The Importance of Self-Love

When I read this week's quotation, by the 13th / 14th century German theologian and mystic, Meister Eckhart, I had a strong reaction to it. It reads, "All the love in this world is built on self-love."

No, I thought, surely the point of love is that it is self-less, concentrated on the other. Then I remembered something Brene Brown once wrote, in The Gifts of Imperfection. Part of her definition of love, gleaned from her extensive qualitative research, reads, "Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow; a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them - we can only love others as much as we love ourselves." (emphasis mine)

She admits how hard this is to hear, let alone put into practice, because most of us tend to be harder on ourselves than we are on the people we love. She says, "I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person. How many of us are quick to think, God, I'm so stupid and Man, I'm such an idiot?"

She opened the question on her blog in 2009 which, perhaps not surprisingly, sparked quite a fierce debate. And in her book, she shares one wise comment by Renae Cobb: "Certainly, the people we love inspire us to heights of love and compassion that we might never have achieved otherwise, but to really scale those heights, we often have to go to the depths of who we are, light/shadow, good/evil, loving/destructive, and figure out our own stuff in order to love them better. So I'm not sure it's an either/or but a both/and. We love others fiercely, maybe more than we think we love ourselves, but that fierce love should drive us to the depths of our selves so that we can learn to be compassionate with ourselves."

So maybe Meister Eckhart and Brene Brown are both right: self-compassion is a vital component of being able to love others well. Because when we are continually down on ourselves, even if only inside our heads, it will inevitably affect how well we are able to respond to, love, others. 

The Benefits of Meditation

I'm away from home this week and had forgotten to bring this week's postcard with me. So I appealed to my friend, with whom I am staying, for a suitable quote, and she came up with this: "Buddha was asked, "What have you gained from meditation?" He replied, "Nothing. However," Buddha said, "let me tell you what I have lost: Anxiety, Anger, Depression, Insecurity, Fear of old age and death."

And its truth reverberated in my soul. I find that meditating regularly, whether I simply sit in silence, or walk in nature, or peacefully craft, is such a benefit. A time out of my daily life, a time away from the busy-work that makes up my days, is hugely beneficial. When I return to that daily life, it is with a new feeling of spaciousness, serenity. I am able to cope far better with the small vicissitudes of my normal existence, because I have allowed myself the time to simply Be. As someone once remarked, "We are human beings, not human doings."

I blogged some time ago about the benefits of simply breathing, here. And about the practice of taking a breathing space between activities. And I stand by what I wrote then: "Meditation practices are an excellent way of grounding us in the present, particularly following the breath. Because we spend far too much time of our lives being "walking, talking heads", unaware of our bodies, oblivious to how they are moving through our days. And so we miss all the lovely moments of now-ness which are in front of us."

For me, living in the moment by consciously breathing, by choosing to be aware of the present as it unfolds around me *does* make me less anxious, less prone to anger, more able to let go of the petty insecurities and irritations when they happen. Give it a go -  I hope you will discover that I am right.

Nothing is Certain

The early 20th century German author and painter, Ringelnatz, once wrote, "What is certain is that nothing is certain. Not even that."

And he is right. We humans like to pretend that some things in our lives are certain, because it is more comforting to believe so. But actually, the only true certainty in life is that each of us will die, some day. We cannot be absolutely, 100% sure of anything else - not of the existence of God (or whatever we call the Divine presence in our lives), not of the health of our bodies, not even that the person or people we love will still love us tomorrow. Nothing is certain.

Which is why we have faith. I would not trade certainty for questioning and doubt, and have blogged about this here. For me, the beauty of faith is that it is based on trust, rather than certainty. We can trust that God exists, and then act on that trust. We can do our best to increase the probabilities that our bodies will remain healthy (by eating healthy food and regular exercise and taking our medication). 

I believe that having faith is vitally important for human thriving - we have to act 'as if' the things we believe in are certain. In this way, through faithful work and trust, we can make it more likely that the things we have faith in will come to pass. But we can never, never be certain that they will. We can always and only have faith, trust. And that is fine.

A few years ago, I shared a beautiful poem about faith and trust, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I make no apology for sharing it again, as for me, it sums up beautifully why we don't need certainty.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability - 

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

I find this incredibly soothing...

Using Our Own Reason

The 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, once wrote, "Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is the inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another." And it continues, "Have courage to use your own reason - that is the motto of enlightenment."

Of course, we do need to have "direction from another" in the early stages of our quest for truth and meaning in life, but I completely agree that at a certain point along the way, it is up to each of us to examine and evaluate what we know or believe, and then choose our own path, in the light of our own reason, conscience, and lived experience. Rather than blindly accepting what someone else has told us is true.

Which is a great part of what I love about being a Unitarian. Of course, if your desire is for answers, set down in black and white without contradiction, Unitarianism is not the place for you. I know that some may find the lack of a creed, a denomination-wide accepted set of beliefs, daunting. Not me - I *love* the fact that Unitarians do not claim to have all the answers, and accept that there is room for questioning and doubt. We are all on the same journey, supporting each other along the way, and sharing our discoveries and spiritual breakthroughs, in our worship, and in our lives.

