over my life. Many conditions I use to not live all of me.

49. ‘Can I be love without being loved?’ Oooh, what a dynamite question. I have come a long way since first meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine in 2006. Yet reading what you have shared Joel and posing the question to myself I realise there are still areas for me to heal. How are your layers going, Joel, as you say you will keep us posted? I gain much from your sharings and so would appreciate, as I am sure many others would to, as to what you have uncovered?

50. The need for love outside of ourselves can be an indication that we have ourselves separated from the love that we are.

    1. So simple, yet so accurate – searching for love on the outside is an instant tell that we’ve lost connection to the abundance of it on the inside.

    2. I like this too because there is a whole array of problems and issues we can take from when we are separated from ourselves. The magical thing I find is that when I reconnect to myself all that is not there and there is just the knowing of being grand and amazing without need to be loved first. So it is more a case of observing when we feel like that and making a choice to reconnect.

51. Wow, am I willing to be love even when others aren’t being loving. How often do we let comments, looks and arguments get to us, how often do we go over these arguments in our head. How much easier it would be if we simply loved ourselves regardless of what others tell us, or even if we did something wrong…

    1. Well said Viktoria for if we are letting things in to agitate and upset us we are obviously not coming from our fullness.

    2. I agree Viktoria, it’s the opposite of what we do, but can we not only be love in the face of lovelessness, but even become more love as a response?

52. We may hold others to ransom but that also means we are dependent on them. If we think they can love, perhaps we can as well?

53. Revisiting this blog, I got to feel how any condition is already making love not love. For example if I am willing to love, but with the condition that it is reciprocated or at least received, then this is already not love in it’s full expression. It has been said that ‘Love needs naught’ and I am discovering more the deep truth of these words.

    1. Wow Carolien, thank you for your comment, you have highlighted to me the false nature of my own love when it comes with an agenda or investment. Words to live by “Love needs naught”.

54. I so love your blogs Joel. I know this game very well. I’ve used it to protect myself and think I would keep myself safe if I lived this way. Nothing could be furtherer from the truth. To make the dark light one must turn the light on.

55. Brilliant blog Joel and brilliant question, ‘So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved?’ Yes absolutely, and I am learning this myself. I used to hold back being loving when others were not being loving towards me and I realise this was not love but a form of contraction. Now, I understand that we can be love without being loved.

56. The willingness to love ourselves is massive and I mean MASSIVE as without it there is also a lack of openness to love in our relationships which inevitably means our relationships do not deepen and expand.

    1. Yes, to love ourselves and to notice that we actually are love and we can discard that which is not love.

57. I totally measured my worth by the degree in which I was loved by others and especially my partners. I now see how disempowering this is, as I was constantly valuing my worthiness by the response or reactions from everyone and the world. It seems crazy that all along within us is the greatest confirmation of who we are, love, which is in fact everything we already are in essence, yet we seek outside of ourselves for appreciation. When we develop a loving relationship with our essence, the love we are, we discover that what it means to simply live the power of who we are through our connection to the love we innately are within. This is my experience anyway, through which I now joyfully share and enjoy being who I am, as I continue to deepen my relationship with being the love I know we all are.

58. It feels deeply arrogant to not choose to be love with yourself and then expect that another is love with you.

59. To demand love or need love from another is actually a humaniliation to your own power and love. Meaning that if we are connecting to our true love, in fact we love to share, but need no there is not.

60. Loved reading this as I have been playing with this myself this week and it has been a lot of fun. Some responses from people have been favourable, but others have reacted big time. What I have learnt out of this is that I do not need other peoples approval and I do not need to change due to their reactions to me. I have been accused of being in a cult, picked at several times by a clients wife, shouted at by another client, and that’s just the reactions. On the other side of the coin, I look after a severely depressed man who hardly ever speaks who called me in from another room to ask me my name; his face was all lit up and making eye contact – now that’s what I call a miracle.

    1. Julie it’s amazing what you have shared and shows we can be the steadiness of love and not change despite the mixed bag of reactions, responses and downright miracles we will receive. I think I’ve carried pictures of how people will welcome and respond to love but it makes sense that some will react, and often quite badly, because we carry so many hurts around love, and it also calls us back to being responsible for ourselves.

61. `the most beautiful thing is that 1. we can not live without love. 2. we can only fully recognize this love within ourselves. 3. we are not to wait for anyone else to choose love, but empower ourselves (in equally difficult and challenging times) to stay loving no matter what. 4. to come to know ourselves through this connection, feeling loved by loving ourselves, and then equally sharing this love with all others.

62. The desiree to be loved runs deep. Absolutely we all deserve to be loved, without question. However it is an interesting study to observe how our behaviours, movements and thoughts may change when we are not ‘loved’ by another. And becomes even more interesting when we consider the fact that love is a quality. You can not ‘give’ a quality to another, they can only align to it within themselves.

63. So great to expose all these false pictures around love Joel, most of society has settled for the emotional kind of love that has expectations and conditions about love that stops anyone experiencing the power and grandness of true love.

64. Loving others with no expectation of anything coming back is challenging.

65. I love this blog. When I first read the words be love, I had no clue where to start. I was looking for a picture to follow, and guess what, I couldn’t find any around me. I looked farther and was inspired but Love is not found in a picture anyway, so I was actually in a pretty good place to not have that around me. Until I felt what love is within my body, I had no clue what it meant. Because I can’t think my way to love, that is absolutely futile. But when felt, it is undeniable and I know what it is, and when surrendered, it expresses through me.

66. A great one to reveal its pointy head – ‘I will not open up to all the love I have within me and share it with everyone because the world sucks and doesn’t love me back.’ Most of us, if we are honest, do go about our lives with this attitude in the background… and then we wonder why life has the inevitable loneliness and emptiness we have very erroneously surmised as being just what we can expect.

67. Joel – to let go of the expectations of others before we do something is huge, and to actually take responsibility to reflect all that we know, we can actually support so many people around us. It is not just what we get from others, but also what others get from us.

68. a great question to revisit Joel, and I am now able to say absolutely, I can choose to be love, whether others love me back or not. I thought it was harder though, if I did not have the same love reflected back to me but the truth it is not. And at the same time, that love is always reflected back to me though God and the Hierarchy. So I realised, and am learning to live the fact that, to be love is entirely up to me, it is a choice for me to make and whenever I I think that choice is dependant on others I am simply creating excuses to not be the love I am.

    1. I love your comment Carolien, absolutely brilliant. This is exactly what I have discovered too. Also, why wait for others to love me when I can choose to be love 24/7?

69. Am I willing to be love first, no matter how others respond … that is such a telling question of our commitment to ourselves and being the love we are.

70. If we don’t fist self love, we keep the door closed to love. Love begins within.

71. Joel the difference is so marked, I used to try and love someone it would exhaust me as I was not actually loving myself, i was not being love and I had made love an act. Now this is not unnormal for that is how most of the world approaches love but what is great too is to start exploring love as a way of being, living and in that a very different relationship to and with love.

72. Brilliant Joel, if I could sit the world down get them a tea and get them to read just one blog – this would be it. This fundamental misinterpretation of what love truly means keeps sucking us all in, myself included. It staves off the day where we live and realise that we are the only one who can give ourselves love – and the sharing of this fire with the whole world is the purpose we were born to deliver.

73. I absolutely love the analogy of the the jug. A brilliant way to describe how we simply can’t love another if our own love jug isn’t full, otherwise, where is the love pouring out from? If it’s an empty vessel, then the love ain’t real. So good!!!

74. Its fascinating that we seek love elsewhere and all of the 4 you listed were a biggie for me too and yet it resides within us all. We go through years of hurts searching or hanging on hoping one day that love will walk in the door when its simply you, right there next to you, inside of you…… The teachings of Serge Benhayon is simple. Never before has other gurus/teachers presented to me in this way, who I thought had the answer to what was missing in my life.

75. “if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share” The love of God is forever pouring through us and we have the choice to let it drain away or feel the fullness and share it with all.

76. Why would we ever put a condition on being love while we are from love? To me this can only be the case when we forcefully disconnect from that love that lives deep in all of us as we can see so clearly in our nowadays societies. The force to deny that we are love is expressed in all the abuse we experience on a everydays basis and is the root cause of all the atrocities we experience everywhere in the world.

77. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved?” This is such a great question and I suspect the answer is yes because when we were born we are love and that remains no matter if we are loved or not. What does happen however is that it gets so covered over with hurt that we forget that it is there but the truth is we never stop being love no matter what happens to us, that is our essence remains the same.

    1. … yes, and that seems to be where the endless search for ‘love’ begins, the moment we disconnect from the natural Love within ourselves.

78. I wonder if the question would be to stop ‘not being love’ and therefore love will be . The difficulty is that society has ingrained behaviour in place to prevent this from happening.

79. Everything in this world is generally set up around how others are, our ‘quality of life’ as such depends on outer circumstances and scenarios. And whilst we might develop tools to be unattached or distract from it, none of this is the truth. We’ve got it all back to front as you show Joel, because it’s the Love inside us that lights up the world not the other way around. It’s not enough to be a little bit less nasty – we are here to live with a constant connection in our body.

80. Such a great point Elizabeth. We cap ourselves so much when we depend on cues from others in order to get a sense of who we are.

81. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” Would love to hear an update from you Joel. I have been working with these questions myself in recent months and I can honestly say the transformation that is happening within me is nothing short of miraculous. Nowadays it’s so obvious when I am going back into the game of ‘you be love first’ because I feel completely different within myself. Gone is the spaciousness, the grace, the ease, replaced with a feeling of being squashed, compressed accompanied by lots of internally mutterings and moanings. It’s hideous and is such a stark contrast to the former that I am able to pull myself out of it pretty quickly now.

82. “Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” This has been a great one of for me being open with no judgement, allowing the openness of love to show and feel what is present.

83. ‘ Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at?’ This is another blog Joel – complete acceptance is as deep as truly loving self in order to love others fully and not waiting for someone else to be love first. Great questions and I will take this one with me today. Thank you.

84. It has been my pondering of late .. why I wait for another to be love before I am.. It’s an age old requirement.. I clocked it recently when I was expressing intimately with a close friend. They remarked on my beauty in how I was and what I was expressing about. I felt joy; and I wondered why I was not impulsing this myself from within because it was there waiting for that ‘outer trigger’. It was in my body an innate joy. It comes back to being that first and being with that. Build and act on my joy. Bathe in it with no outer influence, know it and claim it as yours and who you are.

85. What you describe here is conditional love, in that they must love you first then you will love them. But the truth is no one can love you for to love someone is to have conditional love. To be love is like a rose which emanates its perfume without any concern as to who receives it, therefore no condition as in if no one receives the perfume so be it, the Rose still is a Rose emanating its “love” its perfume for all, and therefore all receives.

86. Great article and it puts more then an every day normal spin on love, It now makes sense to me that to ‘be’ anything for anyone you would first need to hold that quality yourself. I remember chasing things around and around and trying many different things to prove this not to be true. Now I have come back to the same point, if you see something the world is needing then roll your sleeves up and bring it yourself and wait for the world to come to you.

87. So great Joel to uncover and questions all of the patterns and behaviours we hold onto that are keeping us further away from love.

88. Reading this one – “Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” brought a tear to my eyes this morning. Can you imagine a world if we all offered ourselves this?

89. This is a great exposure of the many conditions we can put on others or life in general before we will ‘be love’ or feel complete! And all the while we have this innate source of unconditional love just waiting to be expressed if we allow it out – it actually takes effort to hold it back….!

90. It’s really all about ‘Be love, to be loved’.

91. It is not uncommon for us to have a version of what love is; for example, when my mother was alive her version of love was to have things done for her, and I remember going to an Esoteric Practitioner who pointed out to me maybe that’s her version of love. That’s how she measured if we loved her or not, and what I noticed with this version of love was how it came in cycles, and with mood swings depending on the need. To her that is what love was, people showing you they loved you by doing things for you, and if they withdraw that attention then that meant they do longer loved you – simple. It is sad to think that there are many versions of love that are born out of the emptiness, and the lack and that these versions are so far removed from the Love that we are naturally.

92. Yes that is a very good question or actually point of pondering, Joel – no matter if a person is expressing in a loving way or not – we should always hold love inside us and for another –
    As otherwise we make love conditional.

    1. That is so true we need to hold love in side of us no matter what the other present, be open and not judging, allowing the unconditional love to flow through.

93. I love this blog Joel, many questions with many layers to peel away as the the answers become lived and the love shared.

94. The only way to know if self-love can reverse our insatiable and never-ceasing need to BE loved is to try it, as a comment above says, how can we ask the world for something we are not prepared to give ourselves? And what if there is a way to live that does not demand what we need, but instead is able to offer love first, regardless of whether it comes back or not – that would be worth gold.

95. We all know ‘all we need is love’. In other words, there is this image that love comes only from another one. The concept of be love is pretty alien to us. Yet, in spite of this, it just makes a lot of sense. We cannot expect another one to give us what we are not willing to give us to ourselves.

    1. I love that Eduardo, because as bastardised as the meaning of that saying (all we need is love) may be, it is still truth. All we need is love, to live the love that we are.

96. This is so relevant to how I have, and still do measure what love I allow in, and what love I allow out. Always checking that it’s safe before either is done. Which is totally crazy when I feel the truth that the greatest safety I could possibly have is let it freely flow in all it’s abundance.

97. If we want unconditional love could we not give this to ourselves?

98. Great point Elizabeth and yesterday I did just that, I looked everywhere for £40 I had lost and it was in my back pocket all along. Beginning to practise self hugs I found a posture with my arms crossed letting my elbows rest in my cupped hands, this felt lovely too.

99. I like this question, “can I be love without being loved?” Do we allow ourselves to be the love we are.” We can place so many conditions on what we think love is and yet love is our very nature.

100. It is fascinating to see the ways in which we hold the world/humanity to ransom – “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours’ is a classic. I will only show you my love, if you show me yours – the whole world is doing this to varying degrees which means we are living in such a contracted and protected way. Thank God for Serge Benhayon who is slowly and surely inspiring people to drop down their guards, and be the love they naturally are, and bring that to a loveless world.

101. It is when we are love first we are then a reflection to others and inspire them to be the same. We cannot expect others to be love to us first, it just not work.

102. Great questions to ask Joel, it is so empowering to be love first and offer this reflection to others regardless of what they do or how they behave, otherwise what we are in effect saying to the world is that I need you to love me because I don’t love myself.

103. There is a hidden illusion in the idea of waiting for another to be Love first before you are Love. If another is truly Love and being truly loving with you it may not as comfortable or “lovely” as we might imagine it to be. Love can also be very confronting at times and if we have been living in the comfort of being less than who we truly are then true love would never let you get away with it if you were asking for the reflection. So waiting for another to be Love is a complete illusion and in truth excuse to live our responsibility.

104. The timing of reading this blog could not be more fitting. I am pondering on the questions you ask in the last paragraph and in this moment of consideration I feel strangely free, I feel like I am not worried, that I will keep choosing truth over recognition, love, over need and back myself not matter what the outcome, after all, it’s not about getting it right but it is about making it all about love.

105. Wow… the conditions we cast before being love! And I have been noticing how there is an element of trying from my part when I am not loving and nurturing myself. Being love is not something I can tell myself to do or be. It is a choice, yes – but the thing is I am so used not making that choice for so long, and what I have found is that the consistency in movement is definitely needed and I cannot leave my body out of the equation.

106. I’d love to hear how you are getting on with this Joel. You ask some awesome questions. It’s got me pondering on the level of protection I walk around with, which I know actually depletes my energy levels, because of this internal ‘holding on’, that allows me to be on constant alert. I agree, it’s not actually necessary, and also, what if I loved and didn’t receive it back…should that even happen? Nothing I suppose, other than I would have let go of the tension I walk around with everyday…it feels like a win win situation.

107. What a different focus on love Joel. Now I have a deeper awareness of love from hearing the presentations of Universal Medicine, I can clearly see the amount of wasted energy that has gone into holding back love from myself, caught up in the awful and untrue game that I could only give permission to bring even a glimmer of love to myself, when approved by others first. Discovery: I am love, equally-and innately so by the commonality of the Divine Essence held within us all. Only when I be love with myself, can I truly have love for others.

108. The world is made up of many who are hiding behind walls of their own protection not wanting to open up and let everyone else in in full unconditionally. We then create a situation where we feel we cannot trust others but this is all never going to change if we are constantly reflecting back to each other that same walls of protection. Hence it is up to us all to make the change, every single one in the world can initiate a new way by opening up their hearts and letting others in.

109. It is all in the acceptance of ourselves; we are so easily distracted from this in the way of searching for recognition and support for our choices. It is this that needs cracking to be in full acceptance of ourselves without any needs from another.

110. This is the first thing that I really got to understand with the Universal Medicine teachings is that it starts with me first, loving myself, caring for myself, allowing the Love in and through me and then from here all other relationships are filled with Love. Even if the other is not presenting Love, if I stand solid in my connection and hold this they then have a reflection that shows Love is it. That they too have this within them. Love is everything.

