Learning to Love: Change

Yesterday, we had a memorable dinner to celebrate my parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary!!! (…talk about learning to overcome everyday hardships, to distill love, borne from patience).
Anthropologists argue that man is, by ‘’nature, monogamous, but only for an approximate seven years at a time (corresponding to those, needed by children to develop to the point of no longer needing taking-care-of). Anyone aspiring to a marriage “till death do us part”, requires ‘supernatural’ help, hence marriages, before God. My parents thusly, learned to muscle virtue and have lasted sixty years together! Of course it hasn´t been easy. Challenges, worth overcoming, never are. However, it is these daily conflicts that give us opportunities for growth. To wrestle with them we have to ‘change’.
The debate about ‘change’, whether it be ‘immanent’, ‘permanent’ or just ‘potential unfolding’, has been going on since Aristotle through Hegel, Kant...to the present day. Do we actually ‘change’ or is it just the unraveling of personal development? Can we ‘change’ our essence? Does ‘change’ depend on free will or is it conditioned by ‘nature’? Can a loved one actually ‘change’ to overcome his innate shortcomings and transcend his ‘natural’ imperfection? Can we trust that our giving second and third chances to those who have let us down, will actually make a difference? What does ‘change’ depend on?

We all have loved ones who have collapsed the inflated expectations we had of them, through disillusion. Can we ever expect them to ‘change’? If so, how much longer must we wait? (I would like to believe God would say “Forever. That´s why I made eternity”…but it may just be wishful thinking).

I was impressed with the number of people asking these same questions, at a workshop in self-growth, I gave, recently. Their main concern was not about themselves, but about loved ones caught up in mediocrity, ignorance and self-deprecation (or should I say ‘de-prickation’!). These innate ‘care-takers’ have been trying, over and over again, to love loved- ones who feel unworthy of ‘ being loved’ and just end up rejecting  help. It is this dejection that seems to have them ‘give up’ and harden to loving, cynically responding to it with sneers of disbelief (I know, because I have been there!)
My parents have mutually let each other down, over and over again, but have both held tight to their ‘ideal’, confident of change. It is this ‘unwitting trust’ that Love is made of. It’s about ‘believing ’patiently, over and beyond evidence, in the potential of our Higher Selves. It is about trusting ‘change’.
My tendency to ‘doubt’, till Science and evidence proves ‘otherwise’ , strongly objects to such belief in ‘change’. People ‘are’ as they ‘are’ and their acts speak for themselves. Such doubting renders  anything else, a ‘wishful projection’.  However, having myself, been one of those loved ones who rejected loving, for whatever reasons  and ‘changed’, I now stand up for the silent dis-believers, confident that they too, will ‘change’. My parents’ example is my avowal and evidence that proves change is possible.

 

Learning to Love: Order

The popular aphorism, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”, reminds us of the importance of counteracting the entropic tendency of everything going to chaos. We have to consciously, put effort into reverting this disintegration, by putting order. It dispenses energy and continual effort.
I have kept myself busy (and out of trouble) cleaning closets, painting walls and doing spring cleaning, these last days. It is not only good for the house, but good for my body (Reverend Mother always said, that the best exercise was doing housecleaning!) and my soul. It discharges dirt, disorder and negativity, depression or guilt, making way for singing!
My Mother’s Puritanical upbringing got me into the healthy habit of keeping everything clean and orderly; of arranging and re-arranging things for everything to have its place; of picking things up immediately after use, so as to avoid cluttering; of continuously giving things I don´t use, to someone who may need them. However, I don´t obsess about it.  I like to think our home is clean-friendly, where my rat-like nature has me saving everything; the cat and dog get on the furniture to share with us and eating is allowed in the ‘living’ room. Ceremonials on Christmas, Halloween, Easter…bring change to our daily life with re-organization of the furniture and routines.
Making a ‘home’ in a house is a full-time job. It hopefully, makes your loved ones want to be there. So it is important to keep a stress-free ambiance to allow them to relax. Not only dirt, but screaming and fighting have to be actively avoided. I was shocked when the sex-workers I gave HIV tests to, told me that husbands who bought their 'favors', frequently blamed the conditions they lived at home, for their wanting to avoid it. Rituals from shamanistic and religious settings help cleanse such negativity. In the Carmelite Monastery we would cleanse every room before sleep, going through them in choral prayer with a lit candle, incense and bell. It holds true for homes. Peace has to be borne from the heart.
Not only the home, but the body has to be cherished and cared for. Even the astral aura can be cleansed (not necessarily with shaman flowers or eggs!) but a simple shower after a nightclub or a rough day. One always picks up negativity, from people in angry or stressful situations such as traffic or endless queues.
In loving, it´s always good to shower together before love-making; perhaps a bath. At least wash your hands before touching!
I feel so ‘re-lived’ when I clean. It´s even better than confession, because you are left with tangible ‘ordi-nation’ and makes you feel ‘good’…worthy of being loved.

