A Musing on Love

A few years ago, something I read led me to understand the ego as a reaction, as the voice that emerges when one feels disconnected and unloved; which then led me to the conclusion that the antidote to its constant ramblings in our heads is love, not fighting with it or trying to silence it. I summarized it in the words below.

At the time I felt excited about the insight and thought it a breakthrough of sorts. Yet years passed, and the voices in my head continued to plague me the same, despite a new awareness of the cause being a deficit of love. And that's because the insight gave me no information on HOW to "fill myself up with love" (whatever that even means).

Over time, I've come to find that developing a capacity for self-love is not what I thought it would be. Love, not the romantic or familial kind, but the embodiment of a presence that stills the mind, calms the heart, and allows one to be as one is, is simply about awareness and attention. Nonjudgmental attention IS the love. Hearing the need or intense emotion with curiosity instead of shame IS the love.

Nonjudgmental attention IS the love. Hearing and responding to a need IS the love

But how do you DO that? How do you get present non-judgmentally? And, by the way, isn't that just what Buddhism calls mindfulness, and isn't that incredibly hard and only possible for people who devote themselves to meditation for decades? 

I am coming to believe that in many ways what Buddhists call mindfulness and The Beatles called love are the same thing; and that's why I'll never forget a fortune cookie I opened in Manhattan in the 90s: "The greatest gift one can give another human being is rapt attention to their existence." 

And, yes, it is hard to expand your capacity for nonjudgmental awareness - of your own needs and others - because your baseline ability was wired in you so deeply at such a young age.

And no, it's not just for the lucky ones raised with a perfect combination of developmental ingredients, or the mystics who meditate in the mountains; and it doesn't have to take decades, but it could be months or years of work.

"One of the greatest gifts one can give another human being is nonjudgmental attention to their existence."

OK, OK. But HOW do you DO that? For the love of God! How do you get present non-judgmentally? 

Well, because our capacity for this is viscerally wired into us in infancy or even in the womb, I believe that, at least for people like me, it's not something that can be done on one's own through sheer acts of will or even meditation. Think about the futileness of trying to fire up processes in the brain, psyche, spiritual body that literally have never been activated properly. In essence, it's like trying to use a non-working instrument to try to start up another non-working instrument, which can become a sort of Catch-22 loop. (There are of course those instances of revelation we hear and read about, but personally I don't have time to wait around for a one in a billion one like Eckhart Tolle had.)

So, what has finally allowed me to start becoming more present to myself on a moment by moment basis, is working with someone who can mirror it for me by, for example, witnessing me in my darkest hours without judgment, and then teaching me or modeling for me how to interrupt the pattern in real time through awareness of physical sensations, not thoughts. 

And slowly but surely, over the past year, I have started to become more present to myself, to hear the quiet parts of myself needing the attention, and to then step up and meet those needs as they arise before they snowball. And THAT is what love is, to me. That is what simultaneously reflects and gives me my sense of worthiness, by giving myself the attention that someone worthwhile deserves.

Becoming present and hearing the parts of one's self
needing attention, and then stepping up to meet those
needs IS THE LOVE, is what simultaneously reflects
and ​creates a sense of self-worth.

I strongly believe that the effectiveness of working with a trusted healer who can model and mirror unconditional love / nonjudgmental attention comes from the dynamic's ability to recreate the early dynamic between mother and child when the child's nervous system, and sense of self and worth, are calibrated with that of the mother's. For many of us, the wiring doesn't happen properly because you can't give what you don't have, to yourself or others. And so people can spend years or decades or generations spinning in circles trying to learn something that was not wired into them at the proper developmental time. And the pattern continues over and over again, child after child, until something disrupts and changes the cycle. 

Working directly with a compassionate healer can serve as the pattern interrupt, the catalyst that allows you to jump out of the Catch-22 loop of trying to fix a disconnected self with a disconnected self, and begin to rewire your nervous system in a way that allows you be aware of your self and needs in the moment, and experience the feelings of worthiness that result.

The effectiveness of working with a trusted healer
comes from the dynamic's ability to strategically mimic
​the mirroring and modeling that happens in the early development of a child's nervous system.

And what else is more important in this world than love - than connecting with one's self and others, and allowing the self and others to feel seen and heard exactly as they are?

If love is the answer, then the true secret of life is not about the energetics of thought like has been popularized by some mainstream self help authors. Rather, the secret is in learning how to be so present to the needs of the moment that the ego voices (wounded parts) quiet down, we feel seen and heard, and wire in that deep sense of self-worth we have been longing for for decades, and from which the most sublime and joyous aspects of life unfold.

Perhaps LOVE, as nonjudgmental attention,
​is the secret of life.