111. Sometimes we may fear expressing how we truly feel because of becoming vulnerable however if we hold back we are suppressing that feeling and complications are almost bound to ensue. It’s as if we left something hanging. By expressing the truth from our body we complete our part and keep it simple.

112. Would love the update on this Joel…
     Are we prepared to back ourselves all the way even when we are the only ones doing this?
     That in itself is a fallacy too I just realised because when we do totally love ourselves we are never on our own.

113. Oh how I know this one well, and oh how many layers I have found within it. The more I live truth the more the layers fall away, as truth is all the love I need, for they are one and the same.

114. It is the ultimate question really Joel, as it is ‘love that makes the world go round’ is it not? If this is so, then understanding what love truly is would be a very good start. l’m not sure we have done this as individuals, let alone as a world-population. Thank God for Universal Medicine who is the first organisation I have ever come across who does exactly that… as a starting point for everything.

115. Important point Joel. My feeling is we experience the love we choose to be just as much – if not more than we do the love we receive from others. But if no-one is willing to ‘go first’ then we will wait a very long time.

116. If we all hold back waiting for another to love us first before we love them no one is ever going to make the first move.

     1. Great point Suse, we would need to just get on with it and make the first move, not wait for others to love us first. Put ourself first and love ourselves.

117. My heart skipped a beat when I read this question – “can I be love without being loved?” What a great question and one that does need to be pondered on. The truth for me is that we can be love without being loved because we come from love and are naturally love therefore if we just let ourselves be true to ourselves we are in that very movement loving ourselves back. There is no way we cannot actually not be loved if we surrender to the love that we innately are.

118. Ah Joel another corker from you, absolutely can relate with what you are sharing; I play this dance with everyone all the time. It is a pernicious pattern that needs to be exposed in full. How it plays out in everything we do and don’t do, I realise that I really am having to relearn how to care deeply for myself and to live with a preciousness towards myself that is buried under mountains, it feels like sometimes, of hardness and dismissiveness. But having seen so many live life in a way that is not like this, that is in the being love first BEFORE anything else, having seen that with my own eyes repeatedly for 15 years I am inspired and I know there is so much love in me to be lived. How awesome is that?

119. Joel I always love reading your blogs, your sharing is something I think we can all relate too. I remember when I would ask Serge what I need to do, and he would always answer with just be love.

120. It is ironic if but deeply indicative of the craziness of humanity when we have it such that today the most unaccepted action is to be loving to oneself yet the most craved thing in this world is love! We cannot expect it from another if we are not being love ourselves first.

121. “Can I be love without being loved?” What a great question to ponder on Joel, and as I do I am aware that there are times when I look for love and acceptance. Gratefully the layers keep unfolding with valuable lessons on the way.

122. This is a trap many of us fall into – that someone must love us before we can love them back. This gives us a clue as to how we as a society have plummeted into so much distrust, insecurity and hurt and thus allowed so much lovelessness to govern over us when in truth we are made of the very stuff that saves us, for it is our love that is our saviour light from which to arise out of the shadows we have sought shelter in for so long. If we truly want to see change in the world then we each need to give ourselves permission to ‘go first’.

123. ‘Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?’ I still react sometimes, with my biological family especially. To remember that we are all channels of energy and this amazing body is purely a vehicle of expression supports me to stay centred in myself, that is connected to the love that I am so that I allow my expression to come from that place of love whatever I see as manipulative and abusive behaviour.

124. For so many lifetimes I have been moving away from being love and believing the ‘loving’ I was participating in was it. Serge Benhayon has simply lived in a way that others can observe and feel for themselves the truth of what he offers. This living example has helped me to re-connect to who I am and what to ‘be love first’ really means. This has meant unraveling so much that I have got myself bound up in and everyday I appreciate the truth I am returning to.

125. As I was reading this, I was considering how I would feel if I didn’t feel the love from the practitioners I saw, or my friends and family and immediately I realised how dependent on their love I was for me to offer anything back. It’s quite exposing really. I suspect many would feel the same, so is it possible that that’s a rather large contributing factor to the lack of love being expressed in the world? No doubt it’s all there, but we’re just keeping a lid on it.

126. This is a huge question, and I suspect it’s one of those things that many of us will say doesn’t apply to us…..when it actually does, because it’s so subtle and our behaviours and protections are so ingrained it can take some time before we are willing to see them at play. I know I often withold my love and affection until the other person goes first for fear of leaving myself too open, too vulnerable.

127. Someone else’s choices should never affect our capacity to love, be loved, feel love and express love. Every moment we have choice to express, live and know the love that we innately feel, someone else’s choice does not change the fact that we have a choice every moment of the day too.

128. It is amazing how many conditions we can put on other people and situations in life before we are willing to be the love we innately are! And to let those conditions go is truly freeing – I’m by no means perfect in this respect but am developing being love unconditionally by seeing more the ways in which I have held back and letting those kinds of behaviours or choices go.

129. I feel the pattern you have shared here Joel is one that is deeply ingrained in all of us especially men. Men can feel the lack of love from another as a rejection whether it be received in the form of abuse, reaction, criticism or judgement. It is all the same and does not confirm or hold the man in the love he is. Once men feel rejected, it is almost like inbuilt behaviour to automatically shut down as the hurt can be felt to the core. This reaction is of course not from us at all but nevertheless it is how we tend to behave.

130. This is a very beautiful posed question, Joel

     “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?”

     How willing are we to push the boundaries to what we feel and is correct and true. How far do we push to say all that we are and hold steady for all to see?

     This is true strength and way that many are yet to develop.

131. It is an absolute game changer when we make the choice to embrace the love we naturally are and to feel the beautiful flow-on effect this has on all relationships in our lives.

132. I love how we keep uncovering more and more about ourselves as we allow more love in. The learning is constantly changing and uncovering things that I may not have seen or felt before. The beauty and power of love for self is monumental and oh so worth it. Thank you Joel for another cracker blog.

133. Why wait for something we already are? Unless of course we are enjoying the game of delay we as spirits play in order to obstruct our path back to Soul/true love.

134. Thank you Joel for another great blog; “All of this is essentially saying I have a need to ‘be loved’ before I am willing to ‘be love’.” This is the way we have looked at love, expecting others to love us first before we can love, in other words we are only loveable if someone else loves us first. When in fact we are innately love with or without another loving us, and when we connect to this love within we can love others regardless of love coming back to us.

135. I have always thought of unconditional love being something that we give/are with another but I can see so clearly now that unconditional love has to start with ourselves. I can self-love, but only to a point so for me the learning is to now love myself unconditionally no matter what.

136. Hmmm, I’m guilty of this also Joel. Not prepared to be love completely until I feel safe the other person will do the same. But what if we all lived like that…sitting back holding onto love and not sharing it…or is that what life as it stands, is currently like? I would say it was…it feels very common for this need for us not be vulnerable, not to give/be love just in case the other person doesn’t reciprocate. But then the question is, what if they don’t? what would actually happen? This is a huge one for me to ponder on, because as I write I’m thinking…’yeah, who cares if they don’t give it back…at least they have it from me and one day when they feel ready to be vulnerable too…they’ll feel comfortable sharing it with me, because they know I’m ok with it.’ If I did this, at the very least I would be putting an end to holding myself back from being all of me. And that in itself has been more debilitating than I actually realise.

137. Since coming to the work of the Ageless Wisdom I have been coming to terms with the fact that I am Love. I always thought love was an external thing that was given by others. Realising I am Love has been and is a wonderful journey.

     1. Ah yes, the great illusion of humanity laid bear – we are the love we have been so desperately searching for. Curtain unveiled.

        1. We spend a lot of time hiding from what we seek and from what we are.

138. It is a big question and so very pertinent to where I am at this morning. The importance of self-love first ‘dawned’ on me about 20 years ago – maybe more, but today I sit pondering whether I have truly embraced it in its true meaning and fullness. I know there is more to be done here and thank you Joel for sharing your own very supportive message on the subject.

139. There is no moment or time of day, no situation or circumstance, no event or incident where it’s not possible to be Love. Sure we are not perfect, but the difficulty and emotional anguish we go into is just not true. Life is very simple when you know joy, true Love and you have got you. Thanks Joel for inspiring me to choose to be this way today.

140. Thank you for the inspiration, Joel. Can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to go there before others are? – I will make them my questions of the week, too. I can feel how most of us have been playing this game of ‘I’ll show you mine if you show yours first’ and waiting for the other/world to prove the truth we have known for so long but set ourselves up to feel betrayed by. In this Era, we have Serge Benhayon who has taken that ‘first’ step and keeps reflecting the unwavering truth, so more and more of us do know that it is more than possible, and actually can be lived with consistency, and it is our responsibility to test drive it so that even more can feel what that is like.

141. Having someone’s attention is nice. Being wanted and listened to is sweet. Having someone who feels the same way as you is attractive too. But if you don’t have a warmth inside of yourself, if you don’t care and respect yourself as you are, how will you go when you are alone? Is Love a fleeting thing another bestows on you? I am with you Joel, because I don’t think so. It seems self-love a quality we have long neglected in ourselves. It can be tempting to think there is a short-cut somehow. But based on my experience and my body – all I can say is boy, they don’t work at all.

142. This is such a great reminder of the fact that we are already all the love we could ever need. We need not wait to follow another or be loved by another before embracing the love we are, as there is nothing to wait for. We are love and when we lead from our hearts, regardless of how others are, we shine and reflect the quality of love that we all are in essence.

143. This is the big one for me . . . “Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should?” . . . this of course is looking at my acceptance, expectations and my judgments of myself and others and not worrying if people react.

144. “Can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” These are very, very BIG questions that hold the key to understanding and embracing true love.

145. The perfect morning read for me this morning. Just the questions I have been pondering on and have felt the true answers to. No I don’t need to be loved before I can be love. It’s a way I hold my self back from being all the love I am.

146. Truth is we cannot expect love from another, we have to be love ourselves and allow that love to emanate out to others. The problem is we have been brought up with the belief that love is outside of us and that we need to get it. But in truth it is within us always and we just need to access it.

147. Love is a being-ness first, action second, and it is a being-ness that resides eternal regardless of what the response is to its beholding embrace.

148. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved?” Great question posed by you Joel, need, recognition and expectations take us away from the responsibility of connecting to our own love. To hold our love equally for all in the face of unloving behaviour offers a beautiful and powerful reflection.

149. ‘can I be love without being loved?’ A great question and to which most people would answer ‘of course’ Taking a closer look, what happens when someone abuses us? What happens when those nearest and dearest are acting in a deceitful and conniving way? What happens when someone rips us off or stitches us up, what then? And what if we really like/love someone but hold back for fear of what our declaration of love or sharing of our feelings might bring forth? Do we dare make the first move toward love? And then can we hold it?

150. The conditions we place on ourselves and others only offers us a delay to the ultimate party in town and that’s the love we hold within.

151. Expectations are a real denial of love. If we hold on to any we have rejected Love.

152. Brilliant questions Joel. I recently realised how crazy it is to wait and expect others to love me first before I can be love. It makes sense why I end up feeling disappointed, hurt and sad in the past from measuring and holding back my love based on what I receive. I have discovered Love simply doesn’t work like this. It feels like an age old habit that I am now learning to break and expose the many layers of holding back love. Now, I am willing to connect to the love that I know is within everyone, regardless of what I receive and how people behave towards me, letting go of the images and expectations. By choosing to connect to myself first, this will naturally connect me to others on a deeper level.

153. The big illusion in wanting others to be love or love us first is that they too cannot express true love if they are not first loving themselves – so we often demand of them something they have not given to themselves and therefore do not have in their body to share. Someone who is loving will simply express love equally to everyone as love does not have an on and off switch. What we are usually looking for or getting from others that we call love it not love at all in the true sense of the word so never satisfying. It is more likely to be some form or recognition, attention or enjoining. When we in fact meet true love many people actually find it repulsive and confronting as it exposes all that is not love.

154. Great question, Joel .. am I willing to be love no matter what, without expectation – this is one I’ve been exploring for some time and I’m finding many places where I place a condition on my love, where I expect things to be a certain way, where I will be love if … And I’m also seeing understanding and learning to observe and unpick my conditions so I be love no matter what – it’s an unfolding journey.

     1. I am learning to do this too Monicag2, it is amazing to realise how many conditions and expectations we pile up to simply avoid being love. Once we have an awareness to this way of living, it means we can then choose to discard these conditions to allow love to be freely expressed regardless of what is around us, ‘to be love no matter what’.

155. Many of us were caught up in this, that love is given to us or we give love to and that has taken us on an illusional journey, leaving ourselves in deep hurt. It is in connecting to truth within, that allows us to emanate the love out for others to feel, there is no giving of love or love being given to you. It is about self connecting to the love within and allowing this to emanate out.

156. For so long in my life, I have been looking for that nice one, that understanding individual who totally gets where I am at and coming from, who never hurts me or does anything ‘wrong’. But all along as you show here Joel, I had the key to my contentment right here under my nose. For this simple distinction between looking for love and being it in you, contains everything in life we are here to do. At any one moment, you always have a choice of quality that is you – Love or what is not true? What we don’t like to see is it really is this simple and easy and has been all the time we have been alive. None of the problems and dramas we perceive need control us the way we think, because ultimately we can choose to simply be Love.

157. It is interesting the way we hold the world at ramson where we need others to be something in order for us to open up and express our love within, being love and not holding back is the only way forth regardless of what comes back at us, as it is in this reflection we offer another that true inspiration comes through to reignite the love that we all come from.

158. “All of this is essentially saying I have a need to ‘be loved’ before I am willing to ‘be love’.” I too have held others to ransome, wanting them to express love to me first. As my love and appreciation for myself has grown I am more outgoing and opening my heart more to others and (funnily enough?!) the responses are so different. I am learning to ‘be love’.

159. I have noticed when I am with people, they can change their mood from high to low in a flash and in the past I would have aligned or sympathised , but now I observe the change and stay with myself not going into thinking what have I done or not done, knowing I am love and being a marker for that reflection.

160. I am curious how your week did go Joel, ‘being love’ rather than needing to ‘be loved’… a part 2 blog might be in order 😉

161. Love the questions you pose here Joel. For, me as I have connected to the love within myself and appreciate the depth of our love in essence, there is not an expectation that another need to deliver it, which in truth is not even possible. We are the love…

162. Joel, no mistake that I am reading this today. I can feel remnants of the need to be loved were there for me to feel and recognize, especially to connect with the way that it made me feel, not good enough and less than. I am constantly discovering many many ways in which patterns and behaviours are there that had been hidden to me, but, as I reveal one, it opens the door for the next one to be seen. There is huge appreciation in my body for allowing this process to continue to unfold and for the truth of who I am to be lived.

163. ‘the other first’ is such a disempowering behavior… I notice this recently when I had a conflict with someone and become aware of the hardness that did come up in my body and by realizing it and wanting to stop the hurting each other behavior, I wanted the other to stop first and act firstly lovingly again. Then I would join. But.. What if the other wants the same. Who starts? It is, was and will always be me who has to take the responsibility about my expression, the relationships I am in AND about how life is just now. It is my responsibility, was and will be. No way out here. I am love and so I have to live & express this love. Sooner or later. The sooner – the more fun.

164. Joel this is a jewel of a blog. I have read it before but, as you say, there are deeper levels and just to re-read this today took me deeper. I see where I too need to just be love, no matter if it may appear others do or do not reciprocate this love. Love is a constant and not mercurial.

165. I too made being love very complicated. I insisted I didn’t know how to, that I didn’t know what that was – I just blanked. I had many many conditions to be fulfilled before getting anywhere near it. But now, after some years of attempting it, it has been the best move ever I have made.

166. Can I love myself, no matter what and without expecting anything in return? It’s a big ask in one way but it’s actually very simple. It’s a big ask because it means I can let go of all that I am invested in, how I am seen, recognised, how I see that I am accepted. But it’s simple at the same time, because I will have no expectations of myself, which means I can be myself. Much more to ponder on here Joel. Thanks as always for what you share.

167. This is beautiful. Truly. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?”

168. We are love and as such we can only be sold a false version of it if we are not choosing to attune to our true expression.

169. Thank you Joel for sharing this simple truth that we cannot truly love another unless we first deeply love ourselves. It certainly exposes all the conditions we have put on love which are nothing more than layers of protection to not feel the grand love that we are and the responsibility we each have to live this in full, to the best of our ability, despite whether it is ‘returned’ or not. True love has no investment. It can only ever express all that it is, in every given moment, to everyone in equal measure.

170. Serge Benhayon is a living, breathing example of a vessel overflowing with love and his unconditional love is an inspiration to all of us to be equal in love.

171. Being willing to be love first was something I had to get use to as well. I use to look for love outside of me, love from everyone else. But once I started to love myself first, I could feel the connection and confidence within me. I could feel love from others without expecting it. It’s funny how when we connect to the love within us we inspire others to do the same. It is this love we feel back from others. How amazing it is?