Learning to Love: Rage

L´earning to Love-

Gloria Ornelas Hall.

 Rage

My Dad is sick and loving him can only come from Dylan Thomas’ call to: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

 Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Learning to Love. Bonding

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Bonding

Life is bound by a meshwork of relationships. Relationships between higher and lower orders of life; chain reactions; empathy; dependence and co-dependence; homeostasis; cause and effect… Bonding is about linkage between these relationships…the contract (in small print!) that binds all life unto unity.

Bonds differ. There are tight-knit tissues in the network of the Mystical Whole. There are loose ends. There are holes and gaps; ‘see-throughs’ to nothingness.

People are the cells…relationships are the articulating construct…feelings are the receptors that bind. Like in cells, there are specific ‘gages’ that ‘engage’ with specific other cells. So, feelings link us to others, either, attracting or repelling. Some, relate in tight fitting networks; others, with laxer spacing. (Tell me, who has been married several times, bound with all sorts of different contracts).

Feelings are then basic to unify me’s into us.

Unfortunately, our society disregards educating the heart to feel with constructive bonds. Rather, we are taught to respond with feelings that destroy… such as hatred, envy, meanness. So, the social tissue of life cannot expand awareness unto another level of consciousness till we learn that I am US; that I am incomplete without you; that to know you is to love me; to know me is to love you.

We have to learn to master our reactions to feelings.

Now, feelings are not emotions. Feelings are the reactive response of sentiment to what we feel on the outside.

Emotions, as their Latin etymology implies, are the motor of passion within.

The first, respond to external stimuli. The latter, respond from the soul, within.

Feelings then, are a response set off by external stimulus. They are basic for survival. They are the body´s language that responds and alerts us to external conditions. We decide how to interpret, and respond to these stimuli.

Emotions are what moves us from within. They come from passion, not from reason. They are borne of the soul, not of the mind.

Virtues are the muscles of the spirit that willfully control response. They are the response to reason.

All feelings are immature forms of love. They are determined by our perception, rather like colors through a prism. Therefore bonding with feelings, may make our links to other people, weak and unstable, though with time and consistent usage, bonds will grow stronger.

Emotions are our unconscious response to CONFLICT. They are the filters of the passion that moves us from the soul.

Will is reasoning controlled by decision-making, from the mind.

Virtue is inductive bonding of the spirit..

PD- Did you know that oxytocin, a peptide that stimulates uterine contraction, is called the ‘monogamy molecule’ because its sensitivity to ‘touch’ stimulates mating, grooming and cuddling in both sexes?

Learing to Love. Reparation

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Lesson 24: Reparation

Man has always punished vice, crime and sin, be it as retaliation from he who was wronged, as correction from the family, as justice from the State, or as penance from the Church. However, underlying excessive punishment is always vengeance and retrieval.

With the New testament, the old Mosaic injunction “thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” was reverted with a new law, the law of forgiveness. In His sermon on the mount Christ said, “Ye shall resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also”. The new law is about loving and forgiving our enemies. Princess Mary says to Prince Andrew in War and Peace, “Forget it and forgive! We have no right to punish”.

