All You Need Is Love

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It's February and there's all kinds of love in the air.  In fact, if you've been paying attention, it's been lurking at the store for sale since Dec. 26th!

My kidlets look forward to this time of year because it means that we get to dig out the Target dollar bin mailboxes and proceed to do what I've dubbed The Fourteen Days of Valentine's.  Each day is an opportunity for each of us to leave notes and treats or whatever else we can cram into a tiny metal mailbox.  Here's a picture of ones that look like ours, though ours have a little more V-Day bling. (I'm too lazy to go take my own pictures and upload them right now.  I'm sure you can deal with that.)

 

Source 

This little tradition came about thanks in part to my childhood affinity for Valentine's Day card exchanges (I love words and paper!), but mainly because I felt a need a while back for a love-showing intervention of sorts.  The family was in dire need of a boost in the "show more love" department towards one another. Thus, the V-Day mailboxes.  It's been a winner in our book!

Most recently, in order to maintain the tough job of shared family affection, we've had to enact the nightly ritual of an official family group hug after our evening prayers. Our household is decidedly split down the middle between demonstrative and non-demonstrative love-showers.  Some of us have taken after my Italian heritage which can have the extreme habit of excessive affection in the likes of hugging and kissing complete strangers.  The other half, well, they don't do outward shows of affection, so don't be offended.  No, don't worry, you don't have leprosy despite the response you may get if you go in for a hug.

This little tradition of post-prayer-hug was not well received at first.  Not well at all.  In fact, you would have thought that we were committing some horrific act of child abuse by trying to round them up like a herd of feral cats to join in the hug fest.  It was a bad enough response that after the first few times I ended up finding myself destroyed in a pile of tears.  Seriously.  Who would have thought that getting family members to hug each other would be such a grievous ordeal and yet it was to both the givers and the receivers.

But we persevered and now only a few weeks into the nightly hug-torture tradition, there are no more tears and no more animal-like shreaks of agony at being touched by a sibling.  Hallelujah.  The worst offender from Team "Non-hugger" even sought out her dad last night and went in for a private hug.  Success!  Another win for Team Mom.

Now, part of what I had observed to be a wedge in the desire to show affection was more than just a natural disposition to like/need or not like/need physical affection.  It really boiled down to feeling vulnerable.  Hard feelings that hadn't been dealt with, mainly within the oil and water-type sibling interactions that exist in our home, had made it difficult for them to want to be in such a vulnerable situation.  Inviting, giving and receiving human touch makes us vulnerable, after all.  This was most definitely at play here, but I'll leave the rest of the psychological assessment out of this post.  Just know that with all things, prayer, perseverance, and a sense of humor can conquer just about anything.

So back to love.

I've recently started reading another book by my author crush C.S. Lewis entitled The Four Loves.  It's wonderful and thought provoking and I'll be sure to share in future posts some insightful gems.  For now, I'll give you a little taste by sharing this quote about love and vulnerability:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

We seem to have a love-hate relationship with the idea of vulnerability.  We love and protect puppies, babies, and tiny, fresh floral blooms.  Interestingly enough though, we despise being vulnerable ourselves and typically avoid it at all costs on some level.  It makes us feel exposed, fearful, and powerless with the mere thought of trusting and being totally open with our hopes and dreams. Our fears rear their ugly heads in the form of low self-esteem, judgments on others, and other less than glamorous human pitfalls.

I ran across one of my favorite TED speeches again this week that addresses this very thing.  Researcher/writer Dr. Brené Brown has spent years studying topics such as shame, worthiness, and courage.  Her TED speech discusses human vulnerability, an element that she found laced within all of the many studies on human behavior that she's conducted over the years.

Make the time to watch and learn.  She's witty, hilariously self-depreciating, and genius.  For the record, I will only ask you to spend your precious time watching things that are absolutely worthwhile. (She also looks a bit like Martha Stewart, but don't let that scare you away.)

For those of you that need to come back to this video later (and please do, it won't disappoint), here's a recap of some of her finer points: 

• Connection and happiness: We are happy by being connected with other people present in our lives (family, friends, children or even work colleagues). The core of our unhappiness lies within the question: “Is there something about me that I fear or have the certainty that will cause others to stop from loving/connecting with me?” The way we answer is essential. One of the most powerful things holding us back in our lives is the fear that we are not worthy of connection or being loved.
• The common element between courage and vulnerability:  Courage comes from a Latin word meaning “to be able to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart,” aka to allow yourself to be seen, to be vulnerable. That translates into the willingness to say, "I love you" first; to invest in a relationship knowing that it might not work; to be who you are even if you fear exclusion. It means starting a business or a new way of living even if you fear failure. Sadly, we too often get caught up in the thought that we are too unimportant/incapable to change the world even (and ourselves) before we start.
• Vulnerability is the core of our shame and fear. But, AT THE SAME TIME, it is the core of our creativity, tenderness, belonging and love.  Dr. Brown had a great side comment regarding this: “You know those people who find out that vulnerability and tenderness is so important and they immediately surrender and walk into it? Well, that’s not me, and I don’t even hang out with people like that. When this came out of my research, I had to do one year of therapy to be able to accept it.”  Some of my little family must be related to her:)
• We cannot selectively reject or cherry pick our emotions. Dr. Brown teaches that we cannot tell ourselves, "here is the bad stuff (vulnerability, disappointment, suffering, etc.) that I don’t want to feel." In doing so, we tend to simultaneously numb the good feelings as well (love, gratitude and happiness) and we become trapped in a vicious circle that only adds to our unhappiness. How do we "select" emotions?  Either by numbing them--overeating, overworking, etc. and/or we try to make the imperfect perfect--the uncertain certain. We try to control when we feel out of control.  Most importantly, we fail to see that those who cannot practice compassion towards themselves cannot practice compassion towards others.
• Solution? Believe that you are enough (i.e. worthy of love even if you are imperfect) and love with your whole heart even if you might get hurt. Take action even if you might fail. And my favorite quote:
  

  "We need to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee -- and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult -- to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."  And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're (good) enough to be (loved)."
  To love ourselves and stay vulnerable--such a challenge at times!  Some deep and sometimes uncomfortable things to ponder.  It requires a tentative change in thinking and I'd like to chew on it a bit more--the process of changing our thoughts all the while improving ourselves--in a future post or two.  Stay tuned.
  And for the record, there was a whole lot of bribing going on in order for this photo to take place. I suspect that one day they'll forget the "ooh, gross!" and replace it with what Beatles fans around the world say:  All you need is love.
  Until then, off to another adventure!
  ~Arianna