Is Love A Coping Mechanism?

As it’s Valentines Day, I thought love was an appropriate topic, though some of you may feel sick of the word! Hang with me, we’re talking about being in the purest form of love.

So is love a coping mechanism?

People most certainly use love as a coping mechanism. Many people rely on relationships and sex as a source of love in return for a sense of belonging. Loneliness is a threat to human survival. We can’t bear the thought of being alone. But the more we seek love, the more it tends to work backwards and then becomes the opposite of the coping mechanism. It ends up hurting us more, if we don’t start with love from within.

What if we approached love as a state of being, is it still a coping mechanism? I believe it is. This is actually the most powerful coping mechanism I have acquired- to be in a state of love. Now you may be thinking “WTF Tessa? How can someone be love?” This is something that is very new for me. Only recently have I been able to say I look at the world through a loving lens. But I’ve discovered the more I choose to be love, to see everything with love, to be loving towards everything and everyone, the less little things bother me. I am much more able to go with the flow and see bad as being good, when I choose to be love. I am not trying to seek love from others. I am starting with loving myself. How can someone love you if you can’t love yourself? The more loving I am, the more love and kindness I attract. By being in a state of love, the world just seems to flow beautifully and not because everything is going perfectly, but because I see it as being love.

Now that we see love in a new perspective, we can harness it as a coping mechanism. We can choose to see the world with love when things go bad. We can choose to be loving towards ourselves when we are mad at ourselves. We can choose to forgive our mistakes. We can choose to be love.

But how do we choose it? How do we shift our perspective? I believe it takes a bit of getting mindful with who you are. Take a step back and recognize where you are not loving in your life. Do you get mad easily when things don’t go your way? Do you beat yourself up for not being perfect? Do you judge your body? These are examples of choosing fear over love. To shift into love, when you feel mad at yourself, point out everything you love about yourself. This is hard. But if you desire to live a loving life filled with your greatest desires, you have to break down your walls to love. If you fear not being perfect (this is my biggest struggle), write down all your imperfections with love. Say “I love that I am not perfect”. Smoother your imperfections with love. If you judge your body, write down everything you love about your body, and include the parts you don’t like. By choosing love, you’ll grow into the best you. Your truest you will shine!

For anytime  you need a loving boost, tell yourself, “I am love.” Gabby Bernstein has got me hooked on setting affirmations as alarms on my phone throughout the day!