today, i am especially pensive about the subject of human love. my being pensive, and my thinking about love, are not at all uncommon obsessions for me, but today the energy of it just seems quietly deeply intensely introspective.
over 25 years ago i first read the book "The Road Less Traveled" by Dr. M Scott Peck ( have read it several times since), and was immediately drawn to his wisdom regarding the spiritual quality of a life well lived, in balance with the undeniable realities of human existence and relating, and intrinsic angst.
one of the most enduring and useful statements from his book which i have retained for all these years popped into my brain this morning as i awakened with an uncomfortable undefined anxiety...and i have been mulling around it all day...... and that is his definition of "love".....and Dr. Peck states it in the following manner:
"I define love thus: "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. "
the complexities of emotion and thought and visceral feeling relative to love are so vast, i have found this statement through the years a beautifully succinct and accurate barometer of all that i call "love". today especially, for a myriad of reasons that are not relevant to this sharing, i am reflective in measuring myself against those words, and scoring an "epic fail".
granted, there is an inherent subjective quality to what is spiritual and what is "spiritual growth"....i can only speak to what those two words combined mean to me, and i think they simply mean....facilitating the beloved to find their own way...their own truth...in confidence and peace and know that doing so will not jeopardize the love between the us, even though it might need to eventually (or immediately) change, alter, become more intense, or more remote, depending upon multiple and varied factors through time~
the word "extend" is interesting to me in this definition. loving in an extending way is not comfy. it is terribly painful and difficult a lot of the time to push through my tendency to be as i have always been. recently someone i respect stated to me that i cannot change, cannot really change, and perhaps this is true~ but i can keep trying to extend to the limits of what my true self will allow, knock down my own walls, extend my vision, extend my comfort level, extend my vision to see beyond my own visceral sensations. extend out of what i want for myself or what i even want for or with them. i can and want to do this for those i love. i feel it is what God expects of me, it's part of why i am on the planet ..... and i have to remember it is only to have a willingness, that is the magick key to unlock my capacity~
i think i am feeling ouchie and anxious and pensive today because it's just sooooo very damn difficult to keep this focus on "love"...and not confuse it with feelings of possessiveness, or self gratification/actualization/ego et. al~............, be it through my eyes as a child toward my parents,(even though they are dead) my daughters, (even though they are now grown and on their own...in fact perhaps especially so because they are!)...my brother, certain friends, and the exquisitely thorn-bird style intense in the way i experience romantic love, and the way that is complicated by sexual feelings.
i have found it can be equally difficult to keep the awareness that love, when articulated by this definition, is not about some strong feeling i have for the person i love, it isn't that lovely heady delicious intensity junkie elixir of swept away feeling, or even agape care/concern.....nor the things to which i am compelled because of those strong feelings...but the truth is, nonetheless...i am tempted to want it to be both the feelings and the compelling~
the nurturing part is easy for me, sometimes nearly neurotically so, but i know at the highest proper form nurturing does not mean it's ok for me to want to create and offer provision as a manner to control or impose, even if i truly do feel what i see, sense or think is important to the well being of the person i love~and it is just tragically wrong for me to nurture because i want to solicit or secure someone having loving feelings....for me~
i think in it's pure form "nurturing" in love, is about offering gracefully, and not pressuring....certain tangible things. nurturing is also about providing an emotional environment between two where there is peace and no contention and everything is held and offered lightly without strings to bind anything in any way....and sometimes...nurturing is just about standing back..with a willingness to not speak my thoughts or opinions or issue my caveats....or speaking my own feelings or need.
and so.......my mind and heart...spin on....and as i write there is no conclusion to this conundrum of the ages....<3 ...undoubtedly ,more to follow on all this...although i know not, when.<3
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