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It was 1985, and just in time for puberty I got some good lessons on the power of Love. I learned that you don’t need money, that it don’t take fame, and furthermore, that you don’t need no credit card to ride this train. However, like pretty much everyone else, I still got stuck on the idea that Love is (1) what you’re obligated to feel for your family members, or (2) the fortuitous result of circumstances being just right.
Given that it’s pretty much the best feeling in the world and one of the prime motivators of human behavior, it’s unfortunate that we often tend to think of Love as an elusive thing. Something to be chased and held onto tightly, something that can be taken away. And, sadly, certainly not something we can experience at will.
Being immersed in a world in which the idea of looking for Love is so prevalent, it’s been hard to break myself of the habit of thinking this way. But I no longer believe it’s true.
About 15 years ago, I was at a meditation retreat, and every once in a while the facilitator would ask a question. No verbal response was required . . . the question was just meant to sink into the consciousness of the participants. One of the questions was, “What is your greatest power?” Whereas most of the questions spurred a stream of thoughts, and sometimes the hope that I had come up with the “right” answer, this one hit me differently. My mind didn’t have a chance because my heart answered immediately. It said, “Love.” And I had a sense that this wasn’t just my greatest power, it was our greatest power.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Why should I care about the realization that you say came out of your heart at some woo-woo meditation retreat? Speak for yourself – my greatest power is that I can shoot fire out of my eyes.” Yeah, yeah. I know what comes out of my heart isn’t as credible as a double blind study in a peer reviewed journal. And if you thought that was woo-woo, let me give you a little perspective. Part of my training in Chinese Medicine was to learn qigong – the art of perceiving, manipulating, and cultivating life energy (Qi). After years of playing with Qi, you don’t question it when your heart talks to you.
Anyway, I’m not asking you to take my word for it, but please hear me out. In the years since then, I’ve kept listening to my heart and I’ve learned a little about Love. I still have a ways to go in terms of living in accordance with what I’ve learned, but I know enough to point others in the right direction. So, here it is.
First, we think of Love way too much as a noun. And Huey Lewis, bless his heart, didn’t help break of this habit. We like to treat Love as a thing. To be deserved, to be earned, to be won, and to be lost.
Love can be a noun – in that it’s a quality of being – but in my experience, it has nothing to do with deserving or winning. Love just IS. Love is our native state. It’s who we are. We can pile on so many beliefs and affectations that we lose sight of it, but we can’t change this most fundamental fact. Our minds may get confused and put conditions upon Love. But Love is always there, within us, able to be accessed at any moment, even when it seems utterly far away.
Now for the verb form of Love. This is where our power comes in. To Love is what we were born to do. Love is an expansion. Love never excludes. And the more we embrace this notion, the richer our life becomes.
The function of a confused mind is to separate everything. When you have the honor of spending time with children you notice how they (especially the tiny ones) haven’t learned to separate everything into countless discrete entities. And when you really see this in them, it’s awesome. Not just because it’s so beautifully uncontrived, but because you know you used to be that way.
But we teach them to separate, with names and labels, and we place such importance on it that Love is a natural casualty of the process. With a million separate words and ideas, and billions of separate people, it’s understandable that we’d think that Love, too, is separate from us.
Maybe you use the word God for what I am calling Love, but I think we’re talking about the same thing, and the same sense of separation between God and themselves exists in the minds of most people who use the word God. When we believe that God, or Love, or whatever word you like, is something separate from us, it becomes a conditional thing in our lives. And we invent the conditions that preside over that relationship.
But, not only is Love not separate from us, Love itself is the mender of separation. Love fills in the gaps that create separation. Like a warm ocean waiting on the other side of the door, the moment we open the places we’ve restricted, Love rushes in, saturating all the parts of ourselves and the world that we haven’t accepted, and in so doing, unites what we tried to separate.
So, I urge you to Love as a verb. When we take deserving out of the equation, we’re suddenly surrounded by an infinite array of Love-worthy people, plants, animals, and stars. And also Love-worthy dirt, garbage, and smog, by the way.
Try silently saying “I Love you” to the person bagging your groceries, to the person who just cut you off and made you miss your exit, to the person on the tech support line who tells you, “I’m going to have you turn off your phone and then turn it back on. Maybe that will fix it.”
But don’t forget about the person whose body you’re renting. That character has been doing so much misguided stuff to get more Love, and all along you had the power to unleash it upon yourself. Go for it.
Love,
Dr. Peter Borten
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Last week I saw a show by a troop of comedians at a tiny theater in Montana. Though they were talented, I didn’t find myself laughing much at the recurring “battle of the sexes” theme. The men accused the women of being frigid and overly emotional. The women complained that the men need to be mothered and only care about sex. And back and forth it went. Sure, there’s comic relief in sharing about our common issues, but as I sat there seeing men and women cast somewhat bitterly in these one-dimensional ways, I couldn’t help thinking, “Are we really still doing this?”
