Learning to Love in All Directions. A Story of Healing, Scents and Self

Love comes in many scents and flavors; the palette is vast, from warm and spicy, earthy and fresh, to rich and sweet like vanilla. Sometimes, finding the words or definitions to express the sensations is extremely difficult. 

One aroma of love that many pursue is unconditional love. Many people desire to experience the ambrosia of unconditional love in their relationships with parents, partners, friends, and animals. 

My experience with seeking unconditional love in romantic relationships revealed some difficulties. While I craved it, I had expectations and requirements for it. The pursuit of love was tied to some specific ideas, which caused a conflict. I realized I was chasing a fantasy about finding unconditional love from someone else. I imagined the taste of this particular fantasy to be sweet like caramel, with a hint of fresh aroma like the grass after a spring rain, mixed with the warmth of vanilla and the gentle spice of cinnamon. 

My desire to find this particular fragrance of love turned into a desperate mental chase for a soulmate to validate my ability to love myself. Nothing is wrong with wanting love and a partnership, and craving connection and intimacy. However,  I felt more comfortable placing all my hopes in one imaginary person than dealing with the void within myself. The odor of this void tasted bland, almost flavorless. Often, I felt emptiness and didn't like myself; my thoughts about myself tasted like poison. At times, it felt easier to give in to the flavorlessness of the void than to search for a savory, salty taste within. That's when I recognized I was pursuing the perfume of unconditional love from the outside to change the bland taste of the void inside.

Ultimately, I recognized that I needed to focus on discovering and accepting myself first. That's how I found myself more curious about exploring the concept of unconditional love and contemplating its meaning and representation beyond the connection to romantic love. Many people speak about the unconditional love they feel for their children. While this may not be something I am personally familiar with, I can speak to other flavors from my own story. 

Love plays a crucial role in the healing process. It is evident in one's connections within a community, relationships, and bonds with nature, all of which contribute to healing. Ultimately, the pathway should lead to finding love within oneself, which can be a challenging and rewarding personal journey.

However, what does that even mean to love oneself? 

I often ask myself this question, and there is no defined answer. The answers are being shaped and evolving as I deepen my relationship with myself. 

There was a time when I feared the abysses of my inner world, and I avoided, escaped, overwrote, and denied many parts of myself because they carried pain—a type of pain that seemed to have no words, no sounds, or a place to go. The perfume of self-love was unimaginable. Instead, the pain tasted as acidic as vinegar and pungent as a bitter almond. Looking back, I realize that my first step toward self-love was honesty. It meant recognizing and accepting where I was, and confronting the parts of myself that I feared and felt ashamed of. 

Therefore, unconditional love is not a feeling that ignores or glosses over reality. In fact, the opposite is true;  It holds and contains the depths of the beauty and of the pain of our connections equally.

The Quechua concept "Munay" is part of Andean spiritual teachings, representing unconditional love. I encountered this term frequently during my stay in the Peruvian Highlands. My curiosity about expressions and language led me to explore this concept further, so I asked some friends about it. They informed me that "Munay" translates to "affection." Additionally, they mentioned a deeper, more frequently used Quechua expression that conveys the highest vibration of love.

The phrase "Uriphai sonkohai" translates to "palomita de mi corazón "in Spanish, meaning "little dove of my heart". In Andean culture, the dove is regarded as the purest bird and, when connected to the heart, symbolizes the profound essence of love that also embraces spirit. My friends often described unconditional love as "un amor sin forma, un amor puro," which translates to "a love without shape, pure love."

"Amor puro" - pure love is acting from the heart with warm, clear, and conscious intentions as a way of living that leads to growth and connecting to your inner essence. This approach encompasses how one relates to the self, life, spirit, earth, and others. It is love without a frame. 

Sometimes, accepting and loving myself "frameless" feels like a profound spiritual challenge. Therefore, I believe self-love is connected to "voluntad," which translates to power that comes not from above but from within. It means assuming accountability, which leads to the understanding that love is all there is, while rewiring and reprogramming some of the patterns that separate me from my essence. 

Self-love is the journey of discovering the essence within myself. It is about navigating through life's obstacles and pain to reach the core of self-worth. Embracing every angle of my soul with honesty and responsibility, knowing myself, and understanding my limitations, flaws, and strengths can lead to liberation that tastes uplifting like peppermint. 

Loving myself means assuming responsibility for caring for my soul, body, and feelings while being connected to others.

I realized that when I don't bend, disappear, or mold myself for love, the love for myself does not come at the expense of my love for another person. Loving unconditionally does not mean acting without boundaries or accepting boundary violations; it means honoring myself and others by establishing boundaries with both myself and those around me. 

True harmony and balance occur when self-love and love for others coexist without one overpowering the other. Nothing needs to be given to receive; everything is given and received freely. That is when the scents of love blend and merge into a unique fragrance. 

I don't have a definitive guidebook on how to love. I learned that it requires skills to express and hold love for myself and others, emotional maturity to be present in relationships, courage to confront fears, and strength to be vulnerable. Not all of those skills may always be available and accessible. Life can be demanding, making it hard to remain in the vibration of love. Like love, the essence of life is nuanced, rich, and complex.

Many flavors and scents of life are difficult to taste, swallow, and inhale; others lift me and fuel every cell of my body with a floral bouquet. Within the flow of time, this is a process of tasting all flavors: the bitter ones, the sweet ones, the delicious ones like nectar, and the sour fermented ones. 

Time is the vein that flows like a river, surfacing all the life experiences I encounter and need to live. I struggle with many of them, but I found the “voluntad” to embrace my essence by accepting challenges and loving in all directions, inward and outward.

One of my life's tasks may be to find beauty in discovering how to love in all directions and to live by the realization that unconditional love is love without hesitation.