172. Being willing to be love, when those around you are not choosing to be love themselves, is something most of us struggle with. Ironic isn’t it… a forever game of ‘no you first…. no you first’. What a clever trick we play to ensure we are never the fullness of love we know and come from… and nor is anybody else.

173. Joel I love your clear and powerful blog. “Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should?” It is a bit sad that most of us are not loving themselves deeply anymore. How would our world would look like if we all would not loose this ability to love ourselves first.

174. I love what you shared about being love and that ‘if you want the jug to be full you have to learn to fill it for yourself, and then there is enough to share’. This is deeply empowering to truly feel and know that the embracing and expression of love is entirely in our control.

175. The notion of self love was totally alien to me until I met Serge Benhayon. Which is beyond crazy as it should be the very first foundation stone laid in our lives and how we are parented and educated.

176. ”Can I be love, before being loved by another first”… what a great question to really ponder. l’d like to say ‘absoutely of course I can’, but suspect the reality is actually not so. Certainly after 14 years of studying with Universal Medicine I am far more able to than ever before, but given that love is not absolute all the time, shows there are still conditions existing on others before I will be love myself, in full, without reservation. Thanks Joel, love your blogs and quirky but very wise insights.

177. A heartfelt thank you Joel. This is exactly what I needed to read at this moment. That’s where I’ve been this week “being loved to be love” and no, it doesn’t work, we indeed do need to fill the vessel ourselves. Realising this I started reconnecting to me by going for a walk, receiving a few messages from God along the way and now here’s another one in reading your blog showing me again that when we take responsibility we are always fully supported and confirmed.

178. There are many ways I have shrouded love in terms of being recognised, accepted, acknowledged, praised but it all really came down to wanting to be loved. Being honest about this helps to see just how prevalent is the desire to be loved and how it can be a very consuming thing. On the other hand, to be love is a turning inwards to my Soul, enjoying my space and my body and filling up with me. It feels very nurturing and vital so certainly from my point of view, being love deserves to have all that attention given to seeking love, to be re-aligned to it.

179. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved?” Great question Joel as are your other questions; so much to ponder and take to a deeper level.
     I agree with you it is simple but the complexities we bring in are crippling. Our challenge is to keep it simple and just be the love that we so naturally are.

180. “can I be love without being loved?” We are all loved with, in and by the unconditional love of God so we are asked to live what we already are – love.

181. It is great to return to this blog Joel and to re assess my position on Love. Do I need to be loved before I will commit to love. Am I not worthy just as I am without having to have someone else tell me I am? I am love always and therefore I don’t need to have someone else love me first or to tell me so. Thank you Joel for a sharing that keeps giving.

182. I love the examples you gave Joel because I can so relate to them. I have placed so many conditions on love that I have been missing the essence of it because I was placing all my focus on finding love from outside of myself. The analogy of filling our own cup up first is brilliant because how can we be loving towards others or know what love is when we have not lived and experienced true love ourselves? ‘of course, if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.’

183. I used to think that to let go of all the conditions I had put onto myself before I allowed myself to be love – was a process like gradually peeling off layers, but what I have been experiencing is that something deeply fundamental needs to be changed for there to be a true change otherwise we kid ourselves into thinking that we are being more love when in fact we are just getting better and more generous but still measuring nonetheless.

184. When we outsource our love it usually comes with contracts and conditions but when we connect to our infinite resource of love from within, it fills us with both a purpose and commitment to life absolutely and completely.

     1. Beautifully said Suse, there is an infinite resource of love within us all, it is crazy why anyone would ever settle for the finite and reduced version of love.

185. This poses a great question for everyone Joel; do we wait for others to love us before we even think about loving ourselves? There are very widely held beliefs around having to be on the receiving end of care and affection in order to be ‘worthy’ of love – the fact that other people ‘love’ you means you must be deserving of it, however what you’ve shared is so true, that we are all equally ‘worthy’ and can have a great deal of love in our relationship with ourselves.

186. If we are conditioned to think that we give love, that love is given to us, but not that we are love, then of course we spend a lifetime chasing the former, and when it is not given to us ,we feel cheated, not realising all along that only one person can grant you access to love, and that is you.

187. I love your question Joel – ” can I be love without being loved?” It takes us to a new level of responsibility because it asks us to be responsible for ourselves not matter what has happened to us in life. We are love first and foremost and whether someone loves us or not it is our responsibility to be and express the love that we are, no matter what.

     1. Yes Elizabeth, “We are love first and foremost and whether someone loves us or not it is our responsibility to be and express the love that we are, no matter what.” This is what we are here for, to live the breadth and depth of love that is the expression of our light in this world. I felt to sing when I read this blog, I felt a bubbling of joy and of great potential. What it would be to have songs about love like this and not those that cement further the old dependency beliefs that Joel has outlined that proliferate our charts and media in general.

188. This is great to re read Joel. I particularly relate to these words ” Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise). This is to me a true challenge!

189. What you describe here is a big thing that is holding us back from being love, having ideals of how others should be or respond to be love ourselves. Isn’t this a great illusion? That is constantly feeding our feeling of not being enough, I know it is for me, and it is something that is holding me back for developing myself further back to who i truly am, I feel there is much to discover and learn, it is a great journey.

190. Thank you Joel for such a simple and truly powerful reminder. Holding back our love until we know another loves us, crazy really as everyone is reflecting everyone else and then we all end up holding back and everyone ends up missing out. Being love no matter what does take courage and strength at times especially when another is not being love, but the greatest gift we can give ourselves and another is to live this more each day and to feel the joy that comes with this commitment.

191. I’ve been very needy in the past expecting others to fill that empty void but now when I become aware that I’m needing something from someone else I stop and check in to see where it is that I’m not doing that for myself for I now understand that everything I need is already there within and when I am being the love that I know I am I naturally feel that love reflected back to me from others and know that it can never happen the other way around.

192. It is a great question Joel, I can see how this is such a prevalent issue going around and around in my life, this expectation of others to go first, to not feel like standing out or expecting others to act a certain way when I choose more love… this is a false ideal. As it isn’t about what others do when I am love, as I know it, there is no need for recognition.

     1. Beautiful said Benkt, and because many of us have this tendency, at least I have, of waiting to show my love before someone else is showing their love, for not being the first to express like that so to say. Someone has to show to me that it is possible and safe to live like that and when I am convinced I will go there too. It sounds ridiculous as when everybody would think like that, and looking to the wold I think I am not far from the truth, we will not evolve but stay stuck in a self made prison, void of the love that is just there for us to live. Thanks to Serge Benhayon an the many Students of the Livingness, who have chosen to live the love they hold unconditionally, I am inspired to live the same and have stepped out of my self created imprisonment.

193. I absolutely love the questions you ask Joel. Lately I have been feeling that I hold back loving myself in fear that when I do other people still won’t love me. If I choose to play small I can at least use this as the reason that others do not love me but if I play big and be the shining light that I am and other people walk away then I have nowhere else to go. It sounds ridiculous because it is….I can see that if I truly love myself I will not be invested in the way other people feel about me.

     1. Great realisation Leonne and one I can relate to. I also can feel that for as long as I don’t fully accept myself and the love that I naturally am, neither will I fully accept and see that equal love in everyone I meet. This is indeed a work in progress.

194. It took me a while to get my head around self love, but once I started that path my life started to changed, I realised that was my first step to being love. Hen we are able to self love we can truly build our foundation. We reflect love and love comes back to us.

     1. Beautiful said Amita and when we take that responsibility to truly deeply love ourselves the need to seek love from the outside will no longer be there.

195. Great pondering to share Joel, and for myself can say that I too have that tendency to measure my love to how I meet love in the world and that to love everybody including myself unconditionally is in a way so natural to my inner being but in daily practice I find myself still putting conditions on the love that I allow myself to feel and be part of.

196. This is a question that I find I have piled on many layers. I often pull myself up as I catch myself waiting to be loved. It’s incredible how long I have waited to feel love from another because I craved it so much, even more incredible it was in me all along.

     1. Indeed Kim, this question asks for being honest with oneself as as you say it has many layers. To me it is just the manipulation of our mind as when I connect to the love I am it is there immediately and unconditionally as it is a natural part of my being. Could it be that though that manipulation we hold ourselves randsom to the love of the other before we live our love as well, that it is actually a matter of making the conscious choice to be love in everything we are and do and to take our responsibility in that, to take the responsibility to live the love that lives innately in us and we are from?

197. As a wise women wrote in another blog, ‘to be loved or to be love, that is the question’.

198. Great questions Joel and the one that struck me particularly today was ‘Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at?’ Accepting myself is a big one for me and when I truly allow myself to do this I find myself much more accepting of where others are at with no need to try and change anything about them or our relationship whatever that might be, personal or professional.

     1. This question was huge for me too Helen. Accepting myself exactly as I am feels absolutely huge – my mind instantly kicks in with “are you crazy – there is so much you need to change”, however, I can feel that I simply need to accept what is true about me. The fact is that I am love and once I accept this and appreciate all I bring the things that need to change begin to shift naturally.

199. I suspect that your reflections are something that most people can relate to Joel. We really do want to dabble with just a toe in the water, rather than take the whole plunge. We want the comfort of both worlds – receiving love but being able to withdraw at any time if it appears that we might be rejected. Your blog is a great reminder to hold steady and keep it simple as there is nothing ‘out there’ to really fear if there is true love on the inside.

200. Awesome clarification on the contrast between ‘being loved’ versus ‘to be love’ – very supportive indeed. Thanks Joel!

201. Great points you raise their, Am I able to be love no matter what happens outside of me, or how others are to me. It really comes down to us loving self first and building that strong foundation, with this we reflect love to others, we have no expectations , we are then just reflecting love to everyone and everything.

     1. It feels lovely to read your words Amita. Simple and true.

202. This is awesome to truly feel and get. This in particular is a very different way of seeing our behaviour, and very exposing..”In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else”. Who would have thought we were capable of being this unloving to ourselves? It really shakes one up to realise this depth of disregard for self.

203. Yes this is a biggy..how often do we find ourselves in situations where we are expecting the love to flow from another, when we have no intention of releasing our dam until we see theirs flowing towards us…“they need to be love FIRST, before I will be love”. This is one I stumble over every day in some form or another. This is a great one to ponder and work with. It takes initiative, courage and trust to do this. Thank goodness the sun doesn’t hold back until someone acknowledges it to shine!

     1. I like the example you have used of the sun Irena, very good

204. It’s a great question and I’m sure many don’t realise that it is even happening yet I know I have done this too. I will self care but pull back a bit if those around me are not doing it too. Once again this seems crazy and must change.

205. To be love first , we really do need to love ourselves before this can happen. If I wait for someone to ” Love me” first this shows a lack of trust. I realise that there is fear involved in this, the way we are raised as children we are often told we won’t be loved unless we perform tasks or behave a certain way that is acceptable to others first. True Love is unconditional . Thank you Joel.

206. We can see ‘Love’ still as an action or task. But what the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon inspire me to see is that Love is a certain vibration, a quality of energy that I can choose to be me. Through choosing this in moments, I build a momentum that produces loving actions, words or gestures. But the quality it is comes first. Thank you Joel for choosing this and inspiring others along the way.

207. Joel, as always thank you for your honesty – it never ceases to feel refreshing!

208. This is a deeply rooted issue for many people and can be seen as the shackles for people not taking the final leap to be love. However wouldn’t the logical answer be why would I want to be the last person to accept being love if that is what we naturally are?

209. “Can I be love without being loved” false love always has a need and that is to be loved by someone outside of our selves or else we feel worthless. But true love has no needs it just is, it just loves, it is enough in it’s self and needs nothing more, as it loves all equally.

210. Unconditional love – the term is proof in itself of how bastardized the word ‘love’ is. Love IS unconditional and should be self-understood, shouldn’t it? For love with conditions is not love, it’s a need!

     1. Absolutely love with condition is a need, I remember for a very long time I was caught up in I need to be loved by another before I can be loved. It was such a need. I was caught in. I would therefore attract relationships try and fill that need.

211. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should?” That is the key for me to be love, if I have any expectation of how I think someone should be, a preconceived picture then I hold back being love. This is a great reminder Joel and perfect for me to read this today.

212. I have been living with one condition after the other. Starting to let this go – I even had conditions on what and how I would let go – has meant I can walk through life in a very different way.

213. Reading these words Joel I got a visual of how we are when we ‘need love’. We behave like vacumm cleaner sucking in anything we can get hold of, yet this pull never ends, and just removes the joy from everything. It really does suck. Being Love first, feels on the other hand like the most beautiful gift to yourself and us all. I’m inspired by this blog to be this today.

     1. This is a great image and you can just feel all the vacuum cleaners running around sucking up all that they can, giving very little back.

     2. that’s a great image, and is so true, I can feel it with myself so often. Being constantly busy with being loved will, stops me enjoying life, as if there is no time for enjoyment, there is only this need that needs to be fulfilled. But it is very clear that it doesn’t work, as I know life is full of joy when I am not constantly busy with others, but am aware of myself and what is there to feel, being love is much more worthwhile than this continuum as a vacuum cleaner sucking without any return…

214. This powerful revelation is one that permeates throughout all levels of society. Often I see young children holding back expressing their wisdom and being themselves in the world because they are waiting for their parents to first confirm this for them. I see it equally in adults, such as the many of us who tip toe around a person, not being ourselves with them until we feel we will have their measure and will be safe with them.

     If everyone were to hold others to ransom like this (aka you show me love before I’ll show it to you), we would all stay stuck in this pattern. The world needs people who are prepared to stand up up and be love without expecting any love in return to show people that it is safe to be ourselves in the world.

215. That is a big question, and I can feel I have been asking for love to be love. But can feel that when I start to love myself more that there is no need for everyone to love or like me, as there is a love for myself.

216. Some great squirm-inducing questions here, Joel, unearthing – if we choose to go there – the conditions we put on our willingness, our openness, our commitment to be love. Yes, we’ll be love ‘as long as…..’ specific conditions are met. These conditions are ones that we erroneously believe will protect us from deep-seated hurts. It’s one big shebang of wasted energy, anxiety and lovelessness that guarantees to keep us away from our true expression – love.

217. A powerful sharing Joel, I could relate to’ being loved to be love’ game. As I have deepened the love and appreciation for myself more I no longer hold back from expressing love to others – a work in progress and a very valuable one that continues to inspire me everyday.

218. To love ourselves first is the education needed in the world today, Those simple words are never taught by our parents, the school, religion. The words that can save us all.

219. Waiting for others, holding back until someone else is ready for the love that awaits is a complication I can do without … Why wait when it is already here … Oh joy of joys!

     1. Why wait, it is a master of just allowing and enjoying the joy of not. There is no need to wait, but to just allow.

220. That “you go first” is a strange problem when it comes to loving ourselves. It is not logical to reject amazing joy in our lives, yet that is what we do by holding out on ourselves. It is like we know that we have stepped away from how amazing we are and we want to pretend that it is somebody else’s fault and somebody else’s job to bring us back.
     It is absolutely our responsibility to bring ourselves back to love.

221. It is empowering when we realise that we do not need to wait for anyone to choose to deepen our relationship to our divine love within. This love within cannot be measured by another. And through self –love we honor the love that we essentially always are. Why wait to be in union with our divinity ?

222. The absolutely unconditional nature of true love comes through here Joel strongly. Love is our natural way to live every day, there’s no reason that it should depend on the emotional weather around us.

223. Joel, such a great question, am I willing to deepen my love for me, even if no-one notices or says anything or reacts how I expect, and as I write this I can feel how even still much of what I can do is driven by the idea of approval or accolades from others – definitely one to uncover more. So thanks for lighting that spark to remind me.

224. This was such a great blog for me to read today as I have been feeling this also as an incredible amount of sadness is being released – what a trap looking to be loved first has created and look how much humanity has missed out on because of it.

225. This feels like a powerful blog on such a fundamental issue. Thank you Joel for sharing this – will be revisiting this page again I’m sure.

226. If you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself and then there is enough to share. I love this comment and I will keep this one stored in memory

     1. It’s brilliant Joe, I agree. This section is one I will keep close to my heart, “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?”

     2. Joe it is a great comment, I love it too. “If you want the jug to be filled you have learn how to fill it.”

227. I love what you have shared here Joel. This is a great question for me also. I enjoy to smile at people in the supermarket or anyone I walk by and I quite often notice that I smile a much bigger, more normal natural smile that comes from me to the people that I have already clocked will give me that smile back.

     1. Wow thank you Heidi for exposing how we measure the love that we are willing to give out by the love that we feel we will get back. I can feel how true this still is for me and something that it is great to bring awareness to.

228. To be love I discovered I first had to feel what love is. As I have gradually opened up to the love in my inner-heart I now know what ‘to be love’ means and in connection to love I can feel the love of God for us all.

229. Thank you Joel for expressing what I’m sure many of us feel and maybe don’t say. I won’t love you first (in case I get hurt) or don’t really care for me. I have gone through a similar experience recently and realised I can love another without knowing how they feel . Love is never lost, it won’t run out, there is more than enough to go around and then some. I am worthy of my love no matter what!

