It Was The Water, Not The Soil: The Benevolence of Receptivity

Thinking on my last blog, and how it touched on the topic of loving people the way they need it in order to build connection, understanding, and intimacy... in this blog I want to touch on the opposite side of the issue: receiving. And this is for you and all people in your life who are struggling to have their needs for love, care, and connection met at this point in time even when it seems we are all trying our hardest.

Even when people give us love in forms we are not most apt to receive them, there is a love inherent in knowing that they are trying to love us the way they best know how. Knowing that they are doing their best in this way leads to instant reception of love in the form of forgiveness, appreciation, and humble acceptance. 

This doesn't dismiss your deeper needs in how you best receive love, and this isn't a critical voice saying, "You're just not receptive enough to other's love, so be grateful." It's simply acknowledging the benevolence and understanding that others mean well, even if they cannot deliver perfectly. It is forgiveness in the form of understanding that they are doing their best to accommodate you when you have walked into the "store of their heart" for something they either don't carry yet, or are still waiting to stock. Perhaps the manager is just tending to other things momentarily.

When expect people to be anywhere other than where they are, and other people expect you to be somewhere you're not, each of us walks away from the "stores" of each others hearts disappointed. But, if we can build the understanding that the attempt to supply and help with what is available in that "store" is in fact an effort of love, we can accept their generosity even if it is not what we technically need.

So many people end up disappointed that others cannot provide what they need either because of where they are in their life, or who they inherently are as a person. They walk away from the store disappointed that it does not carry what they want, when they either need to make do with what that person's heart store supplies, learn how to order something for their own supply, or visit another's "heart store". (I know it's a little strange to refer to hearts as stores since it involves "money" and "transaction"... but instead, think of it as a kind of store where love is the currency, and needs are the items, and everything is given and accepted freely.)

There is a patient acceptance, and reception of the love that is available to you, when you accept people for where they are and what their "heart store" carries. It's ok to feel upset or angry that they don't carry that thing, or don't carry it yet... especially if these are people you are close to, love, and care about! It's natural, especially if you feel that you carry that item in your own "heart store". Don't suppress your emotions, and instead seek to understand them as signals to understand yourself more deeply. But if you can embrace emotional patience through the recognition of love, care, and support in the ways their heart store can provide it, you will sense the emotion behind the action. And that alone leads to a deep receptivity and appreciation of their love and care in ways that were previously inaccessible to you. There is also always the patience that they may grow to carry that item within their "heart store" as well.

This reception becomes like the moistness of the soil that allows nutrients to come up through our roots. It is not the nutrition itself, but awakens the ability for absorption. And so, it was the water, not the soil.

Understanding: Love As A Felt Answer

I once got into an argument with a family member about the topic of understanding. This family member had a sister who was gay. Their mother had a very hard time accepting this as a reality of the sister. She couldn't accept it, because she couldn't understand it. One day, the mother decided to come into the sister's space, and take down her posters that were homosexually oriented, throw away her things, etc. Having had enough of the torment, the sister finally stood up to the mother. She stood up for herself. And, the mother, still not understanding, but wanting to maintain connection with her daughter, finally let well enough alone.

As we discussed the idea of understanding, my family member came to the conclusion that you don't need to understand someone to connect with them. This may be true on a more physical and intellectual level... we can talk to people we don't understand and therefore maintain what we think of as "connection", or we can live in the same space as someone and on a physical level maintain what we think of as "connection"... but in a way, I posed the idea to this family member that this was not true connection. To some degree, sure... we are sharing space, perhaps intellectually, mentally, physically... but, sometimes we forget that the heart of connection is emotional. Connection that is not based in understanding is transactional.

When we cannot understand something, we are not emotionally connected with that thing. We cannot perceive it as part of ourselves, or how we're the same as that thing. That thing which we do not understand we cannot take into us as a part of ourselves. In order to truly love someone or something, we must acknowledge that person or thing as something within us. What does this mean? If we take something as a part of ourselves, we must first be connected to do that. That connection is understanding. Connection, and therefore love, is to take it within us to caretake, nurture, hold space for, and understand.

We have sometimes a vast misunderstanding of the nature of love in our world. People are raised with different familial, social, and cultural beliefs that give rise to our "concept" of love. Often times, these concepts of love are abstract in nature and we forget the feeling love. We hear all the time that love is an answer, but we often forget it is a felt answer.

