I have found the perfect paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. – Mother Teresa
The photo said this was taken at Ground Zero in NYC. It doesn’t state if she lost a friend or family, but it has obviously caused her some hurt and suffering.
What does that mean?
This is another heart-felt quote, one which leaves me feeling a little warm inside. It starts with an old adage of doing something until it hurts, in this case, the giving of love. Can you think of a time when you gave love until it hurt? Then what? Did you stop there, or did you press on?
The quote considers the result to be a paradox because, it notes, once you have given love to the point where it hurts, the hurt falls away, and all that is left is the love. That may seem a bit trite, but I believe it will work well, even in the general case.
To that end, I have tried to apply this saying to a few instances in my life, and found that it seems to work for me. See the sections below for more details on what I did. I would love to hear from others, especially for those instances where it seems not to work.
Why is giving until it hurts important?
For those who have been in competitive sports, you may have heard this from you coach a few times. If you just give a little, you won’t do very well. If you give a lot, you’ll do better. If you give nearly everything, but stop before it hurts, you’ll do well, but you’ll be beaten by someone who is willing to give it all, to give until it hurts.
In most sports, the ‘hurt’ is real physical pain, brought about by the body being pushed to it’s limit. Pushing past that can result in injury, so one must be careful. However, other times, it’s not a physical pain, but a mental challenge. I’m talking about long distance runners (or cyclists, or even swimmers) when they “hit the wall.”
While this can lead to physical difficulties, it’s generally not the same as a football player trying to push past the point of hurting. Similarly, the hurt described in the quote is not a physical hurt, but an emotional and spiritual hurt. To me, that is the key difference.
I would caution that there may be things in your past that you might want professionals to assist you, as you explore them. I don’t know where that line is, and you will have to determine it for yourself. Be careful, OK?
Where can I apply this in my life?
We are taught to avoid pain. It is how we stay healthy. Fire causes pain, so we stay away. That is well and good for our physical selves, but is it always the proper path for emotional or spiritual pain? This quote suggests that in some realms, avoidance of pain isn’t always the best path.
With some many years time as a buffer, I was able to revisit the loss and pain I felt, associated with my deaths of grandparents. When I first started thinking about the love, the emptiness where they should be was a painful reminder that they were gone.
This was usually all the farther I would go, as the pain can get kind of intense. However, for the sake of trying the quote, I gave more and more love, and (for lack of a better way to describe it) I filled the hole where they were supposed to be.
With that, the pain began to recede, and then disappeared. I still miss them, but when I think of them, it’s with a smile, not with tears. It feels like when I think of them, the love is no longer met with pain of loss, but with a contentment, and even a little joy.
Yes, it sounds a little odd, but I would say that this quote is confirmed, at least in my experiments. I even tried it with my deceased pets, and got similar results. All in all, it was a pleasant experience, and one I will add to my toolbox.
Are you willing to try? My only caution is to be careful on what you focus. If you focus on the loss, you will magnify the loss. Instead, I would try to focus on the good times, the happy times you shared. As anther quote goes “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
You might want to start by trying some of the less upsetting things in your past, and then work your way up to the more painful memories. I focused on pain from loss, so I’m not sure how well it will work with other sources of emotional or spiritual pain.
I would be very appreciative of any comments you would be willing to leave about your experiences in trying this technique, both those which were successful, as well as those which were less than successful. Your comments might include the hint someone else needs to make it work for them, so please share. Thanks.
In the few cases I have tried, I survived pushing past the hurt. I have survived the pain, and for lack of a better way to describe it, burned it away, leaving behind only feelings of tenderness and love.
From: Twitter, @MileyCyrus
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mothertere142106.html
Photo by macster7
Love until it Hurts by Mother Teresa
The passages below are quotations of Mother Teresa from the book “One Heart Full of Love,” edited by Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado
1.Sharing until it Hurts (8-10)
Give! Give the love we have all received to those around you. Give until it hurts, because real love hurts. That is why you must love until it hurts.
You must love with your time, your hands, and your hearts. You need to share all that you have. Sometime ago, we had great difficulty getting sugar in Calcutta. One day a small Hindu boy, not more than four years old, and his parents came and brought me a cup of sugar. The little boy said, “I did not eat sugar for three days. Give my sugar to your children.” That little boy loved to the point of sacrificing.
On another occasion, a gentleman came to our house and said, “There is a Hindu family that has eight children. They haven’t eaten anything for a long time.” I instantly took some rice that we were going to use for supper and went with the gentleman to seek out that family. I could see the spectre of hunger drawn on the faces of the little children when we found the family. They looked like human skeletons. In spite of their need, the mother had the courage and compassion to divide the rice that I had brought into two portions. Then she went out.
When she came back I asked her, “Where did you go? What have you done?” She said, “They are hungry also.”
“Who are they?” I asked. It seems a Moslem family with the same number of children lived across the street. She knew that they were hungry, too. What struck me was that she knew, and because she knew she give until it hurt. That is something beautiful. That is love in action! That woman shared with great sacrifice.
I did not bring them more rice that night because I wanted them to experience the joy of loving and sharing. You should have seen the faces of those little children! They barely understood what their mother had done, yet their eyes shined with a smile. When I arrived again, they looked starved and sad. But what their mother did had taught them what real love is all about. This is how our poor are!
Thanks for stopping by and for leaving the information about the source of the quote.
