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Sometimes when I am out and about, objects beckon for me to take them home. A red heart with the words, “Love with all your heart,” inscribed on it was just such a thing.
The price tag was all of $2.00 but the message is priceless. My initial thought was that “Of course, I love with all my heart.” Most who know me would likely nod in agreement. I present as kind, compassionate, and caring. Most of my work in the world is about helping people sustain healthy and loving relationships. I hug strangers in public places. If that doesn’t earn me my street cred in the love realm, I don’t know what does.
The reality is, I don’t.
When I withhold love from anyone because their values and behaviors are dramatically different from mine, whether it is on a relatively minor scale such as people who smoke and drop their cigarette butts on the ground, or a major scale, such as the current occupant of the Oval Office and those who are in alignment with his actions, I am not loving with all my heart.
Love doesn’t mean approval. It does mean acknowledging the full humanity and worthiness to be loved for every person on the planet. I have been asked, if given the opportunity, would I hug him? With hesitation, since the sound of his voice creates a visceral response in me that ain’t pretty.
A few years ago, a young child asked me if I knew how to turn a bad guy into a good guy. His clever response to his own mental meandering was, “You hug ‘em!” A few more turns of the calendar page and I found myself doing the FREE HUGS thing at an Independence Day parade in Philadelphia. Some of the marchers were dressed as Star Wars characters. One was a looming Darth Vader. I approached and asked if he could use a hug since he was a bad guy and I wanted to test out the little dude’s theory. He agreed and said that bad guys need hugs more than anyone. I would like to think that as a result, his heart, like that of the Grinch, “grew three sizes that day.”
This past Sunday, I spoke at a New Thought church about my recent trip to Ireland and the ways in which spiritual guidance led inexorably from a ‘chance’ viewing of a video in 2003 to boarding a plane 15 years later to embark on my dream journey. When I watched the recording of my presentation, rather than focusing on the beauty of the message, and the reception of the listeners, I turned my attention to my speaking style, critiquing how many times I said, “Um” and “So”. Shaking my head at it now. Even the most polished speakers (and I have heard many) use those words, and some are prestigious radio interviewers.
When I judge myself harshly for being fully human with foibles and frailties, I am not loving with all my heart. When I speak harshly to myself for falling short of my goals and expectations, I am not loving with all my heart. When I tell myself that I will never have certain experiences I desire, I am not loving with all my heart. When I second-guess others’ responses to me, I am not loving with all my heart. When I deprive myself of heart’s desires, because of regrets from the past. I am not loving with all my heart.
What does it cost to love, full out? Risking rejection. Willingness to fall and skin my symbolic knees and have boo-boos. Knowing that I will have to change the mind that has been trained over the decades to view the world and the people in it in different ways. Re-writing the narrative. Going the extra mile and not remaining complacent. Stretching comfort zones.
When I make others’ approval of me more important than my own and wear a lovely facade and pretend to be something/someone I’m not, I push love away. When I tell myself that somehow, I just ‘can’t get it right,’ and others have the key to the locked door that evades me, I turn myself away from the opportunity to enter the chamber of wonder where riches await.
Grateful for the reminder that arrived courtesy of wood, red and white paint, and words of wisdom.
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Photo credit: Flickr