Emotions and healing are like water, and the nature of love should flow similarly as a felt experience. The resolution to all our difficulties in life occurs on a feeling level. When we heal, so does the world around us. Our connections, relationships, finances, sex, everything. And when others around us heal, it brings us both into a state of understanding and love that is a felt answer.

In this way, our individual experiences in our early lives also inform the ways in which we can feel and receive love from others, as well as our own abilities to give love. But because we have this idea of what love is, and "love" is such a general word meaning different things to different people, we have the potential to project our ideas of love onto others. What does this mean?

We have forgotten the meaning of true love. True love as a felt answer and experience.

We need to learn that connection is the condition of love. And that a huge part of that connection is understanding. It is the kind of understanding that fosters compassion.

If we love a fish, we may try to love that fish by hugging them. But what happens? The fish dies without water! We felt love for the fish, but we could not perceive that the reality of the fish is that hugging it can kill it. We would need to understand that fish and it's individual needs to make it feel loved the way it needs to feel loved.

Parents at times can traumatize children, unintentionally, this way. Children are unique, individual beings with their own goals, desires, needs, wants, etc. But when parents project their ideas of love onto them, they know their parents love them, but they become really confused why they can't actually feel that love. Or why they grow up with a feeling of emotional starvation. We can know people love us, but the deep knowledge that people love us comes from our ability to feel and perceive that love. Whether this disconnection was on a minor level (such as a simple misperception by the parent of a child's needs) or major level (deliberate abuse or neglect of a child's needs), so many of us grow up with the shame that we cannot receive love in the ways it mattered for us. We perhaps even adopted the idea that because we could not receive it, we were not worthy of it.

We cannot perceive that love, attachment, care, and connection from others in our lives because we have not felt worthy enough within ourselves to be loved in such a way to actually see that others are attached to and care about us. If we believe we aren't worthy of love, happiness, belonging, care, and connection... we won't be able to receive it even when it's present because we cannot see it as true. Because of this, we also cannot caretake our connections with others. Our inherent disconnect with ourselves mirrors onto our disconnect with other people and our struggle to understand their own emotion spaces give to them the ways they need it.

To receive love, ask others to help you on your journey as perceiving yourself as valuable and worthy of happiness, care, and connection. Know your needs, and allow yourself and others to caretake and love them as such.

To love someone, become an expert on their needs, their personal individual experiences and being as a whole. Come to understand them, deeply, to connect with them. Connection is not only an aspect of true love, it is the condition of it. We love that which we are connected to, and that connection is a great warmth.

Ask yourself today: What are ways that I can actually feel myself feeling loved by myself or other people, and how do I go about creating this in my life?

And ask yourself today: What are ways that I can actually feel myself feeling love by giving to other people, and how do I go about sharing this in my life?

Sky High: The Air of Independence, It’s Benefits, and It’s Detriments

The empowering philosophy that you can create your own reality, and that you can live happily regardless of your surroundings... are both ideas that can be immensely beneficial. I would say that to an extent, we all need this self-empowered momentum to feel an understanding of the positive states we want in life. When we feel empowered in ourselves, we feel ready to take on the world, able to deal with the stresses in life, more objective, and confident in the steps we take. We begin to understand, "Wow, I really do have the power to influence how I feel and interact in the world because I can be a strong, independent individual." We do not feel powerless to our emotions, and life feels lighter and easier.

It feels amazing to people who've felt helpless, powerless, or anxious to perceive oneself grounded enough to be an individual and positively focusing in an independent atmosphere. You feel the ability to care about yourself more than anyone, and even the ability to stop caring what people think. It is a positive momentum...

...to an extent.

Why do I say this? I can attest to both the benefits and detriments of the positive focused, independent, "everything you need is inside you" philosophy. This is because I can see the very reason anyone is drawn to this philosophy. Anyone who's turned to these empowering philosophies did not have anyone else there to offer them the love, connection, security, and care they so badly needed in their life.... that they decided to become everything for themselves. We felt so helpless and powerless to trusting others, cultivating connection, and finding understanding that we decided the only way we could obtain those things was by becoming empowered enough in ourselves.

