Learn to love Love
I was caring for a young girl at her home, and she had a set of “emotion flashcards.” The cards had the names of emotions written on them, together with a picture of a child making a face that mimicked that emotion. Happy, Sad, Angry, Worried, etc.
There were several “Love” cards. All of the pictures on the Love cards were of Mom and Daughter, Mom/Dad/Child, a Grandmother holding her Grandchild, Siblings or Friends hugging each other.
We come into this world with an underlying belief that Love is found in objects, in people. On one level, that is certainly true, but the question we might ask ourselves is “Does that belief limit Love?”
Perhaps in that limited belief that we were inculcated with is why we find ourselves distant and separate from our brothers and sisters in this world. What if the truest form of Love is really a moment to moment relationship with Life?
Some teachings out there in the world say “love everyone!”, but if we are honest with ourselves, are you really able to love someone who took something away from you that you so valued? Are you able to love someone who said something so incredibly hurtful to you? No, we aren’t, because it’s impossible to love at that level of understanding.
Love is what shows us, in those trying moments of having something taken away from us, or something said to us that was hurtful, the hidden parts of our human nature that we can see in no other way. In other words, Life uses each of us as trigger mechanisms. We are, in truth, unknown gifts to one another.
When a person makes a very hurtful statement, if we are watching what our minds are telling us in those very moments, we are able to see the part of ourselves that knows nothing of Love because it wants to demolish others for saying what they said or for doing what they did. How is that any different than the hurtful statement that was made? It isn’t, and that is what Love is trying to show us. We are all the same. We all live from the very same consciousness that just manifests itself in different ways.
It’s not that we are to love a person who said or did something hurtful, but we can learn to love LOVE for showing us how erred we’ve been in believing we are so different or better than anyone else. That is having a relationship with Love. We then learn to leave people alone.
Real Love isn’t conditional. Real Love doesn’t change because a person did something that we don’t like or resent. Real Love is unconditional, meaning it is a living relationship moment to moment of “loving what is”, because Love is the vehicle through which I can see what is unloving in me.
The only way to become a human being who has humility in this world is to be in relationship with that true level of Love, because we see that no matter how “ugly” these unseen parts of ourselves seem to be, Love doesn’t judge that. Love allows us to see that, and that’s all that it requires. When we agree to see those parts of ourselves, the seeing can’t help but humble us.
The emotions that most of us express in unwanted moments of our lives, are because we haven’t looked inward first (when the emotions first arise) to see those hidden unloving parts that just want to express themselves and blame others for being brought to the surface.
These expressed emotions are as old as time. They are wrongly used when they are identified with and expressed as an outward projection that someone else caused them. What a gift we can give our children to “get a jump” early in their lives with the understanding that their work as a human being is to see what Love wants them to see in the moment, which is to see what is unloving in them.
What’s unloving in one is unloving in all, so is there any reason to feel bad about ourselves if we all share in that one unloving nature? Have we been punishing ourselves, hiding from ourselves, needlessly?
Yes. When we believe others are the cause of these disruptive emotions in our lives, at the same time we believe that those very same characteristics that they have manifested don’t exist in us, but they do. And as difficult as that may be to accept, we must accept that fact if we are ever to be free from those beliefs that currently punish us and everyone around us.
Be the warrior that agrees to see these things and brings something new into this world.
Exercise for the Week: Age dependent, work the best you can with your child to have them be watchful when their emotions are “brought to the surface” by a comment or an action of another. Talk with them, communicate this information with them. Again, missing the mark is part of this whole process. We miss the mark time and time again, until we don’t’.
Image Courtesy of: Tyler Nix on Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/photos/Pw5uvsFcGF4
