Unconditional love and support - The ultimate guide to connection
It happens at times when we try our all to be there for someone we feel could use our support and with all kindness and loving intentions we invest, and invest, and keep investing, in hopes of yielding some results, some reassurance that they are receiving, some hope that they are healing but then start experiencing anger and resentment when we feel like we have gotten nowhere.
That anger and resentment is not a bad experience, and although can result in fear and pushback can also be an opportunity for self-reflection. Anger is the result of feeling at a loss of control, after we’ve done all to lead someone to comfort and reassurance, how can they simply pull away further? Anger is telling us that we care and that we did not succeed in what we intended to bring. Anger is expressing that we need to do more and the tension our body experiences is a fight to find other ways to get to where we are trying to go.
Take a moment to reflect on that anger, take a moment to feel it in your body. Where do you notice it coming from, where is it sitting the most, how is it changing what you typically know as comfort? All of these indices are simply physiological changes leading to discomfort but the way we chose to interpret them give them a meaning that makes the difference between resentment and curiosity.
When you notice that you have tried and tried and not achieved what you have hoped, when you feel like you are stuck and finding it hard to know where to go, it is often because we don’t know enough, we don’t have enough information, and we have reached our capacity of exploring through what we already know.
This is your opportunity to ask questions, to get curious. What if we are using the wrong approach, what if what we know to be support is not quite the case for some else. If we think of human nature and the basics of the nervous system’s functioning, we respond based on what we know, we behave based on what we’ve learned, we can go to extremes and pull out our biggest most powerful tools, but they are still those that we have been exposed to.
What about all the other things we have not been exposed to, what about all of the world’s mysteries we have yet to see, if a sibling can grow up with different perspectives and worldviews, can we only imagine what it can be like for someone that comes equipped with their own baggages, their own traumas, their own experiences, and their own fears and exposures? And yet, we judge ourselves for not knowing how to bring comfort and reassurance in every moment.
Let us be curious with one another and let us explore, rather than unconditional love and support can we try curiosity of needs and what we can do to show up for someone in the ways that best reflect our intentions.
What love means to you might be very different to them but this by no means stops us from learning how to meet their needs while meeting ours and respecting boundaries on both ends.
May curiosity drive you to places you could have never imagined to exist…
image shot at Ara Ha
