LOVE:

~

Allowing ourselves to receive love is one of the greatest challenges we
face in recovery.

Many of us have blocked ourselves from receiving love. We may have
lived with people who used love to control us. They would be there for
us, but at the high price of our freedom. Love was given, or withheld, to
control us and have power over us.

At some point in recovery, we acknowledge that we, too, want and need
to be loved. We may feel awkward with this need. How can we let others
care for us without feeling trapped, abused, frightened, and unable to care
for ourselves?

We will learn. The starting point is surrender – to our desire to be loved,
our need to be nurtured and loved. We will grow confident in our ability to
take care of ourselves with people. We will feel safe enough to let people
care for us; we will grow to trust our ability to choose people who are safe
and who can give us love.

We may need to get angry first – angry that our needs have not been met.
Later, we can become grateful to those people who have shown us what
we don't want, the ones who have assisted us in the process of believing we
deserve love, and the ones who come into our life to love us.

Surrender to the love that is there for us, to the love that people, the
Universe, and our Higher Power send our way.

Start by surrendering to love for yourself.