How Deep Is Your Love?
If you think you are unworthy, undeserving or unlovable, I’m sorry, but you are wrong.
And you’re not just a little wrong, or occasionally wrong. You’re fundamentally wrong.
Even if you believe you are born inherently bad, even if you can prove it, you’re still wrong. The good, the bad, the holy, the evil, all of it, ALL OF IT is inherently lovable.
I’ve made it my job to see and adore the most lovable aspects of every person I meet. I’ve always done it (usually without knowing it). I think I may even be born to do it. I'm like a truffle pig who has a knack for finding the biggest buried ‘shroom or the one kid in a family who always skims the cream off the top or manages to find the crispiest bits on every roast. I relish this opportunity every time I’m faced with it.
When it’s challenging, I like it even more. It’s never actually harder - the most lovable bits are always right there - but it can take a moment longer to agree on the best parts of a person if they are deeply buried or intricately obscured. We then have to investigate, to unearth, to spelunk, to discover… We get to go down dark hallways of doubt and despair and open doors to rooms full of warmth and brightness. Without exception, the rooms are there.
I really love finding the lovable in everyone and everything… until I am confronted with myself.
It’s harder when there’s only one - one to be the detective, the cheerleader, the cartographer, the spelunker. It requires solo-digging, often in pitch dark with emotional bats and psychological creepy crawlies flying at your face, covering your arms, doing their darnedest to convince you to turn back, walk away, and give up the search.
Fortunately there is an entire army of invisible forces around you (and within you) that are exclusively interested in helping you track down the most deliciously lovable aspects of your being. Even when something awful, tragic, or excruciating occurs, these same forces are at the ready to nudge you in the direction of that within you which is eternally and eminently lovable.
The thing I want to remind you of, again, is that no matter what you think or say or do, that essentially lovable part of yourself is always there. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s only the inaccuracy of your perception or the stubbornness of your certainty - You are wrong but you don’t know it, or you know you’re wrong but insist upon your rightness.
Why does it have to be a struggle? Why don’t you just give in to the love? I don’t even care if it makes you feel good, I’m just saying it makes no sense to resist! Why struggle to convince yourself that you are anything other than the best parts of yourself? Why not seize on every bit of nasty, corner it, and shake your finger in its face saying “Hold up there you little asshole, YOU are the one that’s wrong. I don’t need any back talk or negotiation, you’re WRONG! GIVE IT UP!”
How to neutralize the fight? How to make it a dance instead of a struggle? You don’t have to be cling to your lovable self 24/7. You don’t even have to believe it’s true. Just make the choice to look for the love instead of the un-love. Seize the love first. Then when you are confronted by the non-love seize that too! Love it and dive deeply with it until! Make it your co-conspirator, summon the strength, mystically massage it with your care and attention until it is transformed by your sheer endurance and persistence. “I know it is there. I know I am that. If I can just hold on, long enough, with that certainty, I know I will find it, I know that it will reveal itself to me.
Maybe that’s the biggest conspiracy of all: The most lovable part of yourself is running the show. Summoning YOU as co-conspirator to facilitate the hostil (loving) takeover of your whole existence. This most lovable part of your self wants nothing more than to dance a slow, sensuous, vintage burlesque style strip tease for you and everyone you love. “Watch me, watch me, now you think you don’t see me, now I seem obscured, but I will emerge, I will make my true self known. I will give myself to you completely, you need only look my way.”
If the most lovable parts of you are actually working full time to make themselves known, HOW MUCH EFFORT you must be putting into keeping them obscured!
Every moment, every exchange, every relationship or job or romantic partner, every thing you do, say, or see, is presenting you with a neutral choice - look for the love or don’t look for it. Spend your energy on finding compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, or don’t.
Just remember, every choice you make, every action you take, every single thought you have sounds a tone. Every tone can contribute to a glorious song of compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, trust and love; or it can clang in chaos, discord and disconnection. The more you clang the more you hear the clanging. The more you sing the more the symphony crescendoes.
No pressure. You don’t have to do anything or sustain anything. Not right now. It’s about a question, an opportunity, every time: Harmony or discord? Which do you choose? Don't cling to the choice, there's another opportunity coming. But why wait?
And there’s really no right answer… Even the gnarliest of noise-music has something lovable in it, you just have to learn to listen.
With love and light from the depths of my most silent spaces,
MD