Why do we withhold Love?
By Ellen Luksch
- Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Is there possibly a good reason anywhere, at any time that I would withhold love from myself and beyond that from anyone? I asked myself this question a few years back for the first time. I saw how I frequently withheld love from myself through judgment. It was the punishment I gave myself for my “shortcomings”, for not meeting some bar of perfection for my performance. I was not even fully aware of what the criteria were for a “job well done” yet I always seemed to know when I had fallen short. I lived in fear of not being enough. There was a part of me that was always on alert, always watching and evaluating. It often found me lacking. I saw how, subtly and not so subtly, I withheld that same love from others based on how they performed. Had they met my expectations? Had they become the person I needed them to be?
All of this went on below my conscious awareness. I did not know that I was withholding love. I did not realize that I was punishing myself. I was only doing what I knew to do. I was only doing what I had formulated was right and reasonable given the belief system in my head. It did not matter how it made me feel. It did not matter how my body responded to the upset. It was what I knew and apparently it was not much different from what other people did to themselves because I never felt out of place in that way. People may have thought I was too hard on myself at times but they were often just as hard on themselves. And if they weren’t? Then they were less self-aware.
It was a process,·not believing my critic. First, I became very aware of the negativity lost within the chatter that was constant in my mind. I paid attention to the dialog more carefully, finally using the “watcher” to watch myself watching myself. I noted aspects of my chatter that surprised me. I noted aspects of my chatter that were consistently taking the low path. I noted how I created unhappiness with my judgment and then saw how I became more aware of the “flaws” of those around me. My beloved became a problem when I was a problem to myself. When I was happy, he seemed so fine. When I was upset, my mind could rapidly create a story about how his behavior was related to my inability to…
The person who was rarely angry and never judgmental actually had any number of angry and judgmental thoughts and opinions. At first, I held this awareness against myself, particularly because I could not make it stop. I could not control the critic, at least, not for long. Now it simply does not matter. It has stopped being my identity and has become background noise that often makes me laugh. “I don’t really care” was a mantra I used to respond to my critic. It is simply an interpretation of my mind about emotional memory. It is hardly “me”.
The emotional reactions gradually gained my acceptance. They are ancient survival responses that get amplified by my mind or judged and strangled. Now I can simply make the space in my body for that emotional energy to move and it transforms. The outcome of that transformation??? Peace and joy most often follow. It is simply a creation that assists me in the formation of compassion. Once compassion became the favored response another channel of feeling was restored. Now I could feel Life flowing through me continuously. It was a current of energy, now amplified, that felt blissful. Gratitude became an easy way to accentuate the flow. Unrestrained emotional energy opened doorways to joy I had forgotten. Quiet witnessing opened the channel to heart wisdom. I became what I desired, what I had sought. I no longer choose to withhold love but instead choose to shower it upon myself and all of the beloveds in my creation. The “watcher” is beginning to catch on.
For Giving
My mind knows fear
And recalls every instance she has
Interpreted as painful.
I forgive her.
It is what she knows.
She wraps me in yellow
Caution tape.
It causes my body to ache
Even as it makes her secure
For that moment.
Her words are:
What if,
Be careful,
Because,
Why me? Why now?
When? How?
She punishes the rule breakers.
I love her.
It is what she believes.
My heart knows freedom.
She sings to me of a place
Beyond memories, experience or time.
She is forever, for always,
Forgiving, for life.
I surrender my conclusions to her.
In the silence, she responds.
I rejoice in my becoming,
In my coming
Home.
My heart breathes acceptance.
She forgives me.
It is what she knows.
EC Luksch 12/01/08
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