This is where positive focus and empowered independence can become a true issue. It feels so good to be empowered, that why would anyone ever look back? Why deal with negative emotion when you can create something better, or just focus better in the situation you're in?

We are human and naturally want to feel good. When a philosophy provides that for us, we can resort to it as a way of being.

Because it feels good, positive focus can convince us that it is the way we should live our life, in every second, every interaction...

It is dangerous in this way, because at some point, positive focus can be used to ignore real issues in your life, real traumas, and go into denial. Taken too far, it can blind us from the traumas we have and truly addressing them. It can blind us from changes we need to make. It can blind us from feelings we need to accept and understand. We mistake positive focus for loving ourselves, when a huge part of loving ourselves is acknowledging the totality of who we are and what we feel.

Because we cannot acknowledge the realities within ourselves, we also don't fully recognize or validate them in others. We become insensitive, because we had to do so with ourselves since no one else was willing to be sensitive or empathetic with us. We lose the ability to see, feel into, and understand other people... desperately wanting it for ourselves on some level, too. Or, we try to obtain connection by becoming people-pleasers, trying to be good so people like us, doing what we've learned was acceptable or right to guarantee connection in any way we can. We abandoned ourselves at some point. Deep down, the person trapped in the "positive focus loop" is really afraid. Afraid of their own emotions, and fear of other people's emotions because we experienced boundary violations whether it was through neglect, enmeshment, withdrawal, or invalidation. We don't trust others with ourselves, and we don't trust ourselves with others because we never could. This causes a huge rift between us and other people. We feel worlds apart from them. It is an epidemic.

What happens? At some point you can focus as positively all you want, but it does not take away from the other realities of who you are. Many people experience a reality crash because of this. Being that so many of us were driven to these philosophies from lack, we still experience the helplessness, powerlessness.... and it is the helplessness and powerlessness of feeling completely alone in our realities. Isolated.

What's more? Since who we are is reflected in our life, we will continue to create these isolating experiences and lack of connection through the people we interact with, the places we live, where we work, etc. It looks like everyone around you having a connection that you don't, even though they may not be deeply connected either. We see the lack of understanding and connection mirrored by people in our reality who are not ready for the depth of it.

You can use positive focus as a means of loving yourself in a way that you can become more embracing to your total self, but some of us continue down the positive focus train without turning back our hand to our wounds. This manifested in my own life by learning how to do everything for myself. Traumas and a lack of secure connection or attachment led to an "air of independence" where I came to rely on myself in many ways that I could not on others. You learn to do almost everything yourself, and because of that... in a very beautiful way, you can change your life. But, at some point you learn that independent self-sufficiency is not the end-goal. You learn that it's important to address your deeper emotions of fear, anger, helplessness, powerlessness, loss, grief... And, as a result, you learn the innate connection between you and other people. You learn that all humans struggle with the same things, and there is a profound compassion for humanity, which includes you.

To give good news, if you are feeling and understanding this rift between you and others, it means you are on the horizon of deeper self-understanding, awakening, and connection with yourself that will soon be mirrored back to you. Right now, you may be looking at the evidence, manifestation, or reflection of your previous self that had not developed this awareness in the people, places, or things which which you interact. The gates of awakening are often suffering. It may be a rocky road as it requires confronting what prevents you from being present with, holding space for, and accepting emotions within yourself and others. And the opposite... trusting others with yourself. But one thing is certain:

Finding your way back to the security and trust of connection will lead to warm acceptance, understanding, fluidity, freedom, inspiration, and many other things.

The time has come for some of us in the self-help movement to stop relying solely on ourselves, positive focus, and self-sufficiency. Although beneficial to an extent, in excess we block ourselves from our deeper feelings, truths, and realities. And it is by allowing these aspects of ourselves to exist, be heard, and understood, that we foster true connection with ourselves and others. When we unite the truths of who we are, we know the answers right for us. We know the changes we need to make. We feel ourselves within others, and others within ourselves. We ultimately do not connect with people over similar interests, styles, or appearances... but because we are able to take them as a part of ourselves and love them as ourselves. Love is beyond reason. Connection is felt, and felt connection involves emotional acceptance and understanding. The time has come not for dependence or independence... but interdependence.

We feel like water when the love has thawed the frozen ice of fear. This is heartfelt connection. This is compassion.

I sense much more on this topic to come.