230. Indeed we put so many conditions on love and get caught up on the stories of why we are not getting enough (love) when we simply focus on the choices we make moment by moment to honour and care for ourselves.

231. All of this is essentially saying I have a need to ‘be loved’ before I am willing to ‘be love’.
     This is such a strong pattern in my life and keeps popping up in all the little hidden corners, essentially I hold myself to ransom with expectations on how things should and could be so many of these are unconscious and jump out when I least expect it.

232. I agree Joel, holding back love till we see another ‘go first’ can be a big one. A form of protection that we think stops us from getting hurt, when in fact it hurts to hold back much more than any rejection we might face.

     1. This is the irony Fiona – we think by holding back, we are protecting ourselves from being hurt, when in fact, the holding back hurts far more and for far longer. This has been a big one for me to take responsibility for and I am now finding that the less I hold back, and the more vulnerable and open I allow myself to be, the less I feel hurt or rejected and the more awesome and true my relationships are becoming – not only with myself, but with everyone.

233. We all want to be loved but it seems we are falling for an ideal or a fantasy rather than the real deal. The real deal is simple, very clear in it’s purpose and movement. Try to make it something else even by stepping away slightly and it instantly becomes complicated.

234. I was working on ‘to be love’ but always with the idea of one day I will be love as in love is static, to have an end result. Now I know that I can choose love and it will forever deepen, this endless love of God that is in me and in everyone.

     1. I can relate to this one Annelies. There is that notion that Love is a super way of being and living but I am sure once we do begin to live such a way very deeply, it would just seem very normal and very simple. In fact living like we are getting to be love is what stops us appreciating the love we have already built and are already living

235. It feels like since the beginning of time that I lived with the question – ‘Am I loved?’. The criteria was that a person would say the words or carry out an action e.g. hug, do something extraordinary etc. It never came up that I ‘Be’ the love that I already am and to love myself first. Since coming to the understanding that I am ‘Love’ and that is enough, the tension of seeking outside of myself is gone. There is no tension when one is connected to and living the truth of who one truly is. Great questions Joel.

236. I love this question Joel…”can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” This is now my question to feel this week or longer. If the world pondered this together even for a day imagine the possibilities.

237. I simply love the way your write Joel it is so effortless and open. I so have what you describe the everyone has to be love first…then and only then will I dip my toe in, not even submerge myself! So much holding back it is truly painful and deeply sad. I am developing this and allowing myself to be and express more love for myself and others, filling up the jug is easier for me than letting the jug spill over and share it with everyone, I get scared that they will throw it in my face, or spit it out saying its yuck – holding onto hurts! Shiza this is not a good way to live, thank goodness for Universal medicine and students like yourself that keep showing me there is another way and its ok to be love, to truly just be love.

238. Thank you Joel, this is very honest writing and exposes the conditions we place when it comes to loving others, in my experience I have found it challenging sometimes to love others when their behaviours are very abusive and manipulating but the more acceptance and loving choices I make for myself the deeper level of understanding I am able to bring to the situation and it has been easier to love the beingness of the person without any expectations on how or what they need to be.

239. When we spend lifetimes creating lives that ensure we receive confirmation or expressions of ‘love’ that fill the emptiness within us, it can be a big step to let go of this ‘need’ for love and trust that ‘being love’ ourselves is actually what will fill this void in full. In truth, the love of other people doesn’t complete us or fill us, it only masks the emptiness while we are receiving the other person’s expression. If we commit to ‘being love’ we find ourselves no longer ‘needing’ the love of other people. It is at this point that we can begin to form true relationships that are truly loving because we are no longer coming with a need. If we are all we ever need then it is a joyful choice to be with another, not an imposition.

240. Okay, Joel, your sharing went into my heart as I am exactly arrived at those questions and to go deeper with them in order to understand what in practical terms it means to be love first, which is our true nature and not hold back because others are holding back and staying in comfort with this attitude.

241. This is beautifully honest Joel. I can recognize the need to be loved by others first as a ‘permission’ to love myself. This is such a clever way to protect my protection! If I feel myself for all of who I am, the love I am and if lived, could not help but share with everyone equally as Serge Benhayon does, then there is no longer a need for anyone else to love me and I would have no reason to uphold my protection. So is it seems to me that my protection is not truly to keep out the hurt but to allow myself pockets of irresponsibility, individuality and identification.

242. I love the concept of needing to learn how to fill your own jug first if you want it to be full and openly share it, yet can still find myself still not wanting to be the first to fill it up. However it’s ridiculous considering the love we then miss out on by holding another to ransom insisting they fill and share their jug first. Crazy.

243. Wonderful Joel! To deepen this idea to ‘be love’ is something I too am working on, without the condition to have it confirmed back to me all the time. The conditions we place are insidious. I now am beginning to feel a deep acceptance of my own love of and for myself and as this deepens, I am needing less recognition and confirmation and feel a true confidence and trust in who I am. It feels glorious and is a continual work-in-progress.

     1. Like you ginadunlop I’ve been steadily working with this as well in providing that love for myself that I’d been craving from others and feeling how wonderful it is to have a foundation built on me providing that deep love and care for myself. It leaves me less affected by others because when I’m solid within myself I’m unshakeable.

244. I can feel that there are a lot of conditions I put onto myself to be love, and how it hurts. It is a great topic to explore.

245. Hi Joel, I can certainly relate to what you are saying here about needing people to be love first before we dare to express love ourselves. I have discovered that this simply does not work. It creates resentment, as you feel held to ransom by others choices. I can chose to be love regardless of what another is doing and it is very empowering.

246. Joel, such a great question, and one I know I apply to my life. There are times when I demand another be love before i be love myself and yet it doesn’t make sense. Why wait, why not be love now, regardless of the other. The truth is there’s a part of me wanting to be commended, to be lauded, so I’m not just willing to be love for it’s own sake, I want to to it to get something, now look what I’ve uncovered (and isn’t it great to be honest about it). There’s greater depths I know i can go to, and things I’ve felt I need to do, yet I hold off on them – again why and again it’s that there’s a piece of me that feels I can get away with the standard I already have, and which asks, why do I need to put in more effort, in other words there’s a bit that gives up and doesn’t want to bother. Again it comes back to a want for a reward / payback or something, but not to just do for it’s own sake, to love no matter what. Ooh there’s more love in my life than ever, and I’ve changed massively, but reading this today is great to remind me not to stop and to keep unfolding and unpicking those areas where I’m not love or where I’m still holding out, waiting for you or another to go first / or to pat me on the back. No need, it’s there to be expressed so it’s time to express it.

247. It is inspiring to see what is possible after 10 years of studying with Universal Medicine.

248. Thank you Joel, you ask some great questions which are worth pondering. I know I too have fallen into this trap – like I am nursing an old hurt and can feel how this keeps me separate to others. When I am more loving to myself none of these feelings come up and I more likely to observe a situation and be more understanding.

249. I have been noticing how fundamentally the level of my self care impacts on how I am in my day – whether I have a solid foundation and am able to hold the love that I am regardless of what goes on around me, or whether I need the environment or people around me to be a certain way before I even try to be my full self. It shows that although we often choose to make others responsible about the quality of life we are living, the ball is very much in our own court.

250. To be love first or to wait til we are feeling loved and then agree to be love and let it out – this week I am allowing myself to be love first, before the mean little voice comes in to disrupt the lovely flow. Thank you Joel for your willingness to ask such great questions.

251. It is a big question Joel but a great one at that. There are many layers and I am discovering that that is the beauty of love and self-love. That when we choose love it is forever deepening and expanding, and with this there is no end to immense amount of our love that can be lived and shared. I can so relate to – ‘In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else.’- and the layers in which this has played out in much of how I was living. Thank you for this point of reflection as it has called me to deepen my awareness with this pattern.

252. Great blog Joel, I can say that I too have fallen for that trick of needing to be loved before I was willing to be love – and if everyone is waiting for it then where are we left?! Some great questions you have posed here, and something I will take the time to look at in my own life as well.

253. For me this blog unveils all evil behind so called modern Psychotherapy. It’s not people and incidents that cause us harm, it is energy that we allow to enter when we do not choose love first of all. As a trained therapist I can say that this is not being taught at University. We have been trained to look for incidents and trauma, whereas true healing comes from energy first, from taking the choice to be love first.

     1. Great comment felixschumacher8, and I can say that in the complimentary therapies that I trained in the same is true. If there were an emphasis on self-love it was about convincing yourself you loved yourself and not about feeling this in the body, and the modalities that did go into feeling in the body left out self-love.

254. There are great questions Joel, you have really started something. I have been practicing the (you go first and then I will join you), it does not work. On the rare times I have been open hearted and gone first feeling the other person is closed off, it does not matter, you feel great because you have your own love.

     1. So true Bernard, when we actually just take the first step in being love it doesn’t actually matter how another might respond because you are already full of it! (Love, that is!)

255. Thanks for sharing this Joel. Being love regardless of what is going on with those around me is something I am still struggling with. I still want those around me to love me first so that I know it is alright to be love, even to be self-loving. This is a work in progress for me.

256. Pingback: The Word Love « The Truth about Universal Medicine

257. Wow Joel, this is quite profound and just unlocked within me why I have felt I continue to hold back my love. I seem to be living with the idea that to be love I too must have that love from others first! It feels like I am holding the world to ransom, just waiting for the invitation to be the love I am, rather than embracing the fact I have so much love to offer just by being me. I can see it begins with each of us committing to the fact that we are enough and we do not need to be validated, accepted or shown by the world that this is so, it has to come from us. This is so timely for me, thank you for sharing this awareness, it has definitely got me delving deeper into myself.

258. Joel its like you looked inside myself and wrote about it! Its such a trick to play with ourselves to not just let go and be love.

259. Something I’ve recently read and then felt for myself is: that we can’t love ourselves and judge ourselves at the same time. So, all I would comment with is: life certainly would be more about being love, if first we remove any semblance of self critique.

260. Dear Joel I love your blog and your big questions. So much of what you write applies to me. I will work on the timely wisdom that is presented this day. Thank you.

261. Where did we go so wrong that expressing love is conditional upon so many things? Universal Medicine is showing us the way to be love. There is a lifetime of ‘conditional love’ for me to leave behind and the opportunity to embrace being love.

     1. Such a great comment Patricia….and after 8 years of being around Universal Medicine perhaps it’s time to embrace being love also and stop fighting with this omnipotent fact.

262. The perfect blog for me at this moment…asking questions that I am asking of myself in a difficult situation.
     I must admit that I have got stuck on arose tinted glasses version of love…all violins and rose petals and everyone being happy with me and liking my. Oh boy. All very nice, but it is not serving anyone, including me. I am learning that being love does not always result in being liked, and that is something I am letting go of.

     Keep you posted….

263. What a perfect excuse to hold on to my hurts and never heal it. The crazy thing is whenever I have held back wanting someone else to prove to me that I am worthy, regardless of how amazing, loving and caring they were it never felt even close to enough.
     Yet whenever I have been inspired to snap out of that pattern and have chosen to be in my fullness and express the love that I am regardless of the enticing thoughts it has been amazing. In those moments the whole thing breaks and the stale-mate snaps and a great gorgeousness unfolds between us, where it is not clear who is making the loving actions in what order. It doesn’t matter who is being loving first – no one is counting!

264. The true misery is, when we are holding back the love that we are- thank you for this great reminder to not measure how much we let out of our love attached to the outside. It is a self imprisonment we put ourself in which leads actually to nothing , no connection and no development in us.

265. Great question Joel, a question that made me ponder about how far have we strayed away form the love that we already are if we need others to be love first. For me it feels that I have used this concept too and then especially for measuring the amount of love I will return to the ones that love me. How absurd and completely the other way round what love actually is. Love is abundant and to be shared with everybody unconditionally so. Restricting and measuring my love to only the ones that love me must make me exhausted since true love just is, is unconditional and not to be hold back.

266. I loved reading this blog. ‘they need to be love FIRST, before I will be love’ I know that, that is something I definitely do, I rely on others to take the first step before I am willing to. However that creates a huge cap on our life when we’re constantly relying on others

267. This is such a great reminder Joel.. Being love no matter what and choosing to see it ever where I go – This is a golden opportunity to see the world in a new light and allow everyone to be who they naturally are. Sounds beautiful to me.

268. Your contribution about not being what we truly are unless it is ‘safe’ and reflected on the outside first is so exposing and obvious; and actually, it is insane as well – we keep ripping ourselves and others off and keep going back for more of the same madness.

269. Great concept that I too have fallen into, this spiraling tail chase. I too was waiting for others to love first and then I can love more. Well exposed Joel, in your usual easy way.

270. “Can I be love without being loved?” This is such an exposing question Joel for it reveals how conditional, I and most likely the majority of humanity, have with ‘love’ The truth is, love is unconditional, so why is it that I’m waiting for love to be ‘around me’ before it is actually coming from me?

271. Joel your last questions are so spot on, am I willing to be love with others and see it in them even if what they are showing back is not love – this is such a big one, one that I am continually working on. Thanks for the reminder.

272. Great questions raised Joel. The words ‘Even though this message was/is very simple, it was amazing how complicated I made it, and more recently I am realising how often I put a condition on my own self-love.’ resonated for me. As you say – despite knowing that we need self love and acceptance before anything else, the old trap of wanting others to make the first move can stubbornly remain, often hidden so that we aren’t fully aware of the subtle ways we hold back. You’ve given me plenty to reflect on and have reminded me to remain open to others as I go through my day. Thank you.

273. I love the question you post in your blog Joel and worth considering this to be a question for myself this week. “Can I be love without being loved.” The other day I had the experience of feeling myself somewhat alone, not in connection with others, and I can now feel that this made it difficult for me to be love for myself. Although this lonely was only a feeling of myself, because actually I was not alone, because there where plenty of loving people around me. I felt myself lonely, and because of this I was not able to be love myself. How crazy is that, that I avoid to be the love that I know I so naturally am by going in some feeling of hurt or misery.

     1. Just what I needed to read today nvanhaastrecht. You have just helped me to snap myself out of a feeling of hurt and misery. Thank you.

     2. That is a perfect example of how we can so easily put conditions on being love, thank you for being so honest about it.

     3. An honest sharing nvanhaastrecht, there is definitely some crazy stuff going on with our human psychology when what we want most is love, but we still avoid and sabotage it. Honesty with yourself, as you have demonstrated, is the way back to living with love.

274. To love or to be loved or be Love, that is the question!

     1. Your comment makes me smile Ryoko….be love and the other two questions are taken care of. 🙂

275. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?”
     This is a great question to ponder Joel, thank you for the inspiration.

276. I have fallen for this trap ‘I will only look after myself (be loving to myself) if I can see the benefit’, and then when I don’t see or choose to see the benefit I give up. My own love being conditional – when you spell it out like this it sounds ridiculous.

277. Lovely Joel. The ‘they have to be love first’ is a big thing for many. Often because you can feel the hurt that was once there and are like ‘nope, I’m not going to be loving first because I might get hurt again and I don’t know how they are going to respond.’ Therefore it’s a great point you made at the end- to be love and be that love for yourself regardless of the response from others. Keep filling up that jug…

278. My dear Joel, you and your blogs, they always make my heart smile. But not only that, you leave me to ponder, to ask myself that same question and take that with me into my day. Thank you for the inspiration that you are.

279. Lovely to reflect on the questions you pose Joel. I will take these reflections into my week, thank you.

280. Joel I really relate to your question for the week, and I have decided that I too will see if I can sustain self love in the coming week and see all around me as love no matter what the situation. Many thanks for a thought provoking blog.

281. Hi Joel, so glad to hear that you no longer hold yourself to ransom, in letting this go you are choosing to love yourself.

282. This blog really got me, I went away and spent some time on how Love has worked for me, was it the chicken or the egg first. What I came up with is we are born in and with Love as we can see this in all children and babies, but slowly we get hurt in life and we slowly choose to move away from Love. Another thing that confirmed for me that we are born with Love is, how would we recognise Love when it was felt if we did not already know what it was.

     1. Chicken and egg or catch-22? Often I get in that trap of wanting to be loved before being love yet we can’t truly be loved until we are love. I have found recently that I can only accept the amount of love from another that I have in myself. The more I develop my self love the more I am able to accept love from another.

        1. I feel we are already loved way beyond our understanding by the way in which God gives us free will to move about in complete opposition to all He is, even though he expressed us forth in love and holds us all equally in his love. I feel we do not remember this love until we choose to live in a way where we foster as you say Lee, love for ourselves. As I return to love I realise there is and always has been an abundance of love holding me, lighting my way forward.

        2. I too get caught in this Lee. I often find myself wanting others to do the work for me, but this will never work and it’s just a way that I have been tricked.

     2. So true – and the same is true the other way around: how can we know what is not love, and we all know that feeling, if we don’t know what love is? This has been presented by Serge Benhayon through the teachings of Universal Medicine and I have always found it to be compelling. It underpins the fact that we are from love and that we are love and that anything else is an aberration.

