Love and Sacrifice.

We bring these words together often.

I attended a church service last Sunday because the sermon was supposed to be about love- instead the pastor focused on sacrifice.

Sacrifice, in the broadest definition, means to give something up for the sake of something else.

The concept that love- with God,  or with others- involves sacrifice has been with us a long, long time- from our earliest ancestors to many modern religions, along with the romantic notion of sacrificing for love in many messages of modern society.

I believe it is time to break that cycle.

Love and sacrifice are two very different ways of being in the world.  Sacrifice can’t exist in love- only love exists in love.  Connecting the two has unfortunately led to unnecessary suffering.

There are two major limiting beliefs at play here- the first is that love is something to be proven or earned; the second related belief is that for something so incredibly amazing to be with us- such as love- there must be a price to pay- that there must be a victim for there to be a victor.

The miracle of love is that it just is.  When we reside in that place of loving within us, we can truly experience that this love has, is, and always will be available to us- and is infinite in its availablility.  The love I refer to is not romantic, simplistic love- but the love we feel when we are intimately connected to our essence.

And here is the other important part- this loving does not have to be earned.  This is the ultimate Grace- that there is this miracle within us always available- for which we need not “do” anything.

Love is not earned.

Love is not proven.

There are no acts- no deals-  necessary.  We are automatically deserving of love- because at our essence, we are love.  Our journey on Earth is much about discovering that basic fact.

Love is accessed when we experience something which reminds us of who we are. Sometimes it is another human being.  Sometimes we connect to our loving when we finally let go of judgments or limiting beliefs which had been barriers to accessing love.  Sometimes it is simply an act of surrendering completely to the beauty of what is.  We center ourselves in our loving and find that performing acts of service are natural- perhaps even compelling- when our being is one of loving.

The trouble comes in when we are no longer operating from our loving.  We may be in a relationship or in a situation where our ego has convinced us that we are giving something up- and our actions are coming from a feeling of obligation, duty, or responsibility.  Suddenly we quickly succumb to victim mentality- the energy of sacrificing- of giving something up- for others.

We take this energy many places- we “sacrifice” for our children, for our parents, for the planet;  we take on these huge responsibilities and choose to see it all as a sacrifice. Responsibility, duty, obligation, sacrifice.  We pile one on top of the other and pretty soon we’re exhausted and spent.  Sometimes we even wind up with feelings of resentment for the exact people for whom we are supposed to be loving.  We tell them “Look at everything I have sacrificed for you….”, and create more guilt and perpetuate the cycle that love must mean sacrifice, and that must be painful.

Sometimes we are so convinced that love and sacrifice are inextricably linked that when others aren’t, from our point of view, “sacrificing” enough for us, we take that to mean they don’t love us.  Or even that we aren’t worthy of love.

And none of this is true.

There is another way.

When I serve others, and my action is coming from my loving- it is an act of loving- not an act of sacrifice.

Sacrifice means that we are giving up something valuable for something else.

When I act from love- the only thing I am giving up is not acting from love.  That’s not a sacrifice.  That’s a choice.  An obvious choice.

I believe this to be true in even the most extreme examples- of course I would give my life for the life of my child- yet this act is not an act of sacrifice- it is an act of love.  The alternative is not an alternative for me- so I am sacrificing nothing.  I am making a choice which is clear to me.

We have a choice every moment of every day- from where will our energy, and our actions come.  When we are in the mentality of responsibility and sacrifice, our energy is coming from a place of victimhood, of needing to earn, repay or owe something.  When we choose loving, then love will energize our actions, and loving acts will ensue.  The acts may look the same- however the energy conveyed through ourselves, others, and the universe is very different.

Much of my life I lived in a place of  responsibility, and sacrifice for others- so much so that fear was my driving force- fear of “letting others down”.  Unfortunately that fear also inhibited my own loving essence- to the detriment of my family, the world, and myself.  Now I am learning to first choose love- and allow that love to guide and energize my actions.

It is interesting that the Latin roots of the word sacrifice- “sacer” and “facer”- literally mean to “make sacred”.

I can think of no act more sacred than an act of unconditional loving.   Creating a victim- even if it is oneself- is not a sacred act.  God does not intend for us to suffer, or to cause others to suffer. He wants us to transcend suffering- through the connection to, and experience of, love above all else.  What better way to honor this gift than to see and experience acts of loving as the ultimate sacred acts- without the need to overlay our concept of “sacrifice”?

When I drive my daughter to school in the early hours of the morning, in the rain or cold, so she can attend her various activities- it is an act of service from the love I share with her- not a sacrifice or obligation. I can’t imagine anything I would rather be doing.

When I choose to recycle and find other ways of reducing my impact on the Earth- it is coming from a place of loving connection and caring for the gifts of beauty around me- not from a sense of obligation.  I love the earth, and when I am in that energy, I care for her.

When our “being” is infused with love, our “doing” are acts of loving service.  In loving there are no limits, no such thing as “not enough”, and no concept of scarcity of supply, or giving up anything.  Those are just some of the miracles of love.

“Intense Love does not measure- it just gives” -Mother Theresa

If we are in a situation where we truly can’t find the loving in ourselves or the acts we are doing- it is time to pause and reflect on our motivations, perspectives, and priorities in our lives.  Perhaps we need to spend some time with ourselves, in our own sacred spaces,  to re-connect to the loving within us.  Perhaps we need to find some underlying limiting belief about the world, or judgment about ourselves or others which needs to be released.  Whatever the underlying reason, it is important to take the time necessary to resolve the underlying issue so that our energy can again come from loving.

When we put things back in the order in which it was intended- and connect to our loving inside of us- and let that be the energy which guides us and  fuels our actions- we become what we were intended to become- loving beings connecting more intimately with the Divine within us- and sharing that divine love through acts of unconditional service.

That is the ultimate sacred act.