We are held together by a shared attitude to religion and spirituality. All of us believe profoundly in the necessity of person freedom of religious belief (with the proviso that those beliefs do not harm anyone else) - the freedom to grow, and to act in accordance with our beliefs, to work out our own answers, using our reason on the path to our own personal enlightenment. We share a devotion to spiritual freedom and find that the insights of others can enrich our own beliefs. 

At the same time, we appreciate that humankind must accept responsibility for their choices and their acts. Every time we encounter a new person or situation or way of thinking, we find that some are better and others worse, by trial and error, by measurements of happiness and welfare, by comparison and reflection. This is how we cultivate responsible behaviour - by using reason as our guide.

Yet of course, there are irrational elements in our experience of ourselves and our universe - mysteries that are beyond reason. But how else can we comprehend or respond to them, at least in part, unless by using our reason? The process works like this: find out what commends itself to your reason as truth and then accept that as your authority. If we work at it faithfully, our whole lives long, with help from fellow pilgrims along the way, we might become better, wiser, and more loving human beings. And if we then put our better, wiser, more loving beliefs into action, who knows? It might even lead to a better, wiser, more loving world.

 

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

 I came across a beautiful short poem by John Roedel in my Facebook feed this morning: 

"Between a rock

and a hard place,

let me be water,

let me be water,

let me be water."

And its truth convicted me. Sometimes in our lives, we feel as though we are completely stuck between a rock and a hard place, between two hard and unpleasant things, and that there is no way out. Roedel's words reminded me that water always finds its way through, somehow. That it has the power to seep through the smallest cracks in the reality of our lives, and flow on, undisturbed. And that in the end, it also has the power to wear down those rocks, soften the edges of those hard places, and bring us into a new equilibrium.

There are so many hard places in all our lives. The temptation can be to armour up against them, to protect our vulnerability by enclosing our souls in a carapace of "I'm fine", "I'm dealing with it", "I can cope". It can feel much harder to allow ourselves to feel the feelings, to be open and vulnerable, to trust that life is ultimately good, even if we are not in a particularly good place, right now.

I attended my regular yoga class yesterday evening, and the instructor always begins in the same way. She has us lying on our backs and talks us through a series of breathing and relaxation exercises to open up our bodies, enabling them to stretch and soften. I believe that being open and trusting and vulnerable has the same effect on our souls, enabling them to stretch and soften too. 

So John Roedel's words will be a mantra for me in the days and weeks to come: "Between a rock and a hard place, let me be water."

Coming to Rest in God

This week's quote is by the 20th century German Existentialist philosopher, Peter Wust, whose works have never been translated into English. According to my Google German to English translator, it reads, "Man is the eternal seeker of happiness, the tireless seeker of truth, the seeker of God who never comes to rest."

When I read it in the original German, I mistranslated it to mean that people eternally seek after happiness, tirelessly seek after truth, but are only able to find peace and rest in God. Which I know is not what he is saying, but it is what I believe. It is certainly what I needed to hear, this week.

Otherwise, what is faith for? I believe that my faith in God helps me in times of sadness, when I am unable to perceive the "truth" of a situation, so that I am able to hand whatever it is over to God and know that I am held in loving arms. This may be manifested through the love and concern of other people, but I believe that all humankind have a divine spark within them, which prompts them to reach out to other human beings in pain and offer them consolation. 

And that's all.

Respectful Dialogue

The 20th century German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer once wrote, "A conversation presupposes that the other person could be right."

We, as a society, seem to have lost this insight in recent years. Most public "conversation" is fiercely adversarial, with each participant focussed only on their own point of view, on putting over their own agenda, with little care for what the other person thinks or believes. Scoring points seems to be more important than learning about the other.

I think that is so sad. I believe that *no-one* has Got It All Right, whatever "It" is, and that there should always be room and time for listening to what the other person says, for learning from each other.  Even if our lack of listening skills come from a misplaced zeal for our own points of view, it is still wrong to disregard the wisdom of other people. Like Gadamer says, "the other person could be right".

If I was in charge of the world (😀) I would wave my magic wand and stop all conflict in its tracks. Then I would enforce a long process of deep listening on all participants, interspersed with times of stillness and meditation, because in true conversation, where there is give and take, it is possible to come to understand and appreciate that we are not always right, that the other person has a point, if not several points, with which we might come to agree, if only we thought about it long enough. Which would be where the times of stillness and reflection came in.

We all have the innate ability to pause before we leap in with a reaction, but in order to practice this, we need to step back from our immediate gut responses, and take time out to reflect on what we have heard. To understand that "the other person could be right".

And even if we know for sure that the other person is wrong (for example, if they are saying or doing hateful things to other people or the planet) there are still better ways of responding than through instant aggro. Because mutual aggression only leads to entrenchment behind fixed positions. Whereas, respectful dialogue may just lead towards a change in behaviour, to a more enlightened understanding.

I blogged about the art of deep listening a few years ago, here, and I still hold by what I said then: "It takes a lot of practice to put [all the blocks to deep listening] aside and to 'step out of the I' and truly listen to what the other person is saying.... But it is essential, if we are to have 'real', deep, meaningful conversations. For the speaker, it is about being heard, held, and deeply accepted. For the listener, it is about putting all the blocks aside and concentrating exclusively on the other."

I wonder how much more peaceful, how much more harmonious, our world would be, if more of us tried to put this into practice?