Growing Our Love “Muscles”
Given love is the point of life; the more we love, the more of life’s richness and fullness we experience.
You know the phrase, “Like a fish out of water.” Have you ever felt like that? Had that inner sense that you didn’t belong? Realized you were not like the other people? Felt like you were in over your head—in some way, shape, or form?
I know I have! And, late last December, I met someone who’d courageously put herself smack dab in the middle of that awkwardness. You see, to give her daughter a better life, Paz had recently moved to my town of Poulsbo, Washington, from the Bay Area in California. The kicker is, she only sort of knew one person up here! Talk about being a stranger in a strange land! Can you imagine?
After teaching the yoga class I met her at, I heard Paz ask another student: “What do people do up here for New Year’s Eve?” This sparked somethinginside of me. Do you know that voice of inspiration within you? As Paz’s words hung in the air, I could feel it encouraging me to invite her to the party Lisa and I were going to at Nancy and Tom’s place.
So, I did! Paz’s feelings of joy, relief, gratitude, and more were palpable. She said, “Thank you so much! I’ll see if I can get a babysitter so I can come, and let you know.” Fortunately, she did, I got “permission” to invite her from Nancy and Tom :), and we had a great time connecting and ringing in the New Year!
Although we started out as strangers, Paz and I are now friends, and I am grateful and blessed. Blessed to be her pal, and thankful to love for making it happen. I put it that way because:
Love sees where people are at, and meets them there.
Love notices needs, and addresses them.
Truly, it was the energy of love that led me to invite Paz that day. That’s why I’m writing a series of posts on what it means to “Align with Love”. The first one was about self-love, the second on loving those we have regular contact with, and this one is focused on growing our circle of love to include strangers, the marginalized, and even enemies.
Why should we love people we don’t know, those on the underside of society, and those opposed to us? There’s a reason why Jesus said loving the Source of Life, and everyone—no exceptions—is the fulfilment of, and reason for all the rules/laws we have for living a good life. It’s because love is the grain of reality. When we go against the grain, we suffer and create suffering for others. But, when we go with it, we cultivate an avalanche of flourishing!
Luminaries—like Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Valarie Kaur, and Gandhi—move and inspire us the way they do, because they recognize and live from this Truth. The question, then, is: How do we, in our own particular way, go and love likewise?
Five of the keys to loving more broadly and boldly are:
1) Realizing love is less something we do, and more a force of awesomeness that moves through us. We just have to “plug in”.
2) When we are peaceful on the inside, love flows through us more naturally, easily, and effortlessly.
3) Understanding much like how working out gets us more fit physically, working out relationally grows our love “muscles”.
4) Cultivating curiosity, which leads to understanding.
5) Love is its own reward.
For instance, imagine a person, whose beliefs and views are the complete opposite of yours, is sitting across from you. Simply taking, feeling, and enjoying a few deep breaths, will cultivate greater calm inside of you. This calm is like an open door that love will enter you through. Notice the resistance, dislike, and so on within you—breathe into these places.
Then, to the degree that you’ve enlarged your love muscles, take a step that will stretch it. The key, here, is curiosity. While our minds tend to get hung up on the “what” of a matter—like that person’s politics conflicting with yours—love focuses on the “why” of an issue. In other words, lovingkindness invites us to wonder—verbally, logically, and imaginatively—why that person believes and behaves the way they do.
“Tell me more about _____”, “I’d love to hear why you ____”, “I’m curious about what leads you to ____”, and so on, are great ways to verbalize this to others. And one of the great things about curiosity is we can also, based on what we know of another person, logically and imaginatively deduce why we think they are the way they are. Whether “right” or “wrong”, this way of understanding and moving toward another person, invariably warms and grows our hearts toward them.
While she was greatly persecuted by the Germans during World War II—and eventually died in a concentration camp—this way of thinking and engaging others is what led Anne Frank to say: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart”
The beautiful thing is, when we choose love, we realize and experience that the act of loving itself—not the results—is all the reward we need!
The radiance of love warms us from the inside-out.
At the root of the human condition, is a deep desire to be seen, valued, and included This is what love leads us to do. Love won’t stop, until it includes everyone—especially those on the margins. You know how some music just gets your body moving, whether you tell it to or not? The rhythm of love leads us out of our comfort zones, into spaces with those who on the underbelly of society—whether because of race, economics, trauma, disability, illness, sexuality, and/or ____. With care and compassion, it compels us to help get them out of life’s “rain” and into the shelter and safety of love.
In other words: Love is colorful. Humanity is a rainbow, and love embraces ALL of it—from friend to enemy, from insider to outsider, from lover to stranger, from powerful to marginalized.
A lot of what I’ve been sharing can be summed up thusly: Love listens. With that in mind, I leave you with these words about listening well:
To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.
— Mark Nepo
Hugs & Love,
Lang (aka “Dr. Love”)
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. You live what you speak about - letting that "awesomeness" flow through you. Love you!
I feel you leaning in Lang. I hear so much depth and realness, so much personal growth. Thank you for sharing your words. I am honored to be a part of learning and listening from you.