We think we are looking for happiness.
We are really looking for love.
Happiness, I found.
It’s love that eludes me.
Happiness is just gratitude. So simple. So obvious, and yet, it isn’t until you practice true gratitude, that you find happiness.
Even the words are synonymous.
“I am happy for…”
“I am grateful for…”
When I began my gratitude journal, I use the words “I am happy for…” instead of “grateful” because it plants that truth in my head that I have happiness inside of me.
If I had to name this next chapter of my healing, I think it would be called, “The Pursuit of Love.”
I realized recently that all my life, I was raised under Narcisstic “love.” And I will tell you, there is nothing worse, more toxic, than being raised on a Narcissist’s “love.”
You are raised to believe and experience that love is rare. It is a commodity. And not just a commodity, a limited one that it is in high demand.
You are raised to believe and think that love has to be earned. Its cost is blood, sweat, and tears. And the competition is high. You want love? You’ll have to fight for it, degrade yourself, beg, betray and abandon your self, your ethics, and your dignity in exchange for what you think, what you have been told is love.
You think love is possessive and is measured in what you gain from a person.
You think love is attainable. And once you have it, you’re starved for it. So you gorge yourself on this “thing” you think is love. Selling your soul to the Narcissist just for a taste of “love.” And you dig your claws in because you think it’s fleeting, because that thing you suckle, desperate for a taste, it is fleeting. You never know how long you have to drink and sate your thirst before it’s taken away again. And it always is taken away again.
This thing you think is “love” is not love.
It is… Visibility.
One moment… checking logic…
Visibility is what the Narcissist teaches you love is.
And every Narcissist has every Empath convinced of their charade.
It is very important that you (and I) understand exactly what Visibility is and what it implies. You (and I) must understand the value of Visibility.
Before I do that, you must first understand Validation.