Spring is in the air. Love is in the air-this beautiful, fascinating and confusing something. So how about it, Love-I mean. Let’s have a closer look at it, let’s poke it a little.
I can start by ridiculing it because Love is silly, quite stupid and unintelligent. Yes, it does not remember anything; it doesn’t remember your errors, mistakes and even cruelty, it hasn’t even noticed it. It will not see that you have no talent in singing and be enchanted with Mrs. Florence Foster Jenkins performance. It will choose a wrong partner from a wrong family. You can be Capulet or Montague; it doesn’t matter to it. You can be a prodigious son, or a daughter for that matter and it will make a feast for your return running amok from happiness. It will open doors to both a terrorist and a saint, no judgment there. You can have a Down syndrome or Alzheimer, you can earn no money or even steal; it doesn’t bother it at all. Nobody can see any value in you, but L will. It allows everything; it accepts everything and shines on everyone and everything. Love is devoid of judgment. It is unconditional. How blind and unpractical, how unsafe and unwise can it be?
Love makes life livable and beautiful but its irresponsibility is threatening. We want it but we want it tamed, placid and obedient. We put restrictions on it and make it conditional. Sometimes the burden of obligations and rules is so heavy that Love goes into hiding and seams gone.
It is hiding inside you and to get in touch with it you have to start with yourself. You need to learn how to love yourself. No I don’t call you to thrive on egoism and narcissism. Start with your closest enemies and I am not talking about your sour neighbor or your arrogant boss. I am talking about so called “negative” feelings (anger, disappointment, frustration…) allow them to be and accept them as they are, accept the way you feel them in your body (the sweat on your forehead, the cramp in your stomach, the clenched teeth…) and not the stories you create about them. That’s a very subtle but important distinction. Allow for everything you feel about your own imperfections, mistakes, fears and worries. Show a bit of this silly and wonderful forbearance to yourself, to your weaknesses, faults and errors; allow them to be. Allow yourself to feel the discomfort of them. Love them. Love them unconditionally. I know it sounds scary. But there is a safe place where you can do it. It is the space of meditation. Learn meditation.