Ingredients of Love: Trust

Love is my most favorite feeling in the whole world, right up there with Hope, and with Inspiration. It's the heart of the Divine. To feel loved is the greatest gift, and to give truly unconditional love is the (hardest and) most beautiful thing.

And, loving don't come easy. What makes up love is trust, giving, vulnerability, openness, care, respect, freedom and attention (and many other things). My understanding of love is grounded in Thich Nhat Hanh's simple and profound description -

“There are four elements of true love. The first is maitri: loving-kindness or benevolence. Loving-kindness is not only the desire to make someone happy, to bring joy to a beloved person; it is the ability to bring joy and happiness to the person you love, because even if your intention is to love this person, your love might make him or her suffer. The second element of true love is compassion, karuna. This is not only the desire to ease the pain of another person, but the ability to do so. The third element of true love is joy, or mudita. If there is no joy in love, it is not true love.The fourth element of true love is upeksha, equanimity or freedom. In true love, you attain freedom. When you love, you bring freedom to the person you love… not only outside but also inside.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I am thinking not only of romantic love between two (or more) people, I am thinking of a bigger love that encompasses us all. I am reflecting deeply on my role in contributing to it, and how to open up more to receiving it. Many of us have experienced violence, trauma or oppression, which severely destroy our ability to trust and to be open. I believe that healing is not only possible, it is inevitable. The spirit wants to rise. It is air, a bubble that floats to the surface until it bursts to rejoin the bigger Air it is part of. It is made up of nothingness and of simply being.

So then, to actively support the process of healing, I have to intentionally choose openness and trust over and over and over. I often catch myself contracting, not sure whether to trust, and not sure how to ask for what I need and want, even when I know I am loved. I'm rebuilding trust of myself and my instincts and intuition too, as well as opening up to trusting other people more deeply. The safer default is to withhold trust until it is earned. That is certainly one way to live, and it makes sense why.

But my intuition is guiding me towards another way. This way of living with arms wide open, chest open, heart open, eyes closed looking at the sky and smiling, even though I don't know why. Smiling because I trust that life is good and I am in wonder of it all, of being here and all that has passed and all that is beautiful and new and ancient all at once. Smiling in surrender.