        1. Wow Gabriele that is a very good point you share and it is so true.” . . . how can we know what is not love and we all know that feeling, if we don’t know what love is? ” We have to write this in big letters everyday as a headline on the newspaper – just to remind us!

283. With the absolute power and clarity I have from the Universal Medicine Vietnam retreat 2015 I can answer your question by reflecting on my life’s journey to see that at every step along the way and every juncture in my life, I have been supported – this support is a Love from God (or the universe) that has always been there for me to feel in an instant, though I had chosen for much of my life to ignore the fact that God’s love resides within me and is the integral part of who I am – that because I ignored its presence, left me searching for it externally in every other way, shape, or form that it seemed to appear.

     1. So true Greg, you have summed it up perfectly about looking for love outside ourselves when it was there before we ever knew what it was. Great blog Joel.

     2. Way to go Greg 🙂
        Great article Joel 🙂

     3. Greg your powerful statement says it all perfectly. “God’s love reside WITHIN us and is an integral part of who we are”.
        This turns the question from “Can I be love?” to “Will I express the love that I am?”
        It also highlights the fact that, if we feel we are missing love in our life we have a clue to focus on truly knowing our self. The love we want is our true essence – it can not be delivered from the outside of us. The more we express this true quality of love, the more we will feel it.

        1. Golnaz, that’s the question ‘will I express the love I am’ without a need for an outcome or wanting another to like me and I’ve been catching more recently how much that condition (I want others to be love first) plays out. The truth as presently so clearly by Joel and you here is that we can, we just have to choose it.

        2. This truly is a great question Golnaz, “Will I express the love that I am?” it shows that we know that we are love and that it is only the choice we have to make to express this love inside of us to the world.

     4. Fantastic points Greg and Joel – I agree with both of you which is absurd really. Meaning we live in and are held by the love of God which is always there and always present, just that we choose not to let it in. Then we have the other situation where we decide not to express love ourselves because we don’t like the way others are or because they are not expressing in the way we want them to. So perhaps it is time to let in and let out the love or let out and let in the love – either way would work!

        1. Nicola, amazing comment and one that brings me to a deeper understanding of why I hold back letting my love out, when people aren’t expressing their love the way I want them to. Thank you for this little gem.

     5. Love this Greg, there is sometimes this feeling in me of when I choose to be love I will be alone but that is not true at all. Like you said there is always support from God (or the universe) and with that I am reminded we all have God’s love within us and around us, pretty awesome I would say.

     6. With all that great love there within us all, who needs another to be love first anyway?

        1. As long as there is any need, there is neither real freedom. Self-love and this total lack of need and attachment that go along with it, are the basis that enable us to truly love someone else.

284. Great question(s) Joel, I am going to make this my daily question for 10 days and see what happens….

     1. How did it go Diana??

        1. Hi Emily, I have experienced that I am able to let people in more, to have an understanding and be less judgmental, express more of what I feel. Feel the equalness within me and other people. It is still work in progress, because with every layer I let go, something els gets revealed for me to look at.

        2. Yea Diana true, I have found its like when you let go of that need to be loved you can express love for others so much more as your not afraid of what might come back. I get a greater sense of myself too… things I like/don’t like. as I’m not constantly trying to get that approval.

285. Thank you Joel. It seems so simple to be love, and it makes so much sense that we need to be love with ourselves before we can be loving with anyone else. Yet we make it so complicated and feel that we can only love ourselves or are only worthy of love if someone else loves us first. Loving myself is a work in progress for me too…I’ll keep you posted.

286. Joel I loved this line ‘If you want the jug to be full then we need to learn how to fill it ourselves’. Your blog has made me stop and think where and when I also wait to be loved before being love.

287. You have asked some pretty important questions in your blog Joel, the best remedy for all our hurts is to love ourselves first.

288. Awesome blog Joel, really made me stop and look at how I wait for approval or a person to say yes so that I can be loving towards them and myself.

289. Hmmm. Great question! You’ve named a condition that I hold myself to that I wasn’t fully awake to, and which explains why I can still lose myself with family. Time to ponder this more deeply, waiting for the world to be love before I will be love … thank you Joel

290. What you are describing feels like we are holding the world to ransom when we demand to be loved before we will be love. And the question then is: who is that person that is being loved really when they have been holding off and executing these tactical manoeuvres for so long?

291. This is a big one for me too Joel, ‘Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?’ I am aware that if someone around me behaves in a unloving way then I switch off, I stop being loving too, there is a real inconsistency when I do this and it feels yucky. When I have stayed with me and continued to be love no matter what is going on around me then I have noticed how steady and wonderful this feels and how this actually (often) pulls people up and back to being love as love is so hard to resist.

292. It is interesting how we put conditions on, and complicate, the simplest of things. Being love is a work in progress for sure Joel, and there is a never ending pool of love to connect to. I’m sure we all look forward to your next instalment!

293. This is a big question, the more I choose to be loving with myself in whatever way possible the more I have got to feel that love comes from within myself first and have stopped needing it to come from outside. At the same time I am now able to reflect this to others and inspire them do treat themselves in a similar way and also feel the loveliness that they are .

294. This is exactly how I use to be formatted, waiting for the love to come from the outside before I could be love… But so few of us actually know what it is to be be love to ourselves and it can take some time before recognising it and leaving the old pattern behind. We are so dictated by society on what love should look like ie taking a day off work because we are feeling unwell can be seen sometimes as unreasonable from the point of view of an employer when in fact both the employer and the worker can mutually benefit from such action.

295. Hey Joel,
     I read your blog last week and resonated with it so much. It’s been lingering in my mind all week while I’ve been at work ~ the notion of loving yourself without being loved from those around you is so truly interesting to ponder on. I’ve just started to take responsibility for my choices and take responsibly for my actions and am realising that by doing this I am free to not hold people to ransom because I need and want them to love me. It’s been awesome! The expectations I put on people are disappearing because I am totally starting to love and meet me … Awesome awesome blog 🙂

296. It is interesting how we put conditions onto others in order to allow ourselves to be exactly that what we want the other to be. In fact when I think about it it seems absolutely ridiculous, it is like sitting on the sideline and waiting for all others to be that what I desperately want to be but I only allow myself to be that when everybody else is it. This is like going in circles and going nowhere. Instead it is so simple to be just that what I want everybody else to be and then let everybody else get there at their own pace.

297. Love it Joel! Self love and being love first turned out to be a little harder for me initially than I realised it would be. While I thought that I was being all of this there were still conditions and terms that I held on love that I hadn’t been willing to see. Like you I embarked on weeding these terms and conditions out one by one. Many of the conditions have gone but I still find hidden ones, tucked away in little pockets somewhere. Now however I can be love first (mostly) and see others for the love they are (most of the time) thanks to the living example of Serge Benhayon.

298. Self love is a very very powerful tool, one that allows others to be where they are at and not have any expectations of how they should be and what they should be doing.
     We are the only ones that can bring self love to ourselves and the only ones that can start changing our choices.

299. Thanks Joel for sharing your blog and questions. I have found that I am love along with everyone else and we all live in love whether we like it or not , So for me it is all about why and how do I choose to not be aware of this truth. I see we have only one choice i.e. to not be, as we naturally are who we are.

300. Very inspiring Joel. Yes I still find myself in that one. It’s almost like I need a guarantee that others will love me if I choose Love.

     1. Rebecca I can relate to that. I still have a small tendency of that too.

301. Wow – what powerful questions these are! I can feel that I have used every excuse in the book to not be love. I have even tried telling myself that that being love is not natural for me when deep down I can feel that this is not true at all. If we are holding back love in any way, shape or form it is certainly worth knowing why. Thank you for opening up this line of enquiry Joel.

302. Great questions… I sometimes fall into thinking I want people to realise how much I love them but when I am not loving myself then really that’s the highest form of LOVE they are actually receiving from me!
     That means we need to be responsible with truly loving ourselves and who we are because that is what will be felt when we share with another that we love them.

303. Thanks again Joel Levin for another amazing blog! What great insight. It’s interesting how we use devious and cunning ways to make sure we get the recognition and acceptance from others, to therefore have permission to love ourselves, this is clearly not how true self love works!

304. Thank you for posing these great questions Joel. I have certainly had ideals and expectations around Love. A recent experience made me realise that I still need people to like me before I can love me, and accept that I am just loveable as I am. So again there is a lesson here for me to ponder in what you have offered in your blog.

305. Great to read this again this morning Joel. I’m realising how measured we can be towards ourselves and others, that we place conditions on how much we will love or not. When we come across someone who does not have any measures or conditions and simply holds you in love with no judgement of what you are choosing or what you do, it is the biggest healing. This if what I have consistently felt from Serge Benhayon and all the Benhayon family, and it’s a huge point of inspiration for me to let go of the conditions I place on loving in full, without judgment or critique.

306. I am having to re-read this blog so many times. Each time ‘Love’ feels different in scales, and the grander and the deeper Love feels to be, ‘being loved’ starts to lose sense on me. Love is. We are.

307. Great blog and great points raised in it Joel. I can really relate to the holding the world to ransom as well as myself by saying that I will only step out and be my fully loving self in the world when it safe to do so i.e. when everyone else is doing it! Trouble with this theory is that everyone else is thinking the same thing so nobody is making the first move. So simple to just be super loving with myself and then share that with all others without perfection and see what happens.

308. Simply awesome questions, Joel. The answer seem so obvious, yet to me not always easy. The more I am able to self-love, though, the fuller the jug (love your analogies) and the more love I am – the lesser the need for someone else to fill the jug. It’s quite absurd to “wait” for someone else when I have a direct connection to the tap/source
     IF I c h o o s e to connect..

     1. I love your comment about our tendency to hold out until someone shows us love first and in effect fills the jug for us: “it’s quite absurd to wait for someone else when I have a direct connection to the source if I choose to connect.” Having done this most of my life and seen others do the same, I can see the absurdity of it now.

309. And the answer is yes 🙂 This is something I am developing too, learning to not need love from anyone else or hold people to ransom to love me first, and at times this can be a bit rocky as there’s such an old pattern of looking outside myself for love. But I can truthfully say that I have never felt love like the love I feel inside me everyday.

310. Making love unconditional and appreciating yourself in every moment of life really rocks the boat. There is no wrong – the worst case can be to choose a different way of learning what is there to be learnt.

311. “…the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, the message was/is that to ‘be love’ you need to first ‘self love’. This concept seems so simple; of course, if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.” I love the description of the jug full or not full…being “self loving” can be so controversial in this world when it is misinterpreted. When it is true it is the opposite of a selfish activity. Learning “self love” does truly allow use to share this experience with others. It is a wonderful teaching.

312. What a rich journey in deepening our Love for ourselves and others, accepting and allowing life to be and people to be with the full knowing that no person can be defined by their behaviour – it is not who they are, it is simply what they are choosing.
     ‘

313. Being love no matter the circumstance or the response – no measurement just expression. Love it. This is the way to brotherhood.

314. Joel, thank you for posing the very honest question that has been met by my body, not just my mind. How truly deeply willing am I prepared to go for true love equally with all? As you say it’s a big question but a great one to actually feel.

315. Thank you Joel for posing the question because you have highlighted for me that I too have been subconsciously waiting for others to be love first. I knew I could be very judgmental but did not understand why. It would appear that I was not accepting of where others or myself to be.

316. Yes choosing to be love first is extremely powerfull! I make it a daily exercise to keep it unfolding !

     1. ‘Be Love’ allows us to have greater understanding of ourselves, life and each other. These words are packed full of wisdom and grand.

317. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” Such an important question and one I am asking myself – a work in progress as they say.

318. Good question. How funny we are that we are still playing childhood games of ‘you go first’ with the first relationship we have, the one with ourself? Thanks Joel for pointing this out so clearly.

319. This is such an important topic and I can reflect on times where I have been willing to be love no matter what and times where I haven’t been able to get myself out of the way enough to do so. Choosing to be love first is also claiming you are extremely powerful and have the power to make change through love.

320. An awesome question (amongst many others) : “can I be love without being loved?”. Before Universal Medicine I would have definitely put being loved at the top of my list, but now loving me is at the top – that has been life, and love changing. I just love your jug analogy: “if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share”. I am still learning how to fill the jug myself and when I do I can see so clearly that there is so much left over to share, and that sharing now comes with no expectations.

     1. “I am still learning how to fill the jug myself and when I do I can see so clearly that there is so much left over to share, and that sharing now comes with no expectations” – I think there is close to an entire world on this journey.

        1. Wow! Joel. As each part of your blog gets broken down I am aware of another lesson to be learnt “there is so much left over to share . . that sharing now comes with no expectations” Cool.

321. Gorgeous Joel and so personally applicable to myself! A take home to ponder on for sure and to get on with it! : )

322. Yes Joel, indeed a big and very important question. To me it seems like a willingness is required – to drop the armour, be open and just let ourselves go for it. Serge Benhayon for one, has certainly been a shining example of this.

323. This is the second time I’ve read this and this time I’ve discovered something new. I more deeply understand this sentence, “I put a condition on my own self-love”. It’s like I will be self-loving with myself to ensure that I get some form of sign from another that they love me, so that I can be love, which is all still a part of the same game. I wonder what it is that makes me think that I can only be love, or I am only worthy of love, or I am only love if someone else first acknowledges this, and acts in a way to show me that I am this. It’s a lot of rubbish really, and writing this here has made me feel a whole lot more love for myself, and less needing it from someone or anywhere else.

     1. I relate to your comment Danielle especially the sentence “I am only worthy of love, or I am only love if someone else first acknowledges this” – for I am now more aware of my own past behaviour, thanks to the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, and that was my hesitatingly and un-trustingly waiting to put my foot in the water so to speak to see if I was worthy of being noticed/loved before I made the decision/choice to extend my own interpretation of what I believed was the affirmation of that attention – crazy wouldn’t you agree. What a ghastly and complicated game that was when all that is simply required is to just be the love that we are intrinsically deep within.

324. Great questions Joel! And your blog answers them pretty well too :-). I am learning it is all just about Being Love. Could not get any simpler than that.

325. Thanks Joel for taking the time to write about this – it is a great exploration that I can relate to – still looking to be loved when we have been supported and equipped by the teachings of Universal Medicine in so many ways to be love.

326. These are good questions, Joel. It is huge. Something to ponder not only on Valentine’s. I notice I do have expectations of others especially I expect from the students to know more about love and to be love. But the real question for me would be: Am I love? Then I need to ponder and “fill the glass”.

327. Joel I am only just coming to understand that my relationship with others starts with my relationship with me. I am in the embryonic stages of exploring this topic but your questions are pertinent to my musings. What if I accepted myself exactly as I am then surely I would accept everybody else for who they are? Woah hang on a minute does that mean that if I was able to love myself then would that therefore mean that I would love everybody else? Is that it? Do we mirror our relationship with ourselves in all of our other relationships?

     1. Alexis, your question ‘do we mirror our relationship with ourselves in all of our other relationships’, stopped me in my tracks. For a long time I haven’t cared about how others felt about me, knowing reaction from them was their stuff. That didn’t mean I went crashing around upsetting people, but caring isn’t the same as love, only a part of it. This brings how I feel about myself to a whole new level.

328. Awesome questions:
     ‘can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?’
     Often there is tension for me with the accepting where I (and others) are at. And every time I accept myself I can feel the love build inside me and I see it more easily in others. Still learning to let go of outcomes and believes.

329. Great blog Joel. I love this question “Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? ” Life can get so complicated when we have expectations and beliefs around where we should be at and where others should be. It brings such a feeling of tension in my body when I don’t simply accept the situation at hand. What I am finding is the more I bring self love to my life the simpler it is to accept it all.

     1. Very true Bianca. Reading your comment reminds me how personally I used to take everything and just how much tension that created for me. Now I have established more self love, the easier I find it to accept where others are, to accept their choices, as I am learning to not rely on other people for my sense of self. Life is certainly getting simpler.

        1. My life was lived principally for others, for ever trying to please someone. Learning to love myself is very difficult but I agree Rowena, the little steps I have taken have indeed made my life so much simpler.

330. It feels as though love will always elude us if we are not willing to fully commit – for me it is always something I will commit to tomorrow.

331. I love your question on ‘being loved’ or ‘to be love’.
     It is quite simple yet to ponder on especially when you feel no one else will love you back for who you are or what your bring in your being. I am learning more and more to be love and be me however others may take it, be uncomfortable or not! I am learning to be comfortable in the discomfort of whatever that may bring up, cause that is love.

332. A ‘big question’ and one of THE key questions, I would say.
     So simply said Joel, yet addressing the root of any conflict between human beings today. Similarly, and particularly so since studying with Universal Medicine, I find that this question is at the root of my own self-exploration, and understanding of others, and I have to ask, why were we not asked to consider such true philosophy at school?

333. ‘They need to be love first’ is an issue I can relate to. It’s like we sit back waiting for the ‘leader’ to step forward. Maybe we are actually all leaders, or need to find the ‘leader’ within at some point. Otherwise, we are essentially giving our power away. Thanks Joel.

