Love Isn't As Scary As We Think
Updated: 2 days ago
One Conscious Breath: Issue 22
Love and fear are the same energy. The difference is the story our mind is telling us.
"I love. It's a complete sentence. Not falling, but standing ~ in love."
Before we begin, I invite you to take one conscious breath.
Feel the cool air as it enters your nostrils. Follow it as deeply as it goes into your body.
And then exhale. Out of your mouth. Slowly. Elongate the release as much as you can. And as you exhale, feel your shoulders drop. Feel your jaw soften. Feel your feet firmly on the floor.
Now pause.
Give yourself permission to simply be. In this silence. For just one conscious breath. And then gently meet whatever arises ~ whatever has been waiting underneath all the inner and outer noise ~ for a moment of stillness like this one.
And when you’re ready ~ let’s begin.
Last week, I shared a practice for staying long enough with whatever arises within us ~ teaching our nervous system, one conscious breath at a time, that it’s safe to feel. Whatever arises, we have more capacity to be with it when we stay present and connected to our core Self. This week, let’s turn toward something specific that arises when we return to feeling ~ love.
Let’s answer this question first: why is a somatic psychotherapist writing so much about love? Because love is at the core of us all. It’s the antidote to fear ~ and it isn’t as scary as we think. It connects us to ourselves, others and the world. All of humanity benefits when we feel safe enough to live our lives connected to our hearts. Yet, many of us have been disconnected from them for so long ~ they’ve remained guarded, protected, hidden. Waiting for someone or something on the outside to allow us to finally feel safe enough to expose them. What are we actually waiting for? And why are we continuing to give our power away ~ the power of living from our fully resourced core Self, from our heart?
We can talk about why we've been disconnected, but I'm most interested in helping others reconnect with their hearts first. Because once you reconnect with it, turning toward the why is less painful. What changes isn't what's happening on the outside ~ it's our capacity to respond to it. We are either living and responding from love, or living and reacting from fear. Neither is an absolute. It's about knowing we have the choice to return to love when fear has taken over.
Love emanates from our hearts. Our being. It’s never-ending, and unconditional. Love is not a thought. It’s a feeling. A feeling that can turn into an action. We can harness the energy of love. And allow it to ripple. But we must return to feeling it within our own selves first. If fear is stopping us from feeling love, how exactly do we move through fear to where love inherently lives?
Love and fear carry the same energy ~ the same life force ~ only telling different stories. Fear says: this is dangerous. Contract. Protect. Run away. Love says: this is alive. Open. Lean in. Run toward. Same activation in the body. Two entirely different stories in the brain.
Feeling the emotions of love, the spark that ignites within, can activate the very thing that has been deeply protected for as long as we can remember ~ our heart. And so, just as quickly as that spark opens us, our nervous system will activate, in its role of protecting us, and stop us from feeling. Stop us from connecting to the very thing that opened us in the first place.
So, when love turns scary, it's a good time to pause and ask: Might this love be activating fear? And do we have more capacity now to feel than we did when we were little? Because when we were little, we needed to be attuned to, co-regulated. We needed an adult to be with us, to teach our nervous system how to return to feeling safe when feelings rose within us. And for those of us who didn't receive this, our nervous system learned to protect us from feeling ~ love itself ~ mistaking its intensity for danger. So, instead of feeling safety in love, our nervous system senses a threat, moving us away from connection, toward protection instead.
When we bring our awareness to what is happening within our own self, we increase our capacity to stay with any feeling that may be arising ~ allowing our emotions to adaptively release, instead of getting stuck in their intensity. This can be for any emotion, I just so happen to be emphasizing love. Because it is a direct antidote to fear. And if we are not connected to our own hearts and ability to feel love, we are more susceptible to falling into fear.
As adults, we don’t need to outsource our ability to feel safe to love. We simply need to reconnect with our own hearts, and then freely share our love.
When we make our capacity to love dependent upon whether someone else offers us safety, whether they love us or stay with us, we’re not only giving our power away. It makes love transactional. Instead of loving for the sake of loving, I may find myself abandoning my own needs to remain in connection with someone else. Or I may run from someone I sense is demanding more from me than I am willing or capable of giving.
But when we reconnect with our own heart, we simply live from love, we stand in love, it simply is the state of our being. I love you whether you come or go. I love you whether you love me or not. Because I love. It’s a complete sentence. It’s not transactional. And it’s not falling. It’s standing. Rock solid, yet flexible. Connected to my own heart. First and foremost. And then offered openly and freely to others. And the world.
Our heart ~ love ~ has always been there. Deep within us. Simply waiting for us to remember it. To reveal it. To reclaim it. And then to share it.
Remember what becomes possible when we return to feeling love ~ a strong back with an open heart. Steady, yet flexible enough to meet whatever comes ~ within us, between us and within the world ~ and open enough to actually feel it. Not because others or the world became safer for us to do so. Because we connected to and created inherent safety within our own selves first.
And this connection to our inherent love ripples. When we are regulated, we become the barometer in any relationship, any room ~ inviting others to co-regulate with us. When we are present, more presence becomes possible. And as you reclaim your inherent love, your worth, and your presence, they ripple out ~ offering others the courage to do the same. Your healing, and reconnection to your own heart, is not selfish. It is the most powerful action you can make. For yourself, first and foremost. And then for others and the world.
A Practice for This Week
Place your hand on your chest and bring your awareness there. Take one conscious breath. And then elongate your exhale.
Notice what arises when you place your hand over your heart ~ any warmth? Any softening? Any opening? If so, stay with it for as long as you can. Allow it to rise. See if you can stay with it a bit longer, even for just one more conscious breath.
And if nothing arises for you, or you feel constriction or tension, that's okay, too. There's no right or wrong here, only an exploration with curiosity.
And whatever you feel, or don't feel, isn't the point yet. This is simply the beginning of the return to feeling safe within your own body. One conscious breath at a time. Because when safety returns, so does our capacity to love.
Love doesn't require an object, nor an answer. It doesn't need to be returned, earned, or proved it's safe to express by anyone other than yourself. It's yours. And already alive within you ~ simply waiting to be revealed. It always has been. And always will be.
Love, at its foundation, was never the problem. Capacity is. And capacity within is something we can build, one conscious breath at a time.
Next week, we'll go a little deeper ~ into an emotion most of us have learned to fear more than almost any other. And what happens when we finally understand it as a protection of love that was never given anywhere safe to go.
With love and One Conscious Breath,
Jody
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