Do You Have Time to Love?

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Mother Teresa

Love is an on-going lesson for most of us.  It’s easy to love the world when things are bright and cheerful.  It’s a bit more taxing to love when life isn’t going your way or better said, when others aren’t doing what you like/want/expect.  That’s where the love thing gets a bit sketchy.  I have been known to LOVE my family, but not LIKE them at times.  Does that make sense to you?  Have you ever felt that way?

LOVE is the bottom line for me though ~ even if I may not like what you’ve said/done, I still love you and in loving you, I accept you for who you are and not who I want you to be in my life.  For example, I loved my Dad who’s passed, but I didn’t like him some of the time.  I didn’t like the things he did and said.  I judged him by his actions and for his lack of actions.  I yearned for his approval, I longed to hear his praise of me, not the praise I heard after his passing by others who knew him.  I wanted to feel rock solid acceptance and love in my heart as a child and as an adult.  Instead, we hung onto a tenuous connection which at times was numbed by our not wanting to rock the boat in our relationship.  So many things remained unsaid and perhaps it’s better this way that hurtful words were not exchanged often.

Because now I realize that even though I said I loved him, I didn’t truly love him as much as I could have for I judged him and he judged me.  It’s been almost 2 years since he’s passed and I’ve come to realize that I now can truly say I love him, without judgement which is a sign of my own healing and a sign of his as well (at least I’d like to think so).  I learned forgiveness.  I learned heart-breaking lessons in love, in compassion and in what it means to love another person for who they are.  To see their good and ‘bad’ points (again, a bit of judging whoops) and to accept them for who they truly are and to love them for their whole package.

We say “I love you” often in our house.  Much like Aloha, it can be a greeting, a tag onto the good bye when someone walks out the door and the exclamation point after the goodnight kiss at bedtime.  Loving my sons is easy for me.  I love the whole entire package without exception.  I accept them for the wonderful beings they are.  So why is it so hard for me to do it with others and alas, even with myself?

I am progressing.  I am learning.  I am evolving.  I am reminding myself when I feel that I don’t like someone or something that I can choose to see the person/situation differently.  As much as change has been hard in my life, I am flowing with the changing of my attitude, my observance of others and my newfound ‘a-ha’ in love.

Imagine if we all were to go with the flow of loving who we are ~ flaws and all ~ and loving each other with that same enthusiasm!  To strive to love the whole package of our being and not just the pieces we deem good or acceptable.  What a wonderful world this would be!

Shine On!

xo

P.S.  I love you! xo

To Handle Others, Use Your Heart

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

It’s nearing the one year anniversary of my Dad’s passing away ~ and we are all grieving at different stages in our family.  It’s interesting to me how life has evolved since he died.  When I can observe our little threesome ~ Mom, my sister and me, I can view how it’s affected us all.  The tentacles of his death have wrapped around each of us in different ways ~ pulling and pushing our strengths and weaknesses ~ all the while, forcing us to grow, to be patient and to be more tolerant and understanding of eachother’s foibles.

It’s been a long year thus far and Mom’s acutely aware of the approaching date which marks one year since he passed away.  In fact, the other day, she blithely stated, “I guess he’s really not coming back,” which caught me unaware.  For you see, in my head, I am thinking, “Of course he’s not coming back Mom ~ he’s dead ~ he’s in that little urn/box at your house…you know this so what are you saying?”

But in my heart, the strings that tie me to her vulnerability, simple croak out in a soft voice, ” I know Mom.  It’s been a long time,” and we bond.  We bond because I know she is just saying what she’s thinking ~ without measuring it against what is known.  She just allows herself to voice how she feels and in that vulnerability, I find empathy, I find understanding…I listen with my heart and not my head.

Isn’t that all we want in life?  For someone to listen with their hearts to us ~ to bond heart to heart ~ even when perhaps we are not expressing the obvious, but the subtlety of how we are feeling?  Instead of being angry at her for not getting it which I know she does, I am lending her a wing until she can find a way to fly again, simply by getting the pain she’s endured since he passed away.

Because she’s been left alone ~ a broken little bird, lost without her other ‘wing.’  She’s been a trooper, living alone for a year when she’d never lived alone in her life.  She’s taken on many responsibilities that she’s never had.  As a team, my sister and I have taken on many responsibilities as well simply because we are a family ~and because we listen with our hearts.

As that little Disney Stitch character says,

“Ohana means family and family means no one gets left behind.”

Today, when handling others, listen with your heart to the words spoken and unspoken.

You make a difference ~ one heart at a time.

Shine On!

xo

P.S.  Mom I’m so proud of you! ♥