Do You Want to be Fully Loved?
I am built to be loved. You are built to be loved. Do we really want to be?
I am built to be loved. You are built to be loved.
Yet, sometimes, I wonder if I am ready to be fully known, fully loved.
My wife, Gretchen, loves me deeply and knows me extremely well. I think I have friends who know me very well. But, well enough to be fully loved? That is a good question. It is a complicated question. It is a question I have been asking myself lately.
Do you have friends who know you really well? Well enough for you to feel fully loved by them?
A majority of American adults do not.
54% of American adults say that not a single person on the planet earth “knows them well”. (2018 Ipsos poll). And this survey was conducted pre-COVID. I can only imagine what that number is post-COVID.
59% of American adults have a best friend, down from 75% in 1990.
I am trying to square the difference between the 59% who have a best friend and the 54% who do not have a person who knows them well. Apparently there are a lot of “best friends” who don’t know their “best friend” well.
I cannot think of a more sad, heartbreaking statistic than this. Really. Devastating indictment of our culture of individualism.
What is going on here?
‘We can only be loved to the extent that we’re known. We can only be fully loved if we are fully known.” - Jon Ortberg.
A simple, but profound statement. It is one of those ideas that grows on you the more you think about it.
“Being loved” rests at the core of the human condition. We were made to “be loved.” Our heart, soul, and mind craves the love that says: “who you are is worthy and enough to be fully loved just as you are.”
And yet, so many of us do not experience the fullness of “being loved”. I think it is safe to say that if you feel like no one really knows you, you probably are not experiencing full love.
There are a lot of reasons for this. So many directions to go about the current state of friendships, marriages, individualism, technology use, tribalism, etc.. in our society. I am fascinated by these topics, but too much for today’s post. I am going to focus on the core - the things that we, as leaders, can do to lead ourselves so we can lead better.
Here is how I will start to break it down:
To be fully loved by someone else requires us to be fully known by someone else.
To be fully known by someone else requires a willingness and a capacity to be fully known by someone else.
Our capacity to be fully known by someone else depends on our desire to want to know ourselves.
And we must desire to know ourselves to truly love ourselves.
Ok, that is a lot to digest. I think it is important to say this about love.
The love I am talking about is not the:
“Everyone feels good about themselves, be gentle with yourself, ignore your faults, disregard any negative critique, self-esteem kind of love” that pop culture often talks about today.
Love where people try to “convince” you that you are perfect - taking an easy path to affirmation that eventually starts to feel disingenuous.
Romantic love fueled by attraction, hormones and the thrill of encounter.
So what kind of love is it then:
I am talking about real, honest love that embraces the good, the bad, the ugly in you and still loves.
The love that makes peace with the bad, not by setting it aside, but recognizing a need for both growth and forgiveness.
Fierce love that says, despite your struggles and faults, who you are, made in the image of God, is worthy of love. Even further, deserving of love.
This is love worth experiencing.
And yet, we often don’t experience this love with ourselves or others. So let’s start at the bottom of that causal chain I laid out to interrogate why?
Do you desire to fully know yourself?
I think the answer for me is: sometimes. I often say I do, but my actions tell a different story.
I used to believe I could fully know myself. The older I get the more I realize that I will always be on a journey to discover who I am. I am changing constantly and the world around me is changing constantly. This creates a dynamic that I don’t always fully understand. As much as I would like to report that I am self aware and fully in control, I am not. I still do things, feel things, experience things that surprise me in this dynamic of change.
So constant change is a challenge to knowing myself. But, I am also an obstacle to fully knowing myself. I am not sure I always want to know. So maybe the question is more:
Am I open, curious and willing to constantly learn about who I really am, not who I want to think I am?
I am working on it. I am getting better at it, but here is what gets in my way.
Pride: I don’t want to admit when I fall short, particularly in areas that I have built my identity on like self discipline, openness to growth, and leading with values.
Stubbornness: I believe I am better at something than I actually am. So I stubbornly hold onto that false reality in the face of clear data that says otherwise (my phone use).
Fear: I am afraid to be fully known, even to myself. There are parts I don’t like. Being honest and vulnerable about some of the selfishness, bad habits, and desires to be significant are part of who I am. I just don’t want to face it and admit it.
Who other people want me to be: I live up to personas with other people. They place expectations on me (often not intentionally) which begs the question constantly: “Do they see who I am more clearly or is this who they want me to be?”
Who I want to be: I have a vision of who I want to be in life. It is hopeful, inspiring and keeps me going. And, oftentimes, if I am being honest, not reality. I have always dreamed bigger than what is actually possible. I have a hard time giving that up to fully know myself.
Maybe some of these resonate with you? What is blocking you from fully knowing yourself?
I believe this is the first step to enabling others to fully know you, which ultimately will lead to you experiencing being fully loved
Next week, we will tackle steps you can take to start knowing yourself better.
Reflection of the Week: How can you start to fully know yourself?
Level with yourself: How well do you really know yourself? Are you willing to go on a deeper journey to better know yourself?
If so, set aside the time to reflect/journal on what is really blocking you from better knowing who you are.
Look out for next week’s post which will go into positive steps to take to better know yourself.