[New Year, New You] Day 18: How to Find More Love When You Need It
If it’s true that problems have solutions, that the difficulties in our relationships and personal situations can be solved, then we owe it to ourselves, and to life, to maintain a certain degree of interest and commitment directed toward the resolution of our problems, especially with other people.
It appears that the bigger part of life is trying to improve, to produce and contribute in order to rise above the noise, and that where life is stuck or struggling, there is more likely a heavy burden of confusion and overwhelm than there is the possibility that there are any “bad people.”
Where life flows easily and smoothly, there’s is understanding and a high degree of admiration–a sense of closeness to others, to your environment. Where there is struggle and sickness and strife, life gets stuck and we are far better investigating what we may not fully understand, with the hope of finding some information that helps us get perspective, rather than risk kicking already overwhelmed people further down the chute of life.
That’s a lot easier said than done, though, so this blog post should help you make that easier!
Love Comes From Understanding
Understanding is the foundation of love. Your ability to fully love the people, situations, subjects and areas of your life which currently may overwhelm, intimidate, frustrate, disappoint or annoy you depends entirely upon your willingness to understand them.
*gulp*
That’s a big, hard pill to swallow, but your ability to fully love ANY people, situations, subjects and areas of your life depends entirely on your willingness to understand them. Here’s a quote from one of my favorite books, The Art of Communicating by Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh:
“The foundation of love is understanding, and that means first of all understanding suffering. Each of us is hungry for understanding. If you really want to love someone and make him or her happy, you have to understand that person’s suffering. With understanding, your love will deepen and become true love.
“Compassion and love are born from understanding. How can you love unless you understand? How can the father love his son if he doesn’t understand the suffering and difficulties of his son? How can someone make his beloved happy without knowing anything about that person’s suffering and difficulties?
“If you want to make someone happy, you should ask yourself the question, ‘Do I understand him enough?’ ‘Do I understand her enough?’”
Toward Greater Understanding
The primary way to move toward greater understanding of any person or any situation in life, is through your courage to communicate. When you’re stuck thinking about things, communicate! It will immediately get things moving and you’ll feel a rush of energy and life will start to flow again.
Communication is a two-way street. If the person you’re trying to communicate doesn’t hear you, doesn’t understand your point of view, can’t relate to you, or doesn’t understand what your words mean, you will not have achieved effective “communication.” The same is true in the reverse–if you have not fully heard or understood the other person, if you do not fully see and understand their point of view, or if you cannot relate to them and their situation, you will not have achieved communication.
The less you understand someone, the less you will feel you “like” them and the harder it will be to communicate. If the foundation of love is understanding, and you’re honestly committed to getting more of both in your life, you better darned well be ready to face a whole lot of uncomfortable experiences to get to the other side. There’s a reason people don’t communicate–they’re afraid of rejection, disappointment and having to face a whole lot of feelings!!
But, if you’re committed to making life better, then the only way to go is with communication. And just look back at your life and see if the times you bit your tongue, avoided ruffling feathers, withdrew yourself in order to shut up and shut down made anything better?
“Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive.
One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
When Frustrated, Get Curious
Where there is understanding love is present. The more you understand yourself and your choices in relationship to other people and life, the more pleasure you will start to experience as yourself, being yourself in life and relationships.
Knowing this, it’s also safe to assume that where there is no love present–where situations, and relationships become difficult to face, and an ocean of negative emotion begins to storm, then you can be assured that there are simply some things you do not fully understand. This is a rather beautiful (and tremendously powerful) discover.
When you don’t understand how something works, it’s much easier for that thing to negatively affect you. As look back at your own history of difficult experiences, there may be people and situations which caused you a great deal of confusion and may not be easy to look at or face. Trust that this is simply because you’re missing a bit of information, then be willing to look in order to understand and you will be richly rewarded!
When you think about the things or people you “like” or “appreciate” and “admire,” chances are good you know and understand a lot about these things or people. But it may not be as easy to keep this perspective in mind when there are things you don’t like. It may not be as easy to understand that what you don’t like, you simply don’t understand as well. Our understanding of anything is directly proportional to how close and connected we feel toward that thing.
“Good,” “Bad,” or Simply Misunderstood?
Sometimes it’s easier to decide that some people and situations are just “wrong,” “faulty,” “bad,” etc., than it is to question what we don’t know. Unfortunely, the good and bad are often strangely intertwined!! Often what we think of as “bad” are incidents and situations that contained confusion and misunderstanding. In my own work with women, I’ve found that by working through and looking at some of life’s most difficult or upsetting, “bad” experiences, we made the most progress at helping her feel positive, unencumbered and free!
There is a general reluctance to look at moments of our failure, loss, and confusion. It can be quite uncomfortable to look at situations where we failed to uphold our values, or acted in ways that were not aligned with who we knew we could be–who we know we are. And yet, by not addressing them, and not looking at them, we drag continue to drag them around like a ball and chain stealing our energy and attention in the back of our minds. Part of the benefits of traditional spiritual confessions is simply that a person is permitted to lose the ball and chain and get what has been taking their attention off.
By being willing to face difficult moments with courage, some of the “feelings” about the situation start to subside and we are able to just look at it for what it is. It’s almost as if the ball and chain we’ve been dragging along with us disappears when we see these incidents as they are–moments of confusion and overwhelm.
By looking at the things we least want to observe, by looking at the things we least appreciate or can admire about ourselves, our confidence, certainty and self-respect all increase!! That’s because it’s really hard to love things we don’t face or understand. That’s true for people, cultures, religions and situations. But if you get curious and interested in trying to understand the things you would rather avoid, you will find that miraculously your admiration for these things will start to rise!
Does Love Conquer All?
Over the weekend, I watched the film, He Named Me Malala. This film is about Malala, a young girl from Pakistan, who defended girls’ right to education in the face of threats of death by the Taliban. She was shot directly in the head by members of the Taliban, but survived and is now a hero to millions of people around the world.
I watched in the film when they asked her if she had every experienced anger toward the people who shot her–toward the Taliban. Here was her response:
“No. Not even as small as an atom. Or maybe a nucleus of an atom. Or maybe a proton. Or maybe a quark.”
-Malala
Malala understands better than many that confusion can contribute to hatred. The more people know and understand about life, the better they can control it. The reverse is also true and why Malala, having managed to reach true understanding about the pressures against her, can be at peace in her heart, mind and spirit in spite of the many significant and life-threatening conditions that are upon her.
There’s a crazy little rule about life that keeps proving itself to be true to me: What you don’t admire, will persist. I’m sure a version of that could also be expressed as “love conquers all.” And that’s a lovely idea, when you’re in a good mood and things don’t seem to be dragging you down, but for me the former has been more valuable, as it helps me when I’m not feeling rainbows and butterflies beaming from inside me.
You would never look at an orange and think, “why isn’t that orange being an apple!” You would never look at an apple and think, “that stupid fruit, why is it not purple and juicy like a grape?!!” And yet, this is what we do to the people and situations in our lives all the time. The more you’re able to see things as they really are, and understand them, the more pleasurable life becomes and your challenging situations and relationships will become much easier to handle.
Try some of these ideas on and let me know how they fit! You can catch more on this topic on the accompanying podcast, which you’ll find here. In tomorrow’s blog post and podcast, we’re going to talk about how to take up more space! How do you get out of your head and into life with a little more sass in your step and fire in your belly?
Love,
Tera