334. This is a very interesting question, am I willing to be love even if no one else is being that first? I see this in my life in simple ways like ‘will I make a loving dinner tonight for myself and others even if no-one else really appreciates what I am doing and may not cook all week?’ I have to work through old belief patterns – though a lot subtler – that hold me in old behaviors that are not love. And more often then not, these thoughts about others not being as loving, are not even true.

335. “…..the message was/is that to ‘be love’ you need to first ‘self love’. This concept seems so simple; of course, if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.” Beautiful blog, Joel. Learning to be love first and to open my heart, regardless of where others are at is a big one for me, but the ultimate dividends are huge – for everyone.

336. Thank you for opening this up for us, Joel. I do know these thoughts very well, those conditions we so easily and conveniently put on others; if someone only did that, then I would do such and such … What am I waiting for while holding the world and other people to ransom like this? It actually doesn’t work and it is the other way around – as you say, for the jug to be full I need to fill it first.

337. The difficult one for me is: am I willing to be love and not give up even when someone definitely does not love me, or when someone does not love me the way I want?

338. Yes, that is a good question Joel, am I willing to be love first and to shine so bright and carry the torch high so everyone else can be inspired and chose to be love themselves – or not? Or what Heather is proposing, to be love unconditionally. I feel like I am about to claim that.

339. Beautiful and honest blog, Joel, I’m becoming a fan of your writing! Yes, it’s a big one, allowing ourselves to be love, even if it feels nobody loves us back. If we all wait for the other one to love us first, we will stay exactly where we are, everyone missing out on love.

     1. Hi Esther your comment is inspiring, thank you. We don’t actually need anyone to love us back. All we need to be is love and we need people around us who are also love so they can reflect back to us their own love.

340. Love this blog Joel, it’s interesting how we can make love into such a complicated thing when it should be as easy as breathing. Here’s to going back to being love, regardless of what is happening around us!

     1. You have nailed it for me Melissa. Making Love complicated! How crazy is that? Why do we do this? Enough of that, back to simplicity for me.

341. Hi Joel, you’ve explained my life story and biggest dilemma! I get so grumpy sometimes because others aren’t being love and yet I feel I’m expected to be love. It’s a long held hurt that is really hurting me. I go through phases and slowly surrender because at the end of the day what can one do but let go and let one’s self be, which as I have found, is love.

342. Such relevant questions Joel, as I too find myself holding back my love waiting for others to offer it first – but is this not a measured way of living? It’s interesting to feel how one can hold onto expectations of how others should be, rather than living as you feel to live ie. In a loving way. Loving does not mean being a push over either, something I am slowly coming to realise. In truth love is living in a way where you never waiver from being all of you, no matter how others respond. Lots to ponder here.

343. For me it is also about enduring the tension if the love I feel is not reciprocated by the world outside. To not calibrate and make myself less because I can not hold it any longer. Instead to emanate that love that I have for myself and yes for those who are triggered by that: ” Deal with it ….”

     1. delorme2013, this is such a great reminder for me in those moments when people are ruffled….. ‘Deal with it’

344. I know the feeling you described very well Joel. Living at ransom with the world, and only allowing myself to be loving with myself when someone else would say it is ok to be tender with yourself. I am now learning to be far more loving with myself without someone saying to me it is ok.

345. Thanks Joel, I feel this is still (in 2015) a huge process of learning for so many who have been introduced to a true way of living through Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine. All those finely honed mechanisms in place to pick up any feeling of rejection from another, or even simply of another person not living their potential, to give us licence to not live ours and to accept others with open hearts. Definitely a work in progress!

346. The question you pose is certainly a thought provoking one Joel. I have found it harder to love myself than others but again is that love? We have been told that we cannot love another unless we are love ourselves first, so therefore the need to let go of the barriers we put up to protect ourselves and see ourselves as worthy recipient of our love also.

347. Hello Joel L, I wonder how this is going for you now? What you are saying is a thing I see in myself and around me, the many conditions of love and on love. Love is a true honouring of what you feel from within you in a moment regardless of how the outside looks. I have and still do place conditions on the love that I am based on what the outside world is saying or will say as I perceive it. Once you buy into this you are creating all that you think will happen. The world continues to show me by reflection where I have conditions on my love, if I listen and make the change then the world will change. If I choose to ignore it and hold my love back then the world will stay the same and at some point I will have another chance to look at that moment. It may look different, have a different face or a different set of circumstances but the feeling will be the same.

     Be the love that you are or that you feel and the world will respond, if you choose anything else well the world will respond to that as well. Thanks Joel L.

348. Great questions Joel, this is definitely a work in progress for me and the more I live my life re-connecting to the essence within myself of love I simply know and feel the same in everybody, it is that simple.

     1. Same here Francisco what I found so different with what Serge Presented was that the version of love felt true to my heart, not something that I had to get from someone else (my previous version of love) but something that I felt in me. It provides a completely different perspective on life – and makes complete sense.

349. “Can I be love without being loved? Before being acquainted with Universal Medicine I would have said no. And yet how can we be loved without first caring deeply for ourselves. This is still a work in progress for me but I feel the wisdom in the teachings of Serge Benhayon.

350. Joel, I loved this sharing. The timing for reading this is absolutely perfect for me. I too have been holding myself to ransom, waiting to see how people are around me before I let myself be the love that I really am. I too am in the midst of choosing to be love, no matter what. As I do my best to hold to this commitment, I am feeling so many places in my life where I have succumbed to the wait for another to love me so it is ok to love myself or need ing acceptance, so holding back waiting for the acceptance to come, how I think it needs to come. For me this pattern is a doosie. But one that I am now facing full on with a commitment that I have not had before. I am so committed now because I can feel so clearly how lovely I am and when I live this love how myself and others respond to it and it is constantly surprising me how simple it is. It simply is and it feels right and it feels true. This is why it is now much easier to commit.

351. Its quite a conundrum really, a bit like ‘The Nutty Squirrels'(or was it chipmunks) in the cartoon; one would say ‘you go first’ and the other reply, ‘no you go first’ and the other would reply, ‘no but you go first’ and so the banter would go on round and round. I’m very familiar with this merry-go-round, it’s only when I stop and get off that I can recover from the dizziness, observe its motion and realise Its going nowhere. These days I’m no longer so enticed to go for a ride, and feel able to say ‘yes I’ll go first.’

352. This article goes right to heart of the matter. If I don’t love myself, if in my physical heart I don’t feel that my heart is squeezing my own love around my body, then no matter what love comes my way it will never be enough. A very profound blog when you sit with it. Thank you Joel.

353. Excellent observations Joel and spot on. I have also become very aware of my ‘habit’ in waiting for others to be love first and picking apart anything that is not love to justify me not being love first. Phew… this way of living is tiring because it requires so much effort. I have committed to being the love that I am regardless of what everyone else is choosing and the amazing thing is that the more love I allow myself to be, the more love I see in others. Pretty cool, hey? Looks like the cat is out of the bag… Being love first has its ‘benefits’ because it is awesome not to be hanging around waiting for everyone else to be that first. Oh and it feels amazing too.

354. Joel you ask a great question – when the world around us says it is others that need to love us first for us to feel loved, you pose the opposite. For us to fill ourselves up first with our own love and be that love in the world regardless of whether others show us love or not. I am looking forward to an update from you … and in the meantime I am looking at who is filling my glass up – others or myself!

355. I came to this blog to see what insights you are sharing, Joel, and it gave me ‘cause for pause’. It made me check in with myself to see if there’s anywhere I’m still making my ‘being love’ contingent on anyone else’s choices to be or not be love. Thanks for the reminder to not get complacent but keep looking deeper….

356. These really are great questions. I forget to look inside for love/truth first so can still say no to myself before I’ve realised that’s what I’ve done.

357. Great question Joel and a big one to broach. How often have I relied upon the attitude or behaviour of another before deciding how I am going to act or be. Its the “you go first” syndrome and it just makes me realise how much I hold back who I really am, in the fear of not being accepted, not fitting in or worse, standing out in the crowd! Thank you for bringing the question to the fore for consideration. Serge Benhayon is the first person I have met who actively lives self love to such a degree that being love in all he does is innately natural and without question, consequently he inspires us all to seek this within ourselves.

358. Thank you Joel for this deeply inspiring blog.
     I am just starting to feel that only self-love can truly bring love into my life.
     Before I always used to somehow manage to create situations in which I could pretend to care for others out of “love” and in return might feel that I was being “loved” – but never have been really happy with this and felt that something was missing.
     Since taking more and more steps towards loving me – this is becoming easier and feels so beautiful – all these wonders that have been there all the time :o)

359. Returning to our inner-most and emanating from our hearts, forever evolving…

360. Thank you Joel for this great sharing. I too have wanted to be shown love before I will show love and I can feel in my body the holding back and it’s not a nice feeling, so arrogant. I loved Heather’s comment that unconditional love is within and starts with us, that makes sense to me and something I can remember when I am not accepting of myself.

361. Great question to ponder upon Joel- Can I be love without being loved?
     I know for a long time I had been looking outside myself first to ‘find love’.
     Also waiting for others to show me this love first before I choose it for myself- because of my own low self worth ,lack of self acceptance issues.
     But when Serge Benhayon introduced the concept that we are love and from love, deep within us all equally – this has changed the way I view life and have now been living life.
     When I stop, connect to this deep love within first and ‘just be”and then proceed to ‘do’- the quality of this love is so so beautiful- it keeps building and radiates out. It is full, not empty. This definitely feels the only true way forward.

362. Being love versus needing to be loved- what an awesome learning and unfolding for many of us. I am sure there are elements of holding someone or ourselves or the world to ransom for it or them needing to be the love before we will be who we already are from our hearts, love, with them. I know for me this is still an unfolding and even when small reactions pop up every now and then, this is exposed for me, which is a great learning opportunity and a moment to reflect- why? What and where am I not just allowing myself to be all the love that I am and why have I let a hurt or a ransom get in the way of this? An inspiring blog Joel- thank you for the healing.

363. Such an immediate challenge at school, just being love to others and yourself, with no individualism. thanks Joel.

364. Yes I know the trap of searching for love out side me all too well and what a trap it is. Searching for love and acceptance from someone else and waiting for someone to say yes to me before I will say yes to myself. At times it’s felt like I know that Love is right there for me, but I won’t let myself have it. I’ve put a lid on it. As you say Joel, there is a condition on it. I need to be this or I need to be that before I will let myself feel love. But when I do let go, the flood gates open and I can feel that every cell in me is love and this is our natural way. There is no comparison to true love, for how can there ever be, when it’s where we originally come from? Anything and everything else is just settling for the cheaper version, that will simply never ever do.

365. A great question Joel and a great blog… I know I can often literally zip myself up and tuck all my love away because the other person or situation in front of me are behaving in a way that’s not being that loving — a way that pushes my buttons and I then go into recoil, withdrawal, reaction and hide away my own love. To be before any situation, standing firm and open in our love is the most beautiful way to be and it really does melt the lovelessness that is around us, because everyone deep down is wanting love. So to make that daily choice to stay open, ‘unzipped’, and let ourselves be love in whatever situation we are in, is a gorgeous program to put ourselves on.

     1. Here here sister. I watched myself do that today when someone was a bit indifferent to me, I felt myself close up shop! So lovely to read your blog Joel and all the comments and re-commit to being love and being on this gorgeous program.

366. Joel this is a thought provoking and exposing blog! It is making me aware of the need I have to be loved and accepted by others before I can accept and love myself. It is easy to say that we are self loving but when explored at a deeper level is this really true? I am going to take this into my day today and observe my level of self love and how those around me affect my ability to feel this love.

367. I am really looking forward to Part 2 (and 3 and 4?) of this blog already …

     I dinged on this sentence, “I need to be part of a certain group so I can feel loved and accepted etc.” – not believing or feeling that I’m lovable and lovely, I looked to others to fill that emptiness in me, but of course that never does it. Slowly slowly the agony of that inner emptiness is going (and almost gone) as I trust that it’s ok and safe and true to feel within and then somehow a feeling of wholeness and me is there … and ever developing.

368. Some very thought provoking questions Joel. I have studied the teachings of Universal Medicine for a long time too, and something as simple as – ‘to ‘be love’ you need to first ‘self love’ – I can also over complicate, trying to find situations where I can ‘compromise’.

369. Yes there are certainly many layers to this, and much to learn. It is such an ingrained behaviour to want to know that we will be accepted before we make a choice to do something – even to make self-loving choices.

370. I was wondering yesterday if there is such a thing as “unconditional love”. That term is touted quite widely – like it is the holy grail of a happy life. Find someone to love you unconditionally and everything will work out. I wondered what unconditionally meant – can someone leave the toothpaste lid off and still be unconditionally loved, or have an affair, or what about being abusive? There are so many questions like this that couples have discussed since time immemorial… But Joel presents a totally different question – what if unconditional love is internal – loving ourselves, and that is by being love. By living a quality of love that does not need to be conditional or unconditional, for it is present in everything we do. The Universal Medicine Gentle Breath Meditation has been a wonderful support for me in developing this quality.

371. This question really gets to the heart of the matter for me. If no-one steps up to be love first we all sit around playing the ‘you first’ game and end up loveless. In my experience, once we see this there is only one true choice remaining and that is to be love. The changes in the quality and essence of my relationships that have arisen since first understanding this are all the evidence I need that this is a way I will continue to choose in my life. My eternal gratitude goes to Serge Benhayon for ‘going first’ for us all.

     1. Hear hear! seconded and ditto re your super comment about Serge Benhayon ‘going first’ for us all; eternal appreciation and love to him indeed.

        1. Serge has indeed led the way with self- love and it just makes so much sense that you cannot turn your back on this philosophy. It is being lived large by so many students who have transformed their lives into gorgeous tender beings. I, too want to acknowledge him as going first.

372. As I started to read your blog Joel, I noticed straight away how I do exactly this ‘ I will only look after myself (be loving to myself) if I can see the benefit’ and with that reached straight for my hand cream. I also notice how conditional I am and how much of a challenge I find it to be love in the face of someone being ‘unloving’ but how amazing it feels when I chose love despite what is happening outside of me.

373. As I started to read your blog Joel, I noticed straight away how I do exactly this ‘ I will only look after myself (be loving to myself) if I can see the benefit’ and with that reached straight for my hand cream. I also notice how conditional I am and how much of a challenge I find it to be love in the face of someone being ‘unloving’ but, how amazing it feels when I choose love despite what is happening outside of me.

374. Can I be love withOUT being loved? Awesome question Joel.

     If I self-love or ‘love-self’ and build my consistent daily rituals with great care and connection to my own body then … how can I NOT be love?
     Regardless of ever being loved by another the emanation of the love that I am, comes from me and in turn is naturally shared. This LOVE THAT I BE is unconditional and requires nothing at all. It simply is.

     As you have said ‘if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself,’ Thanks Joel for filling the JUG and BEing Love. 🙂

375. A big question indeed but it’s importance I feel is huge. I can relate to the holding self-love from myself until I see or experience an action worthy of such allowing. How can I hold self-love back until I see something worth self-loving when what is worth self-loving is self-love itself(?). It makes no sense..

376. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?” These can be my daily questions every day, Joel, and the first one is the most important for me, it is the first step from which the others spring. The more I practice the learning to love myself first, not depending on how others view me, the more I am able to accept and love others for who they are. It all makes very good sense.

377. Joel you raise a great point in this blog – are we willing to be love without being loved first? This to me feels like a big step up, not waiting to feel accepted by others first. If we can truly accept and love ourselves, than it doesn’t matter where others are at and we become an inspiration for them to be love. This is certainly a work in progress for me, as I know there are many area’s in my life where I am still waiting for others to be love first and I often feel rejected when I’m not shown love.

378. It is a very good question Joel and one you tackle with such clarity. Like you I also found that there was something in the way that Serge Benhayon describes this concept of love that was super clear and made perfect sense. There is a simplicity to applying self care and loving ourselves, yet even within this simplicity I found I have been conditioned to not do so and this has been hard to break. To put others first or to not value myself enough. In doing so there will never be enough love from another to satisfy me, for that can only come from fully loving myself first.

     1. Well said Stephen, Serge Benhayon brings a clarity and simplicity to our understanding of love. We have been very conditioned to put others first and the process of self love slowly dissolves this conditioning. Learning to value myself is a work in progress, which progresses at vary speeds depending on how much I have connected to my essence verses how much I am seeking from the outside world. And you are right, no amount of love from the outside world will be enough, the love we are seeking can only be sourced from within us. We are a walking gold mine of love, we just need to stop and connect to it!

379. I agree Joel, that it is very deeply entrenched, at least it has been in me, that to be love I have to get love from outside me first. That has taken me a while to unravel to the degree that I have, but I have experienced that the deeper my commitment to self-love goes and putting that into action the more I fall in love with myself – and fill that jug and of course the less I need from outside.

