Love as being present is the topic of my post today. I have had many opportunities to explore the meaning of love with my friends and patients, throughout the years. While people have much to say about how they fell in love, when the troubles began, and why they can’t live without their lover, they often have trouble explaining how they know that they love. Responses to this question are quite interesting. At first, people are caught off guard. They look at me, like a deer caught in headlights.
“Hum, that’s a good question” is the first thing they usually say. Then, they start to list the things that they do to show love. “I give support and take care of her when she’s sick. I care about what makes him happy. I want the best for him. I make sacrifices for her. I’m faithful. I support him or her financially.”
It’s true that these actions show love. But, there’s a difference between carrying out the deeds of love and authentic expressions of love that come simply from being, being fully present to your loved one, so you see who he or she is truly.
There’s nothing better than an example to show you what I mean. My husband was out in our garden feeding our roses. It was a January summer-type day in southern California. He said, “I don’t want to feed them too much. It may trick them into thinking it is spring. They may come out too soon and die.”
For whatever reason, not enough coffee yet or time of day, my mind was yet clear of the daily clutter that would soon fill it. I was fully present. I wasn’t thinking; I was being. The wisdom of the moment spoke intuitively to me. An image arose in my mind of Sal as a young boy in the Hell’s kitchen area of New York City. He had to be quite clever to escape the bullies in his neighborhood who liked to pick on him. This area of the city was gang-ridden. It’s a tough neighborhood for any person, but especially for my husband who is of slight build and who also believes that mind not muscle is the way to solve problems. My husband survived by knowing when to lay low until the bullies were gone and changing daily the routes that he took to school.
I intuited that this moment was so much more than just feeding the roses. I had such love and compassion for him at that moment. It was nothing that I did except to be in such a way that love could enter freely into the moment through right perception. I experienced fully what he must have gone through.
If I wasn’t fully there, experiencing the moment authentically, I might have missed the significance, the truth of the moment.
Love as being present is a state of active, open attention on the present moment. You observe without judging. Whatever arises in you then comes from an intuitive wisdom rather than reasoned understanding.
If, for example, I had reasoned my husband’s comment about the roses, I might have thought that’s a good thing to do and never thought about it again. Nothing remarkable about the moment. On the other hand, if I considered Sal to be withholding, I might have thought, “You see, he is depriving the roses, like he deprives me”. Reasoned understandings can produce more unfavorable judgments, if there’s enough history of conflict between you and your loved one.
No matter how I made sense of his comment, if I wasn’t just being there, I would have missed the chance to use the moment to connect compassionately to him. When you intuit what’s happening in the moment by your gut, rather than your mind, your understanding is wide-ranging, deep and compassionate.
Paying attention without judgment is vital to loving. You are not denying experience, you are seeing what is really there. Through right perception, love grows, because it deepens.
Making sense of what is happening to us is a good thing and has its place in love and life. My article today is more about putting words to love that comes from just being, so you can start to bring more of it into your life.
The next time your lover says or does something that triggers negative thinking in you, practice suspending judgment. Put aside whatever story line enters your mind. Observe what it feels like to let go of predefined ideas and story lines that define what’s happening to you. It’s uncomfortable at first. It’s not easy to do, especially if the significance of what you see and hear means something bad to you. Try it, nonetheless. If you stop scripting experience, new things can happen.
If you have some experience that you’d like to share with us, please do so by commenting. Also, if you like my article today, please say so by selecting the Like icon that follows this post.