Saint Augustine said that God rightly punished the sins he committed for “every disorder in the soul is its own punishment”. Hobbes describes it with a theory that “intemperance is naturally punished with dis-ease; injustice with the violence on enemies; cowardice with oppression”. Freud said that seeking punishment was the psyche´s way to find relief from guilt.

In an unjust society, we may have to bear the injustice of punishment for resisting the state, in refusing to obey laws that go against our conscience as did Socrates, Gandhi, Thoreau, Oscar Wilde and so many self-governing leaders.

My plight with sin, whether real, fancied, or karmic, lead me to the Monastery, a sinner in penance; to becoming a social fighter, for meritorious indulgence; to co-dependent relationships, for joint reparation. This self-assigned injunction from love, held me restrained from inner joy. Here, the underlying wrong was the pride of making my sin larger that God´s forgiveness and rejecting Love. With the recent avowal of love from my fiancé 30 years ago, I vindicated my innocence and my right to accept love and for the first time experienced inner joy. It took me almost 60 years!

Reparation (from the Latin re-parare- standing up again) is not only for the wrong-doer but for he who allowed it. It is about conscious awareness of wrong-doing and the conscious decision to re-dignify our Higher Selves. We have to repair the damage done, not to benefit others, but to get ourselves back on our feet and hold our heads up high.

When I was young one of my teachers slapped me in front of the class. Smugly, I turned the other cheek and she hit me again!!!! My classmates were shocked and called me ‘stupid’ for my reaction and for letting it go without sanction. Forty years later, out of the blue, she contacted me and after exchanging life experiences, she said she was sorry.
What other way of loving is there?

Learning to Love. Stillness

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Stillness

Without inner silence you cannot hear the rustling in the trees. To know where the winds are coming from, we must first hush inner turmoil. ‘Anguish’ (from the lat.: angst-narrow) is the distress that suffocates us when in stress. ‘Anxiety’ is inner confusion that blinds the soul. Both come from fear. Uncertainty leaves us grappling aimlessly with no leverage or control. This helplessness renders us fearfully dependent upon destiny.

All we can do is trUSt. We have each other to hold on to.

How can we deal with this tension?

Breathe in, inhale deeply and exhale slowly, releasing the tension. Be here and now. Don´t fuss about where it´s coming from or where it is going. Let it go and be still. Don´t follow thoughts that fly across your mind. Like birds passing by, be aware of them but don´t get hung up; let them go. Don´t think. Don´t feel. Just breathe; rhythmically, slowly, deeply, and be still. It is when you are ill (dis-ease) that you must be still (and take it easy).

A peaceful mirror of water comes to mind, when the dregs of confusion have settled. If ‘sticks and stones’ aimed at you, stir that peace, don´t fuss. You are not your thoughts. You are not your feelings. You are not what others see of you or how you are described. You are not your actions or your mistakes. Center within, and anchor deep into your Higher Self. That is when you gain consciousness of your true immanence. Everything else can wait.

It is within this stillness that we can truly listen. Music is made from such silence. Such perception allows us to know the Truth. An example comes to mind, from one of my patients who couldn´t stop hating herself for not having heeded to her son’s cry for help, before he committed suicide. We often hear what we chose to believe, minimizing dangers and blowing up self-justification. It happens in love. We see and hear what we want to believe in our lover, often overlooking alarming signs of trouble. It is often easier, requiring little effort or personal risk. If we are still, our perception is cleaner and clearer, with greater fidelity. Free from wishful thoughts and judgments; from feelings of fear or desire, we are open to receive others as they are. Loving them thusly, is accepting them unconditionally. We must first empty self from ego.

Now that I know the stillness of the heart, I can hear my heart leap and skip a beat when it falls in love. I wouldn´t miss it for anything. It is the rhythm of life.

Learning to Love. Timing

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Timing
Eternity is unconceivable without time. Our understanding of time is linear, based on past events, through the present, on to an envisioned future. This thought process allows us to understand ‘cause and effect’, and anchor our perceived reality to factual evidence. However, the subjective experience of ‘depth, breadth and height’, which is the way love is measured according to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is a vertical thought process.

