There are always ideas circling through my mind as I prepare to write this weekly blog for you, my readers. However, I think the most essential idea pressing on me to write is that of the most important necessity for all living creatures. That of, the four letter L-word, Love. How fitting that I would write such an entry on the day of love itself, Valentine's Day, the day when Cupid's arrow finds his match, candy hearts are shared, middle school dances become the dream of all romantic 12 year olds with hopeful wishes in their newly hormone-ridden bodies that their crush will finally ask them out.
So, love. It is a word seemingly undefinable but purely and completely felt when it arrives. Yet, love is never far from us, always present, whether we choose to be aware of it at all.
See, that's the thing. In a world increasingly falling apart with racism, pollution, the big guy over-powering the little guy, the only real solution is sometimes the last place we often look. If we are truly to be honest with ourselves, we have to admit that all to often our go-to reaction is to become defensive and retaliate with like-minded slings of abusive arrows in response to those cast at us. Do we realize that in situations like this there are at least two choices available to us, either to lash out or to love out?
Now, I am in no way suggesting that we allow ourselves to continuously be in the pathway of complete abuse and manipulation. Coming from a past flooded with a myriad of abusive forms, I highly advocate for escaping and leaving the torturous life-style behind. All humans have a capacity for emotional changes, from happy feelings of warmth and love, sad feelings, and then those of erupting anger. Those momentary feeling states do not reflect an overall abusive pattern necessarily. Being in an abusive relationship, as I know from experience, the anger is an ever-present silent force ready to explode and erupt, nullify and control its victim, at any notice. This anger can take many forms, that of slews of verbal angry words, the cold silent treatment meant to punish the victim for no such cause, manipulation meant to control and dominate, or even worse, physical abuse. All leave their own forms of bruises, some visible and others invisible, yet all leave the emotional markings that although freed from the abuser leaves the victim forever scarred.
But, I am not talking about abuse. I am talking about the moment by moment life occurrences where we are always faced with the opportunity to choose love or to choose hate. Becoming defensive and retaliating in like fashion is a choice. Stopping, pulling away, choosing love over hate, is in a sense a moment where we truly stand for ourselves, fully present in mindful awareness.
And, love is multi-faceted, a woven tapestry of many a color. In CS Lewis's book, Four Loves, Lewis describes four aspects of love, Agape (Divine Love), Storge (empathy bond), Phileo (Brotherly/friend love), and Eros (Romantic love). In that, there are many phases one goes through in each of these relational aspects of love. For infatuation, the early stages of falling for someone, full of its passionate excitement and exhilaration is just as much love as a long-term committed relationship, just as letting go of a lover or a friend, for a variety of reasons, is an aspect of love. Its all love if done from a pure and honest place.
Just over a week ago, my beautiful Grandma Margaret passed onwards from this world, hopefully to the heaven of which she always professed to believe. True to fashion, I've been attempting to be still, listen, for guidance from her spirit. I truly believe that I am surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, spirit guides that have chosen to lead me, give me wise answers and teachings as I journey through life. These guides I truly believe to be that of my favorite high school teacher, Fernando Nugent, Gilda Radner, Harry Anderson, Evita Peron, Frida Kahlo, Mary Tamm, my Grandpa Walt, and now his wife, my Grandma Margaret. Along the way, I still feel a kinship to others that have passed on, such as my grandparents on my father's side, but there are certain individuals who have truly joined alongside of me as personal friends across the veil of eternity.
So, what is the message I am receiving from Grandma? Simply this: Always, always choose love.
So, when I am faced with the darkness of the depravity of an angry, lonely soul and my empath self seeks to flee into the safety of my own protective realm, I choose love, making the active choice to not engage with the negative but embrace the positive, those that are choosing love themselves. When I am faced with the daily setbacks of life, the financial strain, the driver that cuts me off, not getting called back on an audition...I choose to acquaint myself with love. I choose to dwell in the state of mind that 'We all have not figured it out quite yet', as Alanis Morrisette croons. Knowing that we are not all perfect, helps to give perspective in a world vanishing amidst the confusion of too much, too fast, and not enough relational focus on unity and love.
If we truly want to be the change that infects the world for the better, we need to actively choose to seek out the positive, to choose love and in a sense, be love.
Yes, Grandma, I hear you. I choose love.
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