     1. Gorgeous Josephine, this is totally inspiring, build self love first and the need from outside diminishes.

     2. Beautiful reading your comment here Josephine ‘the deeper my commitment to self-love goes and putting that into action, the more I fall in love with myself’. How gorgeous this feels. I’ve spent way too long, not loving myself and waiting / arrogantly demanding others to be the love instead of being it myself. Though the inspiration of Serge, Universal Medicine and the student body, I’m now learning day by day, to fill up the jug myself and share it around with everyone I meet. Another awesome blog Joel.

380. What a lively discussion this blog has started! For me I feel there is a difference between the love we feel gets done for us by others or by ourselves for ourselves, and realising that we are actually love in essence so it then becomes about something we are connected to and expressing (or not). One is a doing and one is a being. I know for me I’m not consistently connected to myself as Love, so I’m falling into the trap of looking outside of myself for love still, and living without love in my daily life. I don’t think I’ve even fully allowed myself yet the realisation that I am Love, so I’m living outside of this truth still. As I write this, it seems utterly ridiculous that I would reject myself as Love and choose to live any other way because lovelessness feels terrible, that’s why we are all deep down “looking” for love. Why on earth am I not making this my primary focus everyday? This blog and discussion is a big wake up call! So valuable, thankyou.

     1. I love the distinction you make Melinda that ‘one is a doing and one is a being’. This speaks volumes about how it feels when we connect to the love within rather than seek it without. In truth they are worlds apart and for me, that beingness feels like returning home.

381. I lOve this question So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?

     1. I know the theory. I know it works. I know that I am not needy for love, acceptance or recognition. But I also know that the level of love I have for myself can go so much deeper. As Joel says there are more layers…….

382. These questions that you have asked yourself Joel are ones I feel are very relevant for me also and so I am going to copy them and put them where I can read and ponder on them.

383. Such a beautiful blog, love it as it touches the core of human life claiming to fill your own jug first no matter what and then we all have enough to share!!!! Life is about learning how to fill the jug by ourselves and live from love, beautiful!!!

384. I love what you have unraveled here Joel: ‘I’ll be love if you be love first’. A classic example of how we are conditioned to look out for something that already exists within – love. Illusion exposed! Nice one.

385. Joel, I love the way you have with words “….if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share”, is just wonderful. I love the enough to share aspect as that’s what true love is, sharing from being this ourselves – first.

386. Wow Joel, that was a great blog for me. This is something I have only recently scratched the surface of and now have more to tools to scratch even deeper thanks to your blog. Thanks for sharing.

387. The statement you raise Joel is one that needs to be asked by everyone because the world generally does not look at love this way, hence the reason for so much misery and disappointment. The media, education, sport, everything feeds the message that love comes from the outside and something one needs to attain, but you are turning this notion upside down.
     The bridge to loving me first is a question I ask myself as you state, ‘am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should?
     When I love me first from inside out, everything is how it should be, there’s no need to strive for anything – this feels like the place I like to reside.

388. “Can I be love without being love?” That is a big question. It almost seems to big to tackle but one worth peeling away at layer by layer. It is amazing how deep the “you love me first” story runs.

     1. Hi Nikki, you are love and you were love when you were born, all you have to do is re-connect to that love that is within then you are love. Now.

        1. Beautiful Nick. You have put it so simply. Thank you.

389. Loved the blog Joel, your jug is definitely running over. As a student of the Way of the Livingness, the love that is shared is simply amazing!

390. Thanks Joel. Its a big question – am I prepared to just be love, no matter what? A question that deserves a long ponder ….

391. Yes there are many layers. Over the last few days I have become aware of the strategy I had adopted for continuing to protect myself even when I was acting out being love. This happened after I was assisted to go to hold myself with deeper tenderness. I started noticing that I automatically reduce the tenderness in my body and harden up when I sense a possible unloving situation. I may still be acting more caring than the other person but there is more to go. There is a deeper level of love that I am now aware of that I could build a consistency in. Thank you for this blog Joel. It provides a great framework to look at how we are in relation to being love regardless of what is going on, and worth coming back for another read again and again.

392. Thank you, Joel for giving this belief a good airing that we hold others to ransom with: You be love/loving and then I will be – maybe.” That is retardation, plain and simple, but we have all fallen for it.

393. To be love first and not needing to be loved first is a huge one. So simple,and not that simple. To be love first consistently, no matter what and despite everything. So simple, so difficult. Not to be needy but also not to be protected in any way (even in a subtle way). That is another hard one. For me the way there is to keep increasing my awareness of myself and to realise the fact that I can choose. I am becoming aware of the many micro scenes that happen during the day where I can catch myself going into automatic pilot but I realise I can choose and I do stop it. Thanks Joel to go to the heart of the matter!!

394. Your question does have ” more layers ” Joel.
     Going deeper into them, the question I have to ask myself is : HOW ready am I to ‘be love, see love in all ‘, what does this require from me ? Commitment ? Consistency ?
     It is huge, I see this is possible by the examples shown by the Benhayon family.
     It is a fundamental ‘lack’ in our world today. We must all ‘open up’ and be part of the change………

395. Thank you Joel another great article. I have become more aware recently that I take others behaviour personally rather than staying with the love I feel is there, which in turn stops me being the love I am as I then react to this. I am working to change this, now I have this awareness, and keep filling my jug

396. A great question “..can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should?” This has come up for me to, and yes it is a way of putting limits on our capacity to love, which are imaginary. My experience of the world has begun to change with my building commitment to ‘be love’ without waiting to ‘be loved’. This has had a significant impact on my relationships, with my husband, children, friends, family and all who I meet throughout my day. There is less imposition and demands put on them, it brings something different into the equation, something timeless, true, supportive and inspiring. And it offers the opportunity to feel the potential that we all have within us to be a ray of light in this world, rather than to get involved in waiting for others or blaming others for not being it themselves. Love, is consistent and supportive if felt and committed to with ourselves, it requires nothing in return.

397. Thank you Joel, I can resonate with what you share, I use to hold everyone at ransome, expecting them to be love before I would love. But I have learnt now through Serge Benyahon, to ‘be love first’ and then you can feel the love from others.

398. This is a great analogy Joel, ‘if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.’ It makes self-love and love very clear and simple for me to understand, thank you.

399. Thank you for this post Joel, I love reading it. I was always the person that held myself and others to ransom by expecting others to make the first move. More and more through the inspiration of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine Practitioners I am letting my Love out and it feels amazing. Many of those negative thoughts can’t stick around as I share my Love with the world. It can be as simple as a smile, or being conscious of how I am standing when speaking with another, taking a moment to pause a little longer and not rush off or to meet them with my eyes. There are still pockets of hiding but somehow I feel that continuing to share the Love and warmth I do feel will stop the hiding in time.

400. Not a blog to read once……
     There is so much (love) to inspire me/us with your questions Joel.

401. Am I willing to be love without necessarily being loved in return, great question and one for me to unravel now, as i feel all the conditions I’ve put on love and loving me – crazy to think I’ve made it about how others reacted and then blamed them for not showing me love and yet I wasn’t doing it to myself – a big learning that’s still very much in progress.

402. Brilliant Joel, what a great blog in the way you talk about truly loving you. You are right a lot if people say to me “its simple, eat healthy drink less and do more exercise” and with that understanding if where they are at they are right…absolutely. But if it was that simple (in our heads) why isn’t everyone doing it, and why do we still observe rises in ill-health, disease and general dissatisfaction? Your reference to others doing it first is brilliant and so true as we are afraid to break our own bad habits or rhythms unless someone else shows us first…we are addicted to not thinking for ourselves. Time to break the mould.

403. Ouch Joel, fantastic blog, and great questions. I recognise the conditions I still have where I say I will be love when another loves me first, or treats me in a specific way first – I’m waiting on another, and I don’t need to, I’m choosing to, and as I write this, I see that while I’m more love than I’ve ever been, there’s still a way I find to be less love until another does it first, so ouch.

404. Great questions, Joel. I have found it does not matter how long I have been studying with Universal Medicine these questions are always relevant.

405. Wow! Your question/s are powerful Joel, offering all the opportunity to become aware of this concept of ‘love me, then I will love you’
     “Connecting to the love in everyone regardless of their behaviour” is the most testing for me.

406. Great article with some real questions to ponder.

407. Great questions Joel and ones that I am often asking myself. Somehow to see them written here makes me feel more committed to loving myself and being love. Thank you.

408. Awesome question Joel, something I’m currently asking myself. Thank you

409. Joel I can resonate with a lot of this. I use to look for love outside of me. I never understood what to be love was, until I met a Universal Medicine. When I never use to receive love I would feel hurt and rejected. Thanks to Universal Medicine, I no longer look for love outside of me, but continue to work on being love from within.

410. These are huge questions rarely asked:
     “Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should?
     Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at?
     Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?”
     What a great opportunity to sit with these this morning. Thank you Joel.

     1. I also love the fact that the last line of the article includes “It’s a big question and one I am sure there will be more layers to.”
        I have revisited this page several times and I am finding that my relationship with these questions keeps deepening. Worth sitting with these questions again and again.

411. It is amazing how many conditions we can put out before we are willing to be loving. Brilliant blog, thank you Joel.

     1. This is true Fiona and our conditions can carry a momentum which can sometimes take a while to let go of, this world is full of conditions and pressure which stops us from fully being ourselves. Universal Medicine has shown us that their is another way to be ourselves if we so choose.

     2. So true Fiona. Placing conditions and ifs and buts before we are willing to be love. But is bargaining not love.

412. Yes, I have been looking outside of my self for the truth. Universal Medicine has helped me understand that everything I need I already have. In order to know and recieve love, you have to be love, or to understand love you need to self-love.

413. Your lived experiences of making love to be conditional is a great article, thank you Joel for bringing this oftentimes accepted way of living to light, I love the depth of your expression. As you say ….”In truth, that last one, ‘they need to be love first’ is a big one. In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else”…. this is indeed MASSIVE!!

414. Hi Joel, I love the simplicity of this statement .. ‘if you want the jug to be full, you have to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.’

     1. Yes that is such a gorgeous wise statement. Imagine what the world would be like with everyone taking that level of responsibility.

415. Hi Joel. Thanks for this reminder. I’ve been really hard on myself today and your blog has helped me to come back to love.

416. Great story Joel, it made me ask myself the same questions. Keep us posted…

417. Beautiful Joel. Wow the conditions that we put on the world and people before we choose to Love. I know that with the best intentions to Love myself and to display Love to others I can still shut down when I feel hurt. I know I need to Love even when I am feeling hurt, and I know that feeling my hurt is the way back to Love.

418. Thanks for the “big question” Joel, I too will be working on it.
     Looking forward to your follow up……..

419. I really appreciate the questions at the end of the article. If I say no, and state that I have to always be loved first, I might as well pack up my bags, because in my daily life that is not the way it happens. I live in a busy city where most people are suspicious of one another and work in a busy company where most people are very stressed and when this is aggravated their colourful personalities come out to play and there is a lot of collateral damage.
     But – I have seen in my own life that there have been those from Universal Medicine who have been consistently a reflection of love for me, regardless of my response, and boy has that consistency inspired me to turn my life around. So – I know that there may be some people around me, not even capable in this moment to show me the level of love I am talking about.
     Therefore it is clear that it is up to me to be love and hold a reflection just as Universal Medicine did for me all these years, and yes in order to do that I need to take care of myself and be loving to myself as well.

420. Thanks Joel, what you say is so very true. ‘They need to be love first before I will be love’ was a big one for me. I was always waiting for someone else to lead the way but now, since attending the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, I know that no-one can do it for me. I have to love and be love myself first so that I can then truly love another.

421. That is so true Joel, how often do we wait for someone else to be themselves first and then we will follow suit. Serge Benhayon’s message is very simple and we seem so adept at complicating it. Maybe I will be love if blah, blah and out comes a myriad of excuses. A good question for me to ponder too, through the week – am I willing to love myself regardless of how others behave and see and connect to this precious energy within me and others first? In other words, am I going to be the one that goes first?

422. This is an important discussion and one I feel very passionate about, I can resonate with this in a very deep way. I have come to the understanding of how important it is to really connect with yourself and spend time in doing so.
     Becoming aware of how I am with myself in each moment really supports me to know what is going on in my day.
     Interestingly I have realised how deeply hard I am with myself on big and small things that happen in my life and how this really hurts my body. Hence this subject being a really great one to talk about… how are we with ourselves?

     1. Amina I love your practical application of asking ‘how are we with ourselves?’ This is so important because it is also pointing to how am I really with others too.

        I know, at times, I find just being with myself a real challenge. I can go into being hard on myself to get through those times or go hell bent into distraction. However, when I choose to stay with myself I get to feel who I am beneath whatever is bothering me. I get to free myself to be the love that I am. How am I with myself is the difference between me being the love that I am or not.

        1. I agree Amina and Karin, how are we with ourselves is such a poignant question for me. Changing the tide of self criticism to one of loving awareness takes constant reminding. I find myself struggling to stay connected to myself by choosing foods that stimulate and distract me or by getting into doing so I do not feel what is going on but if I give myself the space I need to be present then I can be the love that I am and the self critique falls away.

        2. These are great points Karin and Fiona and the process of our own development with our relationship with ourselves is always going to be a very personal one as the awareness of the details and our continued commitment to work on them gives us our opportunity to evolve if we so choose. A choice worth taking if we do.

423. Thank you Joel, some great questions to ponder on. It is true from the beginning Serge has always said ‘be love’ and to make everything about love. It is that simple.

424. Karin thank you for your open and honest sharing. Loved reading “I might just love myself and see in others this same inner beauty and know that we are all connected and whatever I do affects another for good or bad so I take the greatest care to never cause another harm by how I live.” And also “I might just shine so bright others get inspired to start loving themselves”. Simply beautiful.

425. Joel, thank you SO much for your blog. I’m having a moment here and asking myself, ‘can I be love without being loved?’ Well, given that I’m feeling vulnerable because I’m looking for approval and love from particular people and for them to confirm I am worth loving today, the answer is a big no. Which is awesome to realise because this sets me free to love myself regardless of anyone else.

     Interestingly, a fair few beliefs come up to try to put back this from happening. Phrases such as “who am I to determine if I am lovable when only God (the ‘sitting in his big chair with his long white beard’ God) has that right?” Or I might get big headed and go off and do immoral things when actually, I might just shine so bright others get inspired to start loving themselves. Or, I might just love myself and see in others this same inner beauty and know that we are all connected and whatever I do affects another for good or bad so I take the greatest care to never cause another harm by how I live.

     So, I have a real choice of not waiting to be loved before I can love myself.
     Thank you so much for bringing this awareness to me so simply.

426. Awesome Joel, it is soo insidious the feeling of needing to be loved to be love – most of my life I have played the waiting game – which did not get me anywhere, for me it was an extremely self-destructive way of living – the more I am love first with myself and with others the more love I feel others then allow themselves to be, and a lot of the pretence and the holding back from being love gradually goes.

     1. Yes, well said James, “the more I am love first with myself and with others the more love I feel others then allow themselves to be, and a lot of the pretence and the holding back from being love gradually goes.” I too am finding this. Thank you for sharing.

     2. Great point James, when we show ourselves love our outlook changes and we start to see more of that love within others, this has certainly been true for me.

        1. Its a beautiful feeling when you can see the love within another even though they may be quite outwardly angry, and see that really all they are doing is defending and protecting their hurts at all costs – something I know all to well in myself!

427. I am realising something about all of the conversations I have had about being love first or wanting someone else to show me love first, or or waiting for permission to go there:
     None of it has anything to do with Love! It is all about our re-interpretation of that word. In those instances I am talking about a whole host of issues: like not wanting to get hurt, like wanting someone else to fix my lack of self worth, like wanting to control the situation.
     My experience of Love does not match any of these conversations. I find Love to be a strong emanating feeling, everyone is held equally, there is great openness, commitment and potential – playing games or holding back simply is not possible from that place.
     I can see it is more useful for me, when I am having conversations about holding back in my head, to categorically admit that my day is about NOT LOVE, rather than saying “only if this happens then I will be love”, because in the latter instance the word is not talking about love at all. If I do not confuse the two, then it will be clearer for me to know which energy I am choosing regardless of the flavour and the story, and it will be easier to see the seductive stories for what they are and let them go.

     1. I have found that the inability to hold love for yourself comes from the crippling lack of self worth that gets developed over time. In making self loving choices and in taking more responsibility and ownership of my choices I have swapped that lack of self worth for self appreciation and celebration. I am still learning the responsibility I have to hold on to my connection no matter what is kicking off for everyone around me. I have learned that it is even more important for me to do this otherwise of what value am I if I take on others’ issues and make myself low because of them? Someone else’s inability to express love for me in that moment is not a reflection that I am not worthy of love, it is just a reflection that they are struggling to find that love within themselves. In developing a loving relationship with myself it allows me to be love first, last and always with no conditions or expectation that I need it to come from another first.

