I realised recently that, while I have a lot of love in my life, what I hope for is to be treasured. There are people who play such a vital part in my life, and how I feel about them is not love so much as that they are highly valued by me. I treasure them. I hope to be treasured by them.
To treasure something means to cherish it but beyond that, for me, it means seeing something fully and clearly, not just the parts you like but the parts that are usually less appealing: the flaws, the weaknesses.
It’s about saying you wish to see all of a person. It’s about asking them to reveal and share all of themselves, especially the parts that are normally hidden away, unseen, unwitnessed. And asking them to do the same for you.
Show me all of you, show me the parts of yourself that you find hard to own and I will cherish them all
It’s trusting someone, respecting them, being kind and honest: values-based relating.
It’s showing with your actions that you see the person, hear them, see all that they are, and will be there for them regardless.
It’s honouring the needs of the self and the other in such a clear and true way that everyone feels free to be fully themselves, not about some slow, suffocating till death us do part promise.
It’s choosing to act in ways that reflect that full self regardless of the changes that occur, regardless of the transformations that life will always work upon our feelings and needs.
It’s loving someone while knowing that loss is inevitable and, in fact, loving them even more fiercely precisely because of that knowledge.
It’s valuing and appreciating someone as they are and seeing that, in an absence of shame and criticism, they only increase in value to themselves and you.
It’s recognising that, in being fully seen, heard and witnessed, and returning that gift, we’re able to step more completely into the present moment: to be more alive.
It’s seeing the self and other as full yet fractured, flawed yet perfect.
It’s receiving all of this and giving it back tenfold. This is the purpose of connecting, of all relationships. Or, to paraphrase the Tao: give without worry, accept without attachment.
In being treasured, I see that I am enough and that I can be more than I ever thought possible. It’s like being filled with the light of the sun, the moon and the stars, all the light in the world, and then magnifying and reflecting that brilliance back over everyone in my life in warm yellow waves. It is transformative. It is a gift. It is what life is for.
Let’s treasure each other.