In my previous article, we looked at the role that attitude plays in the health and sustainability of a relationship. Of course, you can’t make your partner change their attitude, but it’s worth fully exploiting the potential of your own attitude before concluding that the relationship isn’t going to work. One way to be responsible for your attitude is by abstaining from relating your partner as a stereotype.
I believe almost everyone does this to an extent. It’s difficult to banish from our minds the ideas we have about men, women, and humans in general. Even if your partner isn’t a typical male or female, your conditioning can cause you to relate to them based on ideas and experiences from the past. And even when you relate to someone simply based on your ideas about that specific person – rather than whoever they are in this very moment – this may still serve as an impediment to authentic connection.
Practice presence with them. It’s good to start with a relatively casual conversation. Let both parties be innocent – try to enter the conversation without judgment, expectations, or lenses. Who knows what might happen and how you might see the other person if you were to enter the exchange with absolute freshness.
See if you can internally choose when to talk and when to listen. When it’s your turn to listen, don’t think about what you’re going to say next. Just listen. Listen with your ears and eyes and heart. Breathe slowly and fully.
What else is involved in “your work”? Here are some examples:
To the extent that you actively work to resolve past experiences (especially traumatic ones) that infringe on your current ability to show up “cleanly” with your partner, you will benefit.
To the extent that you work to deactivate your “buttons” which cause you to make you react disproportionately to relatively benign behaviors by your partner, you will benefit.
To the extent that you choose to show up in your relationship with as much presence and enthusiasm as you can muster, you will benefit.
To the extent that you take responsibility for your baggage, attitude, communication, and interpretations, you will benefit.
To the extent that you choose to remember and honor your commitment (assuming, of course, that neither party is getting hurt by remaining together), you will benefit.
All these benefits are yours whether or not the relationship survives, and the chances of its survival are so much greater when you’re an active and responsible participant in the above ways. Further, if you’re not in a relationship but want to be, doing your work will make for a healthier relationship when the time comes, and it will also support you to make better choices of who to invite into your life. If you’re not in a romantic relationship and don’t care to be, this work will serve you in all your other relationships, including the one with yourself.
Be well,
Peter
[post_title] => Relationship Repair Part Two: Do Your Own Work
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[post_content] => When a physical gift is given, we see that the person who gives it technically loses something and the recipient gains it. So it’s natural that from witnessing the dynamic of physical giving, we’d conclude that this is how all giving and receiving operates. But the truth is usually the opposite.
Most of what we give is intangible. We give people our love, our hope, our admiration, our blessings ... and also our grievances, our scorn, our envy, even our condemnation. And the rules are quite different with these nonphysical offerings.
First, there’s no loss. Thus, the negative feelings we direct at our fellow humans don’t leave us in the process; instead we get to keep them, amplify them, and steep in them. It’s a bit like pooping in our own bathtub.
Luckily, the same is true of the virtuous gifts we offer. We don’t lose them because they don’t belong to the personality and body we call ME. These virtues are the inexhaustible Light of the Universe, the Divine Love that we are and which wants to be expressed through us. That’s my opinion anyway, and I believe that if you practice this, you, too, will experience it as true.
Second, the giver becomes the recipient. When we direct negative energy at others we are obligated to experience it ourselves. When we attack others with our thoughts, we attack ourselves. But again, this is also true of positive feelings, and they carry a much greater magnitude of power.
So, if you want more peace, lightness, clarity, strength, forgiveness, or love, give it abundantly to others. Maybe you’re thinking, “But I don’t have peace to give to others! That’s why I
want it.” But these virtues aren’t outside or separate from you. You wouldn’t exist without them. They are virtually everything that you are. If you can’t recognize this, it’s not your fault. It’s because, like most people, you have a survival-driven mind that has been trained to hyperfocus on danger, loss, and flaws. And without really understanding the consequences, you have habitually given that mind the majority of your attention. Fortunately, that attention can be shifted, and the mind can be disciplined and transcended.
Our virtues need only to be uncovered and shared. In fact, I would venture to say that we don’t truly know these beautiful truths until we offer them to others. In order to offer them, we must call them up within ourselves. Therefore, making such a gift is an affirmation that we do possess these qualities. As long as we’re reluctant to give them away (even to our enemies) we reinforce the belief that they’re limited, and that more for one means less for another. Giving them away instantly corrects this misperception. Try it. You’ll see.
I encourage you this holiday season (and forever) to do two things. First, make a practice of watching your mind throughout the day. When you catch yourself harboring negative thoughts, shift your attention to something else. Imagine you are in martial arts training and you need to develop laser-like focus. You have no use for mental pollution. Release it. If it helps, you can thank your mind for presenting you with its concerns, but reassure it that it no longer needs to police the world.
Second, give to others the virtues that you wish to receive. Start by silently offering peace or love, or light or vision to those who are closest to you. Notice what happens within yourself when you do this. Then try it with those in your broader community, including the strangers you see on the street and in stores. Then practice with those against whom you harbor grievances, including people you know personally as well as figures in the news and internet trolls. Then try it with the whole world.
We can awaken the planet to a new reality, starting with ourselves.