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Time is determined by Einstein's theory of relativity, where mass and time are interconnected, affecting planets and their orbits. It is also determined by the cultural impact their measurements and equivalences have on calendars. In the Chinese lunar/sun calendar, the year 2013 is 4709, the Year of the Dragon and will end on February 9^th. For the Ethiopians we are in 2005, since their calendar is made up of 13 months starting from the Annunciation of the birth of Christ, and will change on September 12^th. For the Hebrews, this 5773 started on the sunset of the 16^th of September 2012. In the Buddist Thai calendar we are in 2556. For the Burmese we are in 1375. For the Hindu calendar we have to add 3102 years to 2013- 5115. The Islamic year 1434 started on the 14^th of November. For the Tibetans this is a feminine year related to Water and the Snake. Our Gregorian calendar, most widely used, was set by decree in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, based on vernal equinoxes which lose 11 minutes every year, restored by  ‘leaping’ a day every 4^th  year, in February. In all cases time is relative.

We each have a personal timing for development, maturation and death. Our internal clocks are not only set by diurnal or nocturnal variations but by the seasons, the lunar changes and our own internal unraveling. Take me, for example, with a fiancé I rebuffed thirty years ago, who has now re-appeared in my life. I had pending dues with destiny, then. Now, my timing is right.
Decisive events in our lives set individual parameters to measure the impact of pain and success. Fate takes no notice of time. Life would be unbearable if it were not broken down into minutes and seconds. Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965) said “It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”
Loving makes time bearable and eternal. Its memory prolongs the joy of youth and the hope of innocence. It´s never too early and never too late to love.

Learning to LOve. Cherish

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Cherish

‘Cherish’ is a word introduced into the English language during the Middle Ages, from the French, meaning cheri- dear. This lovely word of ‘endearment’ evokes the sweetness of cherries, the tenderness of fondness and that romantic song the 60’s http://youtu.be/cCEVwtIPAlU.

When I sit in silence with my chest of memories evoking images that I can feel, smell and taste all over again, I have to go through them and throw away the ones that hurt, before being able to cherish them. It’s a process, similar to that of cleaning out the memory in my computer. It is as simple as ‘deleting’; much easier said than done. ‘Letting go’ to ‘forget’ requires detachment and re-engineering of the wiring in meanings.

I’ll give an example from one of my patients, a young woman repeatedly punishing herself with the painful reminder of a past abortion. She couldn’t accept it or get it out of her mind. We went over the many ways that decision had changed her life, rescuing the alter benefits she had had, such as her career and financial success. She had in fact, married a wonderful man with a son from another marriage. Trying to piece the synchronicity of her life ‘re-member-ing’ isolated events and re-engineering new meanings into the flow of events, we realized that her step-son was engendered around the date of her failed pregnancy. She came to terms with that amazing coincidence giving significance to the possibility of destiny playing a role in her life as a mother. She chose to believe that perhaps it was the same ‘soul’. It didn’t matter if it was true or not, or if it made any sense to those around her. It made her feel better with herself and that made all the difference. She could let go of her self-destructive remorse and love again.

The word ‘memory’ comes from the lat. -mem- which is a unit of stored information. Electric impulses literally form DNA with the protein coding of our ‘memories’, in neurons of the human cortex. These are stored as disarticulate ‘bits’ of information. When we retrieve a memory we ‘re-member’ the isolated parts of the input and give it a personal subjective meaning. This pattern of inter-connected neurons can be rearranged by will, through conscious decision-making and cropping. This is the principle behind neuro- linguistic programming. We decide what we think. We create our own meanings.
Now, the axons and dendrites leading to these memory-neurons are activated from the skin, with muscular and skeletal response related to them. We can release the energy trapped in pain through touch and movement. Massage, dancing, love-making all give relief, through release.

After choosing to let go of the memories that hurt, I can focus on those that make me re-live moments of love. This endearing re-experiencing generates new love which can be channeled to emanate good-will and direct well-wishing to our loved ones. This type of envisioning can envelop our cherished ones, through time and distance, with re-kindled, unconditional love.

Try it!