Love Revolution
Hello lovelies,
I recently listened to a conversation between the insight meditation teacher Tara Brach and Valarie Kaur, found of The Revolutionary Love Project. Both of those humans are embodiments of love and presence, and one of the lines that Kaur spoke has been with me ever since: We practice in the spaces between us.
She was speaking about the huge project of creating a new world order based on LOVE, and the sense of overwhelm and impossibility that often accompanies that vision. After all, many people have been trying to create a world that honors all beings for thousands of years, and many of the most vocal love revolutionaries have died for it. It's sometimes hard for me to believe it's a viable dream at all.
And yet, when we practice in the spaces between us, we are creating that world, one moment, one relationship at a time. How we treat one another--especially when times are hard, especially when we disagree, especially when we're triggered or scared or have competing needs--has wide and resounding ripples. And part of what I love about living in community is that it gives me ample opportunity to practice meeting even the trickiest relational dynamics with an open heart and healthy boundaries.
But in order to do so, I've learned that I need to practice in the spaces within MYSELF. The more I practice showing up with kindness and care for parts of me that are embarrassed, pained, or ashamed, the more natural it is for me to show up for others in the same way. I think this is partially because I am teaching my nervous system a new way of responding to emotional discomfort, whether it's within myself or between me and another person.
But it's not just that. When I offer nonjudgmental lovingkindness to parts of me that feel uncomfortable, I am actually healing deep wounds. These wounds are often knotted up with shame and subterranean stories about my unlovability, but when I bring my own loving presence to them, they begin to believe that they are not shameful or unlovable after all.
However, when relational dynamics trigger untended wounds, it is very hard for me to engage with an open heart. Instead, I react. For me, reactivity most often looks like fawning, or doing whatever I can to make things okay, and my own needs become irrelevant. I just want the discomfort to stop.
For others, go-to reactions may look like blaming, fighting, running away, or dissociating. And over the past eleven years of living in community and eight in a committed partnership, I have seen an abundance of it all.
While some of those reactions have caused folks to leave our community in a huff, I have witnessed beautiful transformations and deepened intimacy every time we've shown up for conflict as a gateway to healing and growth. Our processes for working with conflict at Full Bloom have shown me that, no matter how sharp someone's canines might appear in the heat of a struggle, something deeply tender and vulnerable almost aways lies beneath the growl.
Again and again I've discovered that when we create a safe container to sift through the stories and judgements that brought us into (perceived) battle, we inevitably come into contact with the aching parts our reactions were efforting to protect, however clumsily. Canines shrink, swords are dropped, and we can now address the real concern: the wound, itself.
As so many of our pain points began as relational wounds, doing this reparative work in the context of relationship and community can be incredibly powerful. So we practice in the spaces between us with loving presence, shadow work, and nonviolent communication skills. As we grow in our capacity to do so, we can expand our practice circles to encompass our broader communities.
My deep hope is that, as more and more of us practice in this way, loving connection between one another and the earth becomes the foundation upon which our societal structures are built. A pipe dream, maybe, but it's one that so many of us share.
So let's start with ourselves. Right here. Right now. Let's get so comfortable turning toward our own perceived imperfections and self-judgements and wounded parts with kindness, curiosity, and care that we're not thrown off our rockers by others' reactivity. Let's practice in the spaces WITHIN OURSELVES so habitually that it becomes second nature to approach others in the same way. Let's build such an unshakable foundation of love within and between us that it becomes the ground that connects us all.
THIS is revolutionary love.
In love and community, xo Bex
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P.S. Beginning in March, I will be facilitating Soul Skills for the Love Revolution, a monthly online new moon gathering. Each gathering will focus on a "soul skill" inspired by that new moon's archetypal themes and will include guided visualizations, freewriting/art, sharing, tarot, and an embodiment practice.
You can sign up for the whole series or drop in as you wish. And, if you are a member of our Patreon Community, you get a tier-based discount. I'd love to see you there!
P.P.S. If you’d like to listen to a recorded Self-Lovingkindness meditation, check our our latest Patreon post!
