24. Love is the ultimate healer
‘Love conquers everything, even death.’ You’ve probably heard it (many times) before. And yes it sounds good, doesn’t it? So you may wonder: is there more to it than just sounding good and ever in a while, maybe, also a bit cheap?
◊◊◊
I think it has been heard and used so many times that in the end, while thinking ‘sure it does’, we have become immune to its real meaning. So I want to ascertain, to me and to you, its ultimate truth.
◊◊◊
In order to ‘know’, one has to ponder about: what is this ‘conquering love’?
◊◊◊
To me, it is a question of ‘being’. More so: wholeheartedly being there. Love is being fully present in this world, to other people, to one particular person, or to anything or everything. A bit surprising as it may be to some, this is about having ‘deep attention’: letting things or people come to you-as-total-person as they are, accepting them as they are, therefore not wanting to change them in their essence (also by sometimes being open to change at the surface).
◊◊◊
One cannot have ‘deep attention’ without oneself being fully present. So it is also always a deep communication and invitation to the own ‘deeper self’, and thus to oneself as a total person, to be there, to exist in the world as fully as possible. This is: to live, to be healthy and strong, to be whole and ‘healed’ in the best sense of the word. In the unity of body and mind, this health and healing is also of body and mind. Not just simply a part of mind, but the whole mind, therefore also the total person.
◊◊◊
Please don’t take this out of its context. Love doesn’t fit in any kind of pill or other mechanistic ‘thing’ or even ‘idea’. Love is not a dosable healer. There are no tricks or shortcuts. If you are looking at it as a solution to a problem, then you are not looking at love. Also if you are expecting the cure of an illness as proof, then you are not looking at love. It doesn’t need, nor want to prove itself this way. It goes far, far beyond that.
◊◊◊
In my catholic upbringing (I respect all religions as well as non-religions), the phrase that struck me most is related to this: ‘God is Love’. And another: ‘God is the Ultimate Healer’. This cannot be put more clearly. Its truth goes beyond words. If you feel it, you know.
◊◊◊
It may be the most important truth to all of us.
◊◊◊
Related Posts
Landscape of Empathy
This drawing is an attempt to make appropriate distinctions in a complex reality around ‘empathy’. Terms that are used to point towards the distinct parts – as always – contain arbitrariness. Disclaimer Please take this with a grain of salt. The drawing is a metaphor to make some things clear while other important distinctions are Read the full article…
The Middle Way of Dialogue
Dialogue: speaking while listening and listening while speaking. Dialogue strengthens. Unfortunately, there seems to be a growing lack of it. Speaking while listening Non-verbally, deeply attentive: showing yourself in your listening. It helps the other to speak well and thus it also helps your listening. Listening while speaking Straightforwardly: seeing the other ‘speak while listening’. Read the full article…
There is Still a Dire Need for More Empathy in Leadership
Good leadership is mostly defined as empathic, yet we frequently end up with a non-empathic, ‘coercive’ one. May this be related to ignoring the unconscious? Although a lot of science proves the importance of the unconscious, to many it is ‘the alien inside’, which provokes anxiety when there is even a possibility to have to Read the full article…