Same here, I googled the quote and it led me to here. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
I’ve broken up half years ago, I lose 8kg, vomited, diarrhea, my eyes were swollen everyday. One day she left me and be together with my good friend. I felt I lost my lover and friend in a day, I never thought of this will happen to me. I had a very hard time to get back the inner peace.
What I’ve realized is if you felt hurtful from someone you love, what you can do is to forgive. It really takes time. Be patient, because you’ll never feel happier with hate. Only love will heal you. Love is something you don’t need to source it from other, but from yourself. You got to love yourself more and be more responsible to yourself.
I still feel pain and upset sometimes, but this is how I encourage myself.
Never lose faith in love even if you’re hurt or if you unintentionally hurt someone you love. All the pain is to help us to grow.
Thanks for stopping by and for sharing your experiences, that was a very nice thing to share.
I have been in a same situation as sasa.. Its been four years i hav been living in this pain and the girl whom i love continuously shows me signals that she loves me but she never accepts im still living in this pain and i dunno as to what should be done or how to follow this quote..? I shall not marry any other girl because after the marriage this pain would still haunt me… Please give me directions as to how do i follow this quote?
The first thing to realize is that not every quote applies to every situation. Some things simply are not meant to be. If she knows, but won’t return you love, what makes you think she ever will? If she has been treating you this way for four years, what is the chance that it will change?
My recommendation is that you, as painful as it may be, put her behind you, and move on. Yes, the pain will continue for some time. You never stop loving someone, ever. You can poison it with hate, or you can let time and distance reduce the painful memories, while retaining the good memories.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. Another quote to consider is “If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be.” She, apparently, has never been yours, and refuses to come to you. I don’t think she is now, or ever will be yours.
Obviously, there are plenty of details which will influence your decision. Most of them are none of my business. You need to assess your situation, and determine if you have had enough of her treating you this badly. If you have been in pain for the last four years, I believe it is time to move on.
I stumbled across this page while googling. I’ve fallen in love with someone, very beautiful inside out. We’ve been friends for a long time and have failed a choosing suitable partners for ourselves. About 6 months ago, we realized that we had the perfect partner in one another. By any means necessary, we will be together, but we are thousands of miles away from each other now. It was very hard after I admitted to falling for him, so hard for me that I told him I was going to let go and move on with my life. He responded calmly to stop and told me he loved me. He asked me to be patient. He just moved and had to start a new job with a lot of training. He wasn’t going to be able to talk to me. As much as it hurt every day to love him and miss him, I told myself that if was worth it. Some how, I got past it and 2 weeks later I am so much better. I find happiness in knowing that I have my soul mate. I let myself fall in love again, despite knowing how difficult it would be and its worth it.
Thanks for sharing your situation with us. Sometimes things work out well. You probably still have a long road ahead of you, but this is a good start. Always remember your strength.
I’m in love with a girl who is physically and spirtually beautiful. I’ve been such an idiot for not appreciating her. I want to marry her one day. She is trying to save me from a life of celebacy. But now I can’t see her in any way, shape, or form. what shall I do.
I would keep in contact in whatever way you can. E-mail, phone, texts, online chat, whatever works for the two of you. While you are setting up your chosen communications method, consider how you want to tell her how much she means to you, then tell her. Sounds simple, if a little scary. But if she means that much to you, you can find that strength within yourself.
We are in the exact same situation, except I’m the woman. Reading your post sent a chill up my spine. You absolutely have to keep in contact with her, even if it’s by old fashioned mail.
hmm.. I have thought about this sentence a lot….and I may be one of the few people who have weirdly googled this quote to get to blogs like this one, so thank you for your post!:)
I’m trying to relate this to my own life now. I have had a very painful experience with my ex boyfriend over a year ago. He all of a sudden didn’t want to be with me anymore, and that was exactly the time I was starting to feel the pain for loving him so much! I was definitely in the worst situation to lose him. And as you can imagine, I lost it all. I woke up with pain, I went to sleep with pain…it was awful! I decided to mourn over his loss! I wrote poems, drew in my sketch book, cried in his absence and made myself a sweet little private hell! But then one day, I looked up and realized: wow! My life is going to waste, and I’m gonna end up all by myself, still mourning and grieving for him! So I decided to stop. I cheered myself up, and went into another relationship with a man I kind of love. I’m fine now, but I still feel that old pain trying to peek inside! It’s really strange, sometimes I think maybe I haven’t mourned over him enough, but then I think I could’ve become mentally ill if I continued. So you see, in the case of having a broken heart, it’s very difficult to decide. Should I move on and forget about him, or should live with the pain? When you lost your grand parents, you KNEW that you had to move on. But in my case, I never know…until the end of my life. I want to be happy and enjoy my moments, but the pain is always trying to find a way in. It’s frustrating Maybe I should have read Mother Teresa’s sentence way earlier…
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
Let me start by saying I don’t think the quote is about breaking up, or being hurt by someone you love.
That said, you might want to try to forgive him, and forgive yourself. Somehow you are holding on to a kernel of your prior relationship, and it is hurting you. If forgiveness doesn’t work, perhaps smothering it with compassion will help. It also may take a little more time for the hurt to diminish.
Just remember to stay strong.
You are not alone Sasa… I too google this quote and stumbled up to this blog… @philosiblog Thanks for such a clear explanation with vivid examples…
Thanks for stopping by, and for leaving such a kind comment.