Do you need true love for your mental health?

“Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.” - Mary Oliver

Dear Friends,

Hope this finds you smiling and at ease.

There is a strong relationship between love and our mental health. Don’t you think?

For me, this is certainly true. When I’m in love and feel loved, I feel well. When I don’t feel in love or connected, or don’t feel loved, I often feel unwell. This need for love and to be loved, feels like such a deep, ancient need within.

But we can’t just leave our love, and hence our mental health, to chance can we? Should we allow our wellbeing to sway, to rise and fall, with external circumstances and be affected constantly by the people and situations around us?

Or can we practice loveful living? Where every moment in our lives, with every person we encounter, we can cultivate, generate and feel love, connection and wellbeing, even under less ideal circumstances?

My assertion is Yes We Can! And my invitation to you is let’s together try the Best We Can! Here’s how.

It starts with understanding what True Love is

“Friendship after love, is like sunshine after the sunrise.” 

- French couple I met who were married for 40 years.

I grew up learning that Love = Romance. This deep wiring came from those love songs on 98.7FM and 93.3FM, the Hollywood and Disney movies, the TV shows, the Shakespeare plays etc. It meant that to love was to give my whole life to another, and to possess 100% of your partner. Love meant to have no arguments, or that everything can be solved/ conquered as long as love is around. Love meant to please, to provide everything to the other. Love meant making love. Love is unconditional, unshakeable… it is forever. 

Cue Journey’s song, “I’m forever yours…… faithfully.” :)

Then Life happened, and reality shattered this concept of Love for me. Over 4 decades, I had five failed relationships. My heart was further broken by the passing of dear loved ones: my grandma at 10, my good friend at 15, my dad at 20. In the pain, I hoped for something beyond romance when it came to love. I was lost and needed something deeper and wider to rely on.

One day in 2013, at a retreat in the small village of Waldbrol in Germany, amongst 2000 mostly Europeans from all ages and religious backgrounds, an answer was offered to me. It made me cry in gratitude and remains strong in me till this day. I would like to offer it onwards to you, for your consideration.

True Love has four elements (1). They are capacities that we have within ourselves, that we can cultivate and grow endlessly through practice. Without any of these elements, we cannot call it True Love. They are:

• Loving Kindness. This is the capacity to bring friendship, happiness and gentleness to each other. A good metaphor (2) is the sun at midday: shining brightly and warmly on any object. If we cultivate our endless ability to be kind and gentle, we can bring that warm energy to anything and anyone we meet.

• Compassion. This is the capacity to bring deep listening, understanding and relief to the pain and suffering of each other. A good metaphor is the sunset, meeting the darkness of suffering with tenderness and care. There cannot be True Love if we cannot be there for each other through difficult times, and to support each other in transforming that difficulty into deeper connection, wisdom, patience and opportunity. 

• Joy. This is the capacity to bring celebration, humor, joy and laughter to each other. If our beloved only frowns, fights and cries when we are together, how can it be True Love? A good metaphor is the sunrise, bringing light and freshness to everything in its path.

• Inclusiveness: This is the capacity to grow our love to include others more and more. A good metaphor is a full moon night: steady, calm light that embraces all without discrimination. Nothing in life is permanent, including love. If it is not nourished, it dies. If it is nourished, it grows. As love grows, happiness becomes less and less an individual matter, and together we can embrace our loved ones, our enemies, those who are in need, Mother Nature and all beings. This makes True Love an amazing adventure, much like how the great poet Rilke realized:

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

Understanding True Love in this way feels more truthful, good, and beautiful doesn’t it? Imagine a person who is strongly radiating these four qualities: don’t we just want to be with them? 

It is also much more actionable, as it opens up so many ways to practice and cultivate our loveful living muscles. It blew my heart wide open.

Love your way in, love your way out.

How many elements of True Love are present or absent in your relationship with yourself and with others? 

With this understanding, here are some short practices that have worked for me in cultivating my capacity for True Loveful Living. You are welcome to try them, and experiment also with other ways that may work for you.

• Cultivating Loving Kindness. Finding a quiet place, I sit down comfortably and put a hand on my heart, and follow my breathing for a few minutes to establish myself in the present moment. When I feel calm enough, I allow a clear image of someone I love dearly to arise in my mind, as vividly as possible. I then allow my natural wish for her/his/their well-being to manifest into words, and say them out or silently. It may be words like these:

May you be safe and healthy. May you be free from pain.

May you love and be loved. May you be happy and joyful.

May you be peaceful and surrounded by warmth. 

May you be comfortable and smile always….

With that warm feeling from the wishes, I then repeat the same words towards myself, wishing myself well. Self-love is so important. If there is time, I can also then redirect that energy of loving-kindness to all those who are suffering in the world, sending well wishes to them. When it feels complete, I open my eyes and be mindful to carry that energy with me to the rest of my day’s activities.

• Cultivating Compassion. The next time I hang out with a loved one or a friend, I come back to my breathing to establish mindfulness in the present moment. I then tell myself that today, I will listen deeply to this person, with only one objective in mind: to understand her/him/them and help relieve her/his/their suffering. I will try not to interrupt, not to argue with her/him/them, even if I disagree with what is said. I will offer my full presence and listening, to both what is said and what is unsaid, ask open questions of concern, and just hold the space for her/him/them to speak from the heart. I have found such an intention and practice of even just 10 minutes to be very powerful and beneficial, both for the other person, and for myself. 

• Cultivating Joy. Practice celebration of little things in life, and practice laughing at ourselves, at each other, at events around us. I like to practice seeing the preciousness, the cute and the funny in someone, in a situation, even if it is sometimes difficult. Being able to make fun of each other is a sign of closeness, of humility, of eyes that slowly see both the light and the dark, hence closer to the truth, in any moment.

• Cultivating Inclusivity: Grow your love for one another by practicing consistent giving together with your beloved. It does not have to be huge charitable giving. The best gifts often require little material wealth: volunteering for meaningful causes together, joining a community garden, supporting mutual friends, smiling, cooking a healthy meal for friends and family, co-facilitating a support group etc. Giving widens our circle of love, and nourishes us in return. 

It has been 8 years since I encountered this new understanding of what True Love is, and tried to practice my capacity to live it every day.

I’m not perfect at it, but it has brought so much more consistent peace, understanding, spaciousness and gentleness to my life, into my relationship with myself, with my loved ones, and with the Earth. A warm sigh of gratitude arises as I write this sentence. Sigh. The Beatles were right. All we need is Love, Love is all we need. True Love, that is.

I deeply wish that you have True Love, and will be Truly Loved.

I deeply wish that you have loveful living, and let that Love overflow to all those around you.

Thank you for reading, dear friends. Do share any creative True Love practices you have!

Warmly,

Will

Footnotes
(1) Grateful to the great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village for this wise teaching.

(2) Grateful to Bhikkhu Analayo for poetically offering metaphors of True Love using images of the sun