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?