An Aspect of Love
Why resisting hard feelings also blocks the good ones
On a recent Friday support call, she raised her hand wanting to work with fear. Not something unfamiliar to her. She could usually find some space around it. Then she’d notice herself holding on again. A contraction.
Is that fear here right now?
“Yes.”
Could you allow it to be like that?
“No, I am noticing that I’m resisting it, wanting it to go away.”
Of course.
She located it in the body. Was asked to breathe and let it get bigger, just to see what was there. “Feels like I’m not going to survive,” she said. “A nine out of ten.”
Let’s pretend you really like this. Could you welcome it, savor every last drop? What if this is something you’ve been waiting all of your life to feel?
The fear moved. It became anger, more in motion than the fear had been.
Underneath the anger was wanting. “Wanting to control,” she said. Lean into that. Give it a welcome: it’s been hiding, here it is now, it’s shown itself.
And is it wrong to want?
“It’s really funny when you ask me that. It’s like: yes, I want to have. It’s like wanting is lacking, and I feel that, and I don’t like it.”
So wanting is lacking. This is correct. If you want something, by definition you don’t have it.
“Exactly. I feel that. I’m caught in that.”
If we won’t feel what we don’t want, we don’t get to feel what we do want either. The willingness to feel one is the willingness that lets us feel the other.
So just for now, could you let go of wanting, and just have?
“Yes. Now.”
Check and see what’s here now.
“There’s some sadness behind that. Something kind of shifted.”
She was asked to sit with it. To honor it. “I just want to get rid of it when it comes up,” she admitted. “It’s hard to be with sometimes.” Within the sadness, there’s a kind of sweetness to it.
“Yeah, when I really allow it. Yes.”
Doesn’t the sadness mean you simply care about something? A loss, maybe?
She sat with that. Then: “it’s almost like my heart’s longing or something.”
Could you open even further to that longing? Honor it. Maybe it’s been waiting to be felt like that.
Would you feel that way if you didn’t care?
“Probably not.”
So what if this is also an aspect of love?
“Yes. It could be possible.”
Could you open to it as love? Just allow it to show itself to you as love.
“I could. Yes.”
“I’m not sure the mind grasps that, but—”
Good point. But so what?
“Yeah. So what?”
“Somehow there is something that’s softened quite a lot.”
“It just feels like there’s love here at the moment.”