I offer you love, peace, and lightness,
Peter
[post_title] => DIY: Get what you REALLY want for Christmas
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It was 1985, and just in time for puberty I got some good lessons on the power of Love. I learned that you don’t need money, that it don’t take fame, and furthermore, that you don’t need no credit card to ride this train. However, like pretty much everyone else, I still got stuck on the idea that Love is (1) what you’re obligated to feel for your family members, or (2) the fortuitous result of circumstances being just right.
Given that it’s pretty much the best feeling in the world and one of the prime motivators of human behavior, it’s unfortunate that we often tend to think of Love as an elusive thing. Something to be chased and held onto tightly, something that can be taken away. And, sadly, certainly not something we can experience at will.
Being immersed in a world in which the idea of looking for Love is so prevalent, it’s been hard to break myself of the habit of thinking this way. But I no longer believe it’s true.
About 15 years ago, I was at a meditation retreat, and every once in a while the facilitator would ask a question. No verbal response was required . . . the question was just meant to sink into the consciousness of the participants. One of the questions was, “What is your greatest power?” Whereas most of the questions spurred a stream of thoughts, and sometimes the hope that I had come up with the “right” answer, this one hit me differently. My mind didn’t have a chance because my heart answered immediately. It said, “Love.” And I had a sense that this wasn’t just my greatest power, it was our greatest power.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Why should I care about the realization that you say came out of your heart at some woo-woo meditation retreat? Speak for yourself – my greatest power is that I can shoot fire out of my eyes.” Yeah, yeah. I know what comes out of my heart isn’t as credible as a double blind study in a peer reviewed journal. And if you thought that was woo-woo, let me give you a little perspective. Part of my training in Chinese Medicine was to learn qigong – the art of perceiving, manipulating, and cultivating life energy (Qi). After years of playing with Qi, you don’t question it when your heart talks to you.
Anyway, I’m not asking you to take my word for it, but please hear me out. In the years since then, I’ve kept listening to my heart and I’ve learned a little about Love. I still have a ways to go in terms of living in accordance with what I’ve learned, but I know enough to point others in the right direction. So, here it is.
First, we think of Love way too much as a noun. And Huey Lewis, bless his heart, didn’t help break of this habit. We like to treat Love as a thing. To be deserved, to be earned, to be won, and to be lost.
Love can be a noun – in that it’s a quality of being – but in my experience, it has nothing to do with deserving or winning. Love just IS. Love is our native state. It’s who we are. We can pile on so many beliefs and affectations that we lose sight of it, but we can’t change this most fundamental fact. Our minds may get confused and put conditions upon Love. But Love is always there, within us, able to be accessed at any moment, even when it seems utterly far away.
Now for the verb form of Love. This is where our power comes in. To Love is what we were born to do. Love is an expansion. Love never excludes. And the more we embrace this notion, the richer our life becomes.
The function of a confused mind is to separate everything. When you have the honor of spending time with children you notice how they (especially the tiny ones) haven’t learned to separate everything into countless discrete entities. And when you really see this in them, it’s awesome. Not just because it’s so beautifully uncontrived, but because you know you used to be that way.
But we teach them to separate, with names and labels, and we place such importance on it that Love is a natural casualty of the process. With a million separate words and ideas, and billions of separate people, it’s understandable that we’d think that Love, too, is separate from us.
Maybe you use the word God for what I am calling Love, but I think we’re talking about the same thing, and the same sense of separation between God and themselves exists in the minds of most people who use the word God. When we believe that God, or Love, or whatever word you like, is something separate from us, it becomes a conditional thing in our lives. And we invent the conditions that preside over that relationship.
But, not only is Love not separate from us, Love itself is the mender of separation. Love fills in the gaps that create separation. Like a warm ocean waiting on the other side of the door, the moment we open the places we’ve restricted, Love rushes in, saturating all the parts of ourselves and the world that we haven’t accepted, and in so doing, unites what we tried to separate.
So, I urge you to Love as a verb. When we take deserving out of the equation, we’re suddenly surrounded by an infinite array of Love-worthy people, plants, animals, and stars. And also Love-worthy dirt, garbage, and smog, by the way.
Try silently saying “I Love you” to the person bagging your groceries, to the person who just cut you off and made you miss your exit, to the person on the tech support line who tells you, “I’m going to have you turn off your phone and then turn it back on. Maybe that will fix it.”
But don’t forget about the person whose body you’re renting. That character has been doing so much misguided stuff to get more Love, and all along you had the power to unleash it upon yourself. Go for it.
Love,
Dr. Peter Borten
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Thank you so much for this. We all could stand to read this, likely again and again. I appreciate your words so much. I have been working towards this in my own life, not having it as concretely laid out as you have done here. I really like this especially, “we don’t need to find the goodness in every situation; we bring the goodness to every situation. You are the light of the world, as soon as you choose it.”. May I please quote you? It’s just lovely.
Thanks, Angie. I just read it again myself, not having looked at it for over two years. I agree – I need to hear my own words on a regular basis! Yes, feel free to quote me.
Be well.