        1. Michelle I find what you have shared is profound. “Someone else’s inability to express love for me in that moment is not a reflection that I am not worthy of love, it is just a reflection that they are struggling to find that love within themselves”. Not only does it offer an understanding for me about another’s choice to not express love, but it also confirms how unwise it is to even consider using another person’s behaviour as a prompt for expressing or not expressing the Love that I am.

428. This is great Joel. ” In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else.” This line rings bells everywhere for me. Waiting for someone else to give me permission to be more loving is the the same as hiding in a cave until its safe out there to be love. It’s the best way to not take responsibility for being alive and with the capacity to express love. Only I can give myself permission to be love (which does not mean ‘nice’) and nobody can take love away from me but me.

     1. This is so true Jinya, it is exactly the same as hiding away in a cave. I can be love when those around me are being love, when the surroundings change and those around me are not being love I switch off my light and stop taking responsibility. Thank you for sharing this is a great reminder.

     2. Great point Jinya…’nobody can take love away from me but me’. We can deny the love that we are, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is within us – no matter what we do.

429. Joel your question for the week should be the daily… this is what we should try to be every day.

430. I love this phrase in your article: ” If you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.” OF COURSE! How could it possibly be any different. It beautifully shows how it is futile to wait for someone else, when it is so easy to joyfully take care of the situation ourself, and how gorgeous that it ends by showing that IT BENEFITS EVERYONE.

     1. Hi Golnaz, I agree with you about the jug. No one’s going to fill it for us! There has to come a point in our lives where we metaphorically learn to ‘wipe our own bums’. Our lives won’t improve if we expect it all to come from outside of us, we have to have at least some willingness to improve it by our own means.

        1. Well said Golnaz and Cheryl – we have to take responsibility for our own lives, and by doing so we naturally inspire everyone else to do the same.

        2. Very true Cheryl and a great analogy.

     2. Indeed Golnaz.
        I love the completeness of Joel’s phrase, speaking in relation to love, ‘if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself’.

     3. I agree with you Golnaz “It is so easy to joyfully take care of the situation ourself”, rather than wait for someone else. The big word that comes to me is ‘responsibility’, we can’t expect others to do it for us. And as you say “IT BENEFITS EVERYONE”. What a win-win situation.

431. Joel, I love reading your blogs and I loved the question for the week, feels like you had put yourself on a program! I can relate to what you are sharing about waiting for others to show me love first but now I just realised how harming and dismissive we are, not only with others, but with ourselves when we are not love first… wow…

432. Great Joel, the phrase “they need to be love first” is what struck me the most as I remember not so long ago being very stubborn and holding onto old patterns – refusing to accept that I too can be love.

433. Lots of realisations here for me after reading the blog and all the comments.

434. Thank you Joel, I love how simply you’ve conveyed what you’re saying with the analogy of the jug “if you want the jug to be full, you had to learn how to fill it yourself, and then there is enough to share.” Universal Medicine reminded me too of the value of self-love.

435. The phrase following phrase jumped up for me: ” ‘they need to be love first’ is a big one. In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else.” I saw a parallel example of a kid by the playground, itching to run over and play with the other kids, but we keep enforcing the rule “no you can’t go and play with the kids unless one of them comes over to play with you”. Wow that feels a huge clamping down on generous and loving expression.

436. mmmm…great question Joel and one well worth asking. It strikes me as a tad ridiculous that we all wait for someone else to ‘go first’ and ‘be love first’ and ‘love us first’ whilst at the same time we complain that our lives are not fulfilling, that we are not treated with the dignity and respect that we want to be and that the world at large has a lot of ugliness. As scary as it can appear to be, someone has to go first and as this thread shows, there are now many people who are making the choice to deeply love and honour themselves and then share this with others. This is truly inspiring.

437. You’ve posed some big questions here, but in such a simple way. I was reminded once again about the fact that we need to take time to self love, filling our own cup till it is overflowing… then that love naturally starts pouring out into the world, with no need from the world, or holding the world to ransom. Beautiful.

438. Re-visiting this blog and on reading it again I am finding it resonating on a deeper and more personal level as I am finding that there is still a resistance to being the love first that I had not been aware of. That the resistance to do so comes from feeling that if I am love first I feel vulnerable and that I am somewhat scared of being that vulnerable. However, when I have done so it has resulted in a much more genuine interaction with the other person as it has resulted in them being more open and trusting. It is not yet consistent in my life but it is developing and with it a greater ease.

439. Brilliant Joel, this is ‘a big question’ and one to ponder on, thank you.

440. ‘If we want the jug to be full, we have to fill it ourselves, then there will be enough to share’ What a lovely way to express taking responsibility to be love, Joel. I love your honesty and insight.

441. Wow Joel. Amazing realisations. I can also so relate. I have been feeling how measured I am in my expression of love and intimacy with friends and colleagues indeed often waiting for someone else to give a hint or take the lead. I have realised also that I wait for others to inspire me instead of committing to claiming myself. Like I am waiting for permission. Thank you for your blog it has supported me in exploring this deeper.

442. I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Thank you Joel. It raises so many great points about how we tend to relate to Love. I know every example you give very well, and find the last example a big one. “They need to be love FIRST, before I will be Love” is such a big trap that I keep falling into as if by default. I am finding as I slowly learn to honour my own inner feelings, as I learn to be tender and non-judgmental with myself and with others, and as I learn to take care of the way I live, the easier it is to not fall into that trap. There is still a long way to go and you pose wonderful questions at the end of your article. Great ones to ask along the way.

443. Superb article, Joel, capturing the concept of measured love and the deliberations we wrangle with about just how much we’ll give, show or entrust. Great analogy about requiring a jug full of self love before we can even begin to consider pouring it out for others!

444. What a fantastic, simple and clear blog that makes so much sense that you have shared Joel. I love what you wrote at the end – no doubt many layers to what level of love you are prepared to allow yourself to be… my feeling it is never ending, only forever deepening.

445. This is a big one for me to Joel. And sometimes I can feel myself doing it -wanting the other person to be love, before I change my behaviour in certain situations, and my body feels yuk, and I still feel stubborn and resist just changing me first. But when I do, everything just melts, and lightens up, so I’m getting much better at choosing to be love first… work in progress…

446. Awesome Joel. I love the question of the week, it is one that requires on-going reflection and honesty. Thank you for sharing.

447. This is very poignant, an important article for us all. Thank you Joel.

448. Great questions at the end Joel especially ‘am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?’
     I feel that once you can connect to the love present regardless of their behaviour, with no judgements or reactions then you can ‘be love without being loved’

449. Fantastic Joel, this is an awesome question to ask ourselves “can I be love without being loved?” For me some days for sure it feels like I am able to give love, be love and hold love even when I am not getting it in return but this is by no way consistent. On these days when I do feel love I feel the over flowing bounty to share for all regardless of how they are back to me, these are usually days when I am not invested in outcomes or I have taken good care of myself through good food and sleep. It is so interesting the different types of emotions that I allow to come up which can then stop me from being that love which otherwise can come so naturally.

450. Great blog, Joel. The questions you raise I feel are the cornerstone of what Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have presented that have resulted in the huge change in the lives all Universal Medicine students and hence for humanity. To continue evolving we need to deepen our livingness of being love first and not waiting for another. Thank you for bringing this to our attention so clearly.

451. Hmm Joel, very very good questions. Its such a trick isn’t it, what you write about that ”I’ll be love when they are/when I know it is OK/when it is deserved’ etc. I know that it is a trick that I keep on falling for, a trick that keeps me from love. Thanks for highlighting it.

452. I love the simplicity of your post Joel, great questions, thank you

453. “So the question this week is; can I be love without being loved?” I shall take this line with me into my day. Thank you Joel for a great blog.

454. As I re-read this blog I so can see where I allow people ‘to go 1st’ which as you say equates to relying on others to be Love first. Craazzyy! But each day we CAN decide to change that and this is my firm intention. Thank you Joel.

455. Awesome Joel. What you write here I can very much relate to! I like your closing questions – questions for all of us to ponder on.

456. Joel, I too have been working on this and meeting up with a resistance in myself to getting on with it (being the love that I am). I am sometimes frustrated by my floundering in self love and afraid I won’t break through to that place where the natural loving way feels natural to me and not a struggle. I recently realised that I am even more terrified of being in my fullness… because of how people will re-act, be uncomfortable and even attack me for it…. and then I realised that that is arrogance. To hold myself back to be liked and accepted is a self centered approach. I just have to choose to be me in my whole bright loving amazingness no matter what happens around me!

457. A great blog, Joel, I can relate to all your excuses of measuring love in the past. There’s a deep acceptance here that we are love and we are all from love, keeping it simple. It’s work in progress for me, really great reflection, thank you.

458. Such a great blog Joel, and your comment about emotion and love, that is so clear that an emotion from some need takes us away from the feeling the true love that we are.

459. Beautifully expressed Joel thank you, a big question for us all to look at.

460. Ooh Joel that’s a great question! I am with you there! So hard for me to see through a person’s behaviour and feel the love they are underneath… Also a primary focus for me to accept people but not behaviours and in that acceptance, to be love first. These things can be so subtle it’s hard to catch yourself sometimes. Thank you for bringing this into my awareness!

     1. Hi Rachel, I agree, we so often look at what a person does or has done and that can cloud our ability to feel who they truly are – I recently felt less because of another person’s high qualifications and experiences running a company and the projects he had been in charge of, and when I truly allowed myself to connect to who he naturally is, I could see him as a person no different to me, who simply wanted to be loved. It equalised the relationship in a way I never expected.

        1. That is lovely Carmel. How we cut off from any possibility of love when we go into comparison and judging ourself and the other person with some external mark as opposed to who we both truly are inside, equal, tender and wanting to love and be loved.

461. A great realisation Joel! Thank you. I love your expression and the way you present this. I can totally relate. Looking forward to the follow-up 😉

462. Thank you Joel, something great to ponder on – most of my life I have known and felt truth but have waited for someone to stand up and prove you can be love without being shot down for doing so.
     Now inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine there are many people who are standing up for love and being love first without needing any return. It is a great reminder – I have been shown love in its absoluteness and if I do not then in turn show this love to others where will they get the reflection of love that I got that inspired me to be more loving with myself.

     1. That’s a great point James about reflection and inspiration. It’s so easy to dismiss the power we have in supporting one another in this way.

        1. It sure is Fiona, as a man, I am almost programmed to be constantly trying to ‘do’ something to prove my love for another, the world teaches us that love is a doing, rather than a being – this is one of the greatest gifts Serge Benhayon has given us.

463. Being love without the need to be loved first, during or after. This is huge and making the choice to be the love that we all innately are without attachment or condition, paves the way for humanity and the shift we all have to make to arrest the ills that pervade society today. Thank you, Joel.

464. Dear Joel, this was a very powerful blog to read, especially the final paragraph, which I have to repeat here as the questioning stopped me in my tracks and really exposed that there is still something in the way of me going, yes, yes, yes, yes:

     “Can I be love without being loved? Am I willing to love myself, even though others may not respond the way I think they should? Am I willing to accept myself and in turn others for wherever they are at? Am I willing to see the love that is present in everyone and connect to that regardless of how they behave (lovingly or otherwise)?”

     Thank you Joel, there is a lot here for us to be really honest with ourselves about.

465. What a blog and awesome questions – I so recognise this wanting the other to be love before I will be and super crazy when you think about it – I’ll love me / you if you show me love. As you say there are layers to this and I feel a journey starting – Thanks Joel for such a pertinent blog.

466. Thank you Joel for echoing what is seems so many of us, myself included have experienced or are experiencing. It has been my way till now and I have discovered that waiting for someone to love me first does not bring me love. Just the resentment of not having it. I am now working (many times slipping up) with being my own love and finding it opening doors to…. love.

467. I love the clarity of your realisations Joel. Love is a word that has been so bastardised, so far away from the simplicity of its meaning. Great to have Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon to remind us of its simplicity. Thank you for sharing.

468. I love the simplicity of this gentle reminder that only if we love self first can we truly feel love in another.

469. This is a beautiful realisation and revelation to share. Reading it I had a moment of “oh, yeah!” recognition. Thank you!!

470. Simple and very true – amazing, thank you Joel.

     1. Hear hear, I loved reading this and could really relate to it.

471. Gorgeous blog Joel, just beautiful allowing a deepening.

472. If I wait until I’m loved first, then my love is conditional.

     As social creatures made in God’s image / children of God, we naturally respond to genuine love. If we know how much God loves and delights in us (enough to send His son Jesus Christ to reconcile Himself to us) and have His spirit within us, there will be an overflow of love and good will to ourselves and others (whether others love us or not).

     Is love an emotion or an action? A choice or an overflow from what’s within?

     If love is devoid of any emotion or if it’s forced, its just duty (we can sense this).

     My favourite definition of love is this: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes always perseveres. Love never fails…” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

     “From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks …” (Proverbs)

     “The only thing that counts is faith working itself through love…” (Galatians 5:6)

     “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control…” (Galatians 5: 22-23)

     “…as God’s … dearly loved … clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have … forgive as the Lord forgave you … let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts … and be thankful…” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-15)

     ‘”Love which comes from a pure heart … a good conscience and a sincere faith…” (1 Timothy 1:5)

     (All of the above quotes are from the Holy Bible, New International Version).

     I believe that authentic love is motivated by what’s going on within our hearts and minds: an attitude reflected in action and positive emotions.

     We best love others when we know God’s amazing, deep, perfect love for us. This enables us to better love our selves and others with integrity.

     1. Thank you for your comments Lydia… I love these questions…

        “Is love an emotion or an action? A choice or an overflow from what’s within?”

        For me the power of love is that it neither an emotion or an action, but rather something that is an innate part of us that we choose to connect to (or not).

        It’s true to say “knowing God’s amazing, deep, perfect love for us” is one part of the process of truly loving others. For me the big learning has been that even if I ‘intellectually’ know God’s love, I needed to first be willing to treat myself with the same tenderness of this love.

        In the past, I have found it easy to think about what I need to do for another, to show them my love, but have found this turns love into an action. Which means it’s being driven from my own emotional needs or beliefs… This has been hard to explore at times, but each time I feel disconnected from that innate love within, it’s usually because of some emotion need within me.

        When I am deeply accepting of my own love (the divinity that I am), ‘my cup runneth over’ and what I do is loving, without effort or trying… So the overflow that you talk about.

        This other blog might be of interest as it’s along a similar theme… What would God want for Christmas.

        1. I love your final paragraph Joel, my cup indeed runneth over.

        2. I too love the expression here: “when I am deeply accepting of my own love (the divinity that I am), ‘my cup runneth over’.” It makes sense. I just tried it out and I felt a warmth spreading inside, so in this case it seemed like my cup was filled inside first ready for overflowing outwards!

        3. Love the way you describe love as this innate part of us. When we do choose to connect to it, when we are love, it is effortless and natural. It does not require us to do or be anything other than naturally ourselves.

473. Thank you Joel and Alison.

     I to relate to everything you both share. A big ouch when I started to read your blog Joel, I was like yep, yep, yep… and especially – “they need to be love first. In essence I was holding myself to ransom based on the behaviours of someone else”.

     I can feel more and more I am being asked to be love, and to stop hiding it away, waiting for permission, holding it to ransom, or punishing others – waiting for them to show me love first. And Alison, I so relate to you sharing about waiting to see how much love I will get from another before I dip my toe in – when really everything inside of me wants to jump in lovingly with both feet. I am learning more and more to give myself permission to be love and not need love back in return, even if it is a little bit at a time, and the hurt I associated with love in the past, has in fact been my own hurt at holding back and not expressing the love I and we, all naturally are.

     1. Gyl you have expressed it so beautifully, how we hang around and dip our toe in, but everything inside of us wants to jump in lovingly with both feet. What an awesome splash we would all make.

474. Hi Joel, a great blog and I relate to everything you have said especially waiting for others to be love first, then I will be love. Most of my life has been geared to measuring how much love I will get from another before I will dip my toe in. To follow on from your question “How do we know what love is?”, I used to say to people I don’t know what love is; but that was said because I was not willing to try, and afraid to make mistakes, and worried I may get hurt, so I held my love back. The thing is we do know what love is – as babies we had a knowing of what love felt like. The more I re-connect to the gentleness in me and learn to trust myself and my feelings and be honest when I have not been loving, the more I am beginning to know what love is.

     1. I love what you have shared here Alison, the fact we do know this at a very intrinsic level and that the level of connection is a choice we can all make…

475. Interesting. If you know what love is and are able to make your decisions from a place of that love then you have started to be love.

     1. Wow… what a way to sum up the whole blog in one sentence. I guess the next question is how do we ‘know (learn) what love is’ so we can make those decisions from love to be love.

476. I can totally relate to this in every way… I am to love myself no matter what.

477. Joel, this is an amazing expression and one I too can relate to. What a sneaky way to avoid taking responsibility for the great love that lies and waits patiently within.

478. Joel, this is such a beautiful blog. I love what you’ve brought to what it means to love-self. How often in life do we hold back for others, waiting for them to go first before it’s okay for us! A truly lovely and loving blog.

479. Please do – I so relate to everything you are saying! Thank you.

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