THE UNSEEN WAYS OF LOVE
Love expresses itself in many ways. Sometimes love is camouflaged, hidden under layers of protection and may be difficult to recognize or receive in the form it is given. For example, I knew mother loved me. However, it took years to see how she expressed her love which I often misunderstood. She expressed her love by attempting to protect me from harm. She tried to teach me how to do things “right” so I wouldn’t be hurt by doing them wrong. What appeared to me as constant criticism and attempts to control me were actually her way of loving.
When I heard myself giving advice to a woman friend in a very similar tone of voice, I realized my admonitions and advice to her to take care of herself were coming from a concerned, protective place in me. I loved my friend and I didn’t want to see her get hurt. I was trying to express my love in identically the same way. What a surprise!
No matter what habitual pattern is presenting itself in my life right now underneath is a loving self trying to give me what I want and need to thrive and be. I can penetrate to a deeper layer of motivation and see love is the prime motivator of all action. I then can discover a place of acceptance and forgiveness in myself for whatever pain and difficulty I have experienced. It’s tempting to judge myself. I may look back on my life and berate myself for the so-called mistakes I have made and wish I had the time and energy to undo or redo the consequences of my actions.
However, I have discovered a different way to view my harsh judgments when they arise. In looking backward, I choose to acknowledge my lack of knowing, my inexperience, how I was seeking something. I notice the times I tried and failed which is part of being alive and especially natural to the early years of life. When I was young, I didn’t know how to live. Learning to live takes a lifetime.
Each stage of life faces me with new beginnings. Often, I flounder and flail around like a young child splashing in a pool learning to swim. It takes a while to get my bearings, to feel the support of the water instead of the threat I will drown. It takes a while to face my fears and see they can be mastered, one by one, to see there is strength and knowing in me guiding my actions, an unseen intelligence in my nature I can trust and rely upon.
Recently, a friend had been researching his family history on the Internet and because of his discoveries and interests, I decided to search for information about my great grandfather. I remember I had talked to my maternal grandfather James McLaughlin when I was a young graduate student at Arizona State University. One afternoon, as I visited him at his simple, well kept house in Phoenix, I interviewed him about his early life and took notes in my diary. Now many years after his passing, I went looking for the diary to see if I could find his father’s name which I had recorded there.
However, what I had not anticipated was the material I discovered in the 1969 diary. As I read about the concerns and feelings of this young graduate student who in some dim way was a part of me, I felt mortified. Here was a description of emotional anguish, deep loneliness, and feelings of guilt, unhappiness and failed relationships. I was swept back into the memory of those times and began to feel depressed. A day went by. My reaction to the material in my diary had been extremely judgmental. I had trouble accepting this description of my experience. I appeared to be lost, floundering. I read about how I had started therapy at the student counseling center, for the first time exploring the effect on me of my father’s sudden death of a heart attack when I was 17.
Then, another day went by and something happened. A light went on inside me. Suddenly I saw this younger version of myself from a new perspective. The underlying dynamic stood out clearly illuminated. I saw I was searching for myself, searching deeply for the love in my nature. I was trying to meet my needs and to understand my life. I felt filled with a quality of acceptance and compassion for this part of my past. The depression lifted. A piece of myself fell into place and became a part of me, no longer a separate disowned, awful part of myself. I hadn’t realized I had taken these judgments to be the truth about myself. Now I can see my assumptions and judgments as false conclusions, distorting who I am.
I felt relief when I discovered what was once unacceptable, can have a kind place inside me. The war with my past was over. I felt it was important to make peace with my past, for it was a false, unbalanced view of myself I was holding. Why not make peace now, instead of at the moment of my death? Why not live with a full acceptance of myself, instead of waiting for some time in the future when I imagine I will arrive at a perfected me, now finally okay.
What is so, is I have always been okay. My spirit and unique gifts have always been expressing through me. Yet, in living, an intimate knowing of my true self has eluded me. I have mistakenly thought I was flawed in some way and unlovable. Many of my clients, friends and partner carry my same misunderstanding. As my misunderstanding is corrected, I can see my uniquely human qualities with a kind and appreciative eye. I can be patient with the mystery of my unfolding life path which doesn’t occur according to my expectations but is a continuous miracle with its own inner clock.
To discover nothing is wrong with me except what I think, was a revelation, since my thinking mind is only a small fraction of who I am. As I penetrate deeply to the love at the core of my being, I am able to recognize its motivating role in my behavior. I rediscovered the beauty and magic inherent in life itself. Life’s diversity, variety and flavors give life its richness. There is a mystery my mind can’t penetrate. When I am relaxed and open, gifts seem to come from nowhere. I am able to access parts of myself I didn’t know existed, qualities like courage, discipline, compassion, patience, insight, love in action and the capacity to see from another person’s point of view.
And so it seems to me, regardless of what I think or feel, love is the prime motivator, expressing itself in every moment in the most mysterious and unseen ways, even in the voice of my inner critic, even in my judgmental eyes desiring to change what I see. Love’s voice is stronger, an energy beyond words, able to penetrate my heart when I am ready to feel its life giving truth.
Copyright ©Judith Shiner (edited 6/19/19) first person
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