Commitment to a regular practice is not a linear street.
It can feel easy sometimes. And it can also feel challenging.
I have gone through 2 weeks of lower commitment to my regular writing practice. Barely no writing online – some stuff on Instagram (which I by the way deleted recently). Some journaling, but not everyday.
I had less energy in general, and focused my time to things that were nourishing me more — sleeping, eating well, being outside, enjoying the love of a friend visiting.
So now, what do I do? I just start again. Some shame already came say hellllooo and told me you faileeeeed. I see it, I even allow it, and I then I just start writing. I do it anyway.
This is maybe one of the most powerful learnings I had from coaching with Maisie Hill: there is no “falling off the horse”. You can just start wherever you are, again and again. I am still on top of it.
I wanted to write these lines before I get back to the chapters of bell hooks on love. Because sometimes it might seem that on the neighbours garden, all is easy and beautiful. It is not. It is also challenging and tough, and that is, I observe, part of the human experience. Not even a bit less rich and interesting and precious. And lovable!
Communication and honesty feel good!
***
In the following lines I continue with the chapter 9 of “All about Love”.
This chapter is called “Mutuality: The heart of love”. In the times of Chat GPT, where you could just easily get a summary of this book in a few lines (I tried, it is shit) I enjoy even more to do thee artisanal work of reading the chapter myself and self-picking what I find touching – that is my agenda.
I hope your perception of speed (havenotimeforthisletsaskchatgptinstead) has not been so altered in the last few days and you still can read on this blog with maybe a cup of coffee or tea (but this is totally not obligatory hehe).
So, mutuality hm? It has to do with sides. One side there, one side here. hooks reminds us that love happens when, in a relationship of any kind, both parties are willing to love as the order of the day. Love has to overpower power so that it can flourish.
The essence of this thought in two quotes I wrote down:
“On this planet nobody really has the opportunity to know love since it is power and not love that is the order of the day. (p.152).”
And:
“Love will not prevail in any situation where one party, either female or male, wants to maintain control”(p.152).
Once we enter the space of relating to others – which is basically happening all the time if we think of the extended communities we all live in, from the supermarket cashier to our mum — we have to chance to practice love.
And the practice of love, bear in mind, “offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. Ww risk being acted upon by forces outside our control. (p.153)”
But there is not practice of love if we do not choose love as the way to go — as what we want, even if we are not sure what it means. We might know it because we read a book or, hopefully, because we have experienced that ourselves in the childhood or through the presence of other loving beings in our life.
As adults, we might struggle to commit to love and really understand that mutuality is its essence. In our society, people tend to think love is a gendered issue. Women learn about love, they are more prone to openness and compassion, so love is just more their thing. hooks reminds us many times in a row that this kind of thought only creates harder dynamics of power. Women and men in any kind of relationship – heterosexual, homosexual, you name – are able to express and experience love.
We might have to outgrow our pain.
We might have to learn how to communicate.
We might have to learn how to listen.
Love is not a place we enter and all turns into butterflies and flowers. It is a space that allows healing as much (and maybe even because) it allows pain. Accepting pain is part of a practice of love, says hooks.
“False notions of love teach us that it is the place where we will feel no pain, where we will be in a state of constant bliss. We have to expose that falseness of these beliefs to see and accept the reality that suffering and pain do not end when we beging to love. (p.159).”
I love practices. Structuring and thinking about practices is a big part of my work. And as any other practice, the practice of love takes time and energy. But it is also gives us so much. I would dare to say that it even gives us more time and energy.
Another point hooks highlights in this chapter is that love makes us want to give more. I enjoyed reading the quote below, and I will split it into a few paragraphs so you can read it better:
“Generous sharing of all resources is one concrete way to express love. These resources can be time, attention, material objects, skills, money etc. Once we embark on love’s path we see how easy it is to give.”
“A useful gift all love’s practitioners can give is the offering of forgiveness.”
“It not only allows us to move away from blame, from seeing others as the cause of our sustained lovelessness, but it enables us to experience agency, to know we can be responsible for giving and finding love.”(p.163).
Giving is also the base of mutuality, the base of common growth in all kinds of romantic relationships. And mutuality is a way, so says hooks, to “heal the gender war rooted in struggles for power” (p.164). “Women and men (can) choose to make mutuality (as) the basis of their bond, ensuring that each persons growth matters and is nurtured (p.164).
Generosity and our ability to give is a powerful way of connecting to joy in our life. Just as it is a powerful teaching on love itself
“A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers – the experience of knowing we always belong (p.164). “
Mutuality is the heart of love as the name of the chapter says. Giving, being generous with one another is the call to action of this chapter. “When we give something to someone”, says Sharon Salzberg in the opening quote of this chapter, “we feel connected to them, and our commitment to the path of peace and awareness deepens” (p.145).
Let us be guided by mutual generosity. Give the resources you have – and you can even start today with one of the most powerful one: the ability to listen to others without judgement.
If you want, let me know how it goes.
Otherwise we meet here again for the next chapter on “Romance: Sweet Love”.
I appreciate your time, dear readers! Thank you for being here!