PART 3: UNDERSTANDING AND COMPASSION
(Continued from "The Big Picture: It's Not Personal")
Here are some powerful thoughts I ask you to consider. Find a quiet place and allow yourself to go deeper with these:
"Everyone wants to be loved."
Wow.
"Everyone wants to be loved. And everyone fears they will not be loved."
Think about that.
Think about that some more. Breathe it in. Let it resonate.
"Everyone wants to be loved and everyone fears they will not be."
Apply that thought to your boss. Think of him that way, just wanting love, fearing he will not be. Think of how you want to feel loved. Perhaps, you two are not that different.
Think of your mother that way, just wanting love, fearing she will not be. Try to feel the fear your mother has, and know you too feel the same. Perhaps, you are not so different. The love you seek is also the love she wants. The fear you have that you won't find love, is also the very same fear she has.
Think of your friends and other family members that same way. See the way they hope for love, the way they feel disconnected from love, the way they do love. Where is the love in all these relationships? In which way do you love? It may not be so much, perhaps, about how much love you get, but about what you give. When you see yourself, the fears, the hopes, the desires you have for love in others, when you see you are not that different, then perhaps love blossoms, like a flower in the mud. We are left full, feeling connected, loved, even in the face of adversity.
Now think of yourself. Touch that place of "I just want to be loved, and I fear I will not be." It is deep stuff. It has been there likely a very long time. Perhaps it was exacerbated by your mother, or your father or someone else. But it is a wound you carry. No one made it. It is yours. If it is yours, then you can heal it. Since you are the one holding on to it, you can let it go. We hold onto wounds, feeling almost precious about them, as they form our identities and create who we are. As we grow, we must let go and move beyond these divisive states so we may emerge into wholeness. But this only happens as we understand the wounds we have, how they are born from ignorance, just as when another hurts us, their actions are born from ignorance. When we understand and have compassion for our ignorance, we will feel more understanding and compassion for the ignorance in others.
In my experience, we all have a deep place within where we fear that we will not be loved. Sometimes, around that raw and fragile feeling, is the feeling of vacant hopelessness. But this will not last. Beyond all these painful, dry, and desolate places is a fountain of unending love. The goodness of life is within even the most desolate times if we allow ourselves to settle in and open, patiently, to the flowering spring. The force of life emerges again and again, without compromise. It simply is. Beyond our fear of not being loved, is love. In our fear of not being loved, is love. Around our fear of not being loved, is love. The fear itself is love, as it shows us our very humanity, our potential for openness, receptivity to that which I would simply call Grace… the force that is beyond our ego's grasp and comprehension.
When we are willing to rest, in stillness, quietly, without fighting, with this fear of not being loved, we find tremendous creativity. It is in some ways the linchpin of the psyche that moves us from the grip of the ego into a place of oneness and compassion. Rest there and you will find love and all will change.
(Continued tomorrow with "Giving Voice and Making Changes")
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