Love is a Contact Sport

Should we be needing other people to love us too? Won't we be labelled "needy"?

We are sold a lot of buzzwords about needing folks. You might hear these from yourself or your friends, "I am too needy, I am co dependent, I don't know how to self soothe, I don't want to bother you" etc etc. It is so part of our culture which promotes individualism and independence. (Read up on Eastern Cultures if you want a different world view. Mark Epstein's Thoughts Without a Thinker could be a fun one to check out).

That said, I make a t-shirt line of I LOVE ME tees. The premise was more of a metaphysical one but the one thing that is clear to me, is I LOVE ME vibing or not, we still need to feel loved by others. Love heals but not in a vacuum. This is top of mind for me even more as I am learning to parent my first son and re enter my psychotherapy practice after maternity leave.

We humans are herding animals. We need to be in relationship with others to survive. My son needs my love, touch, holding and nurturing to survive and as adults the need for that same stuff never goes away. I still need it. But we do funny stuff, don't we, when we are looking for love and nurturance and reach for it only to have some folks respond with "OOO what is wrong with you?" or "Hello?" Reaching for love often takes us right back to those most vulnerable soft young places that reached for love and no one was there -so reaching as an adult can feel scary. And what's harder is often we need love the most when our behavior may be the most appalling - we get frantic in the reaching process sometimes. Check out Sue Johnson's book "Hold Me Tight". All kinds of interesting research on adult attachment and our need to bond with others.

So what does all this mean for I LOVE ME and the whole concept? It means I LOVE ME isn't all there is. Loving ourselves is often learned by feeling what it feels like to be loved unconditionally. But who knows how to love unconditionally all of the time? Um, no one. No mother is perfect. So we all get hurt at some point. That, then, is where I LOVE ME comes in. We can keep reaching to others as adults because we have praticed and feel we are entitled to be loved rather than that fear-of-not getting it franticness left over from younger times. In fact, when we pratice I LOVE ME we can tolerate when our loved ones can't love us unconditionally all the time without getting frantic about it. I should point out some folks don't even reach for love - they have given up and stay heady and judgemental of us reachers.

Finally, there is the art of giving love and maybe that is the point of the t-shirts. I get reminded of I LOVE ME but ultimately I am practicing "giving" love. There is a huge component to this LOVE thing that is about giving it. When someone reaches to me and I can give it, it feels so great to be alive in those moments yes?

So...love is a contact sport that requires giving and receiving; giving love to our self and others and receiving love from our self and others and we have to do them all - not just one. The practice is called a practice because it is never done perfectly, probably for our whole life, but what a worthwhile pursuit. It is an edgy one for many of us as we walk that edge of vulnerability - vulnerable to reaching and having no one meet us or vulnerable of giving and the other not fully receiving it or letting it in. ...don't take my word for it - try it out. Start your day off tomorrow by throwing your arms up over your head, let your head fall back and grin hugely while you yell out loud "I LOVE ME". Do it again. Then reach out to a loved one and ask to be loved, for a hug, for support...be vulnerable with them. And finally offer your love to someone...be vulnerable again.

How did it go?