“The capacity to respond to non-love with pure unconditional love is the clearest measure of your spiritual awareness. Each of us is genetically wired with shadow frequencies that cause us to ‘contract’ whenever we feel frightened or vulnerable. This means that each of us has specific ways that we deal with perceived threats. Being able to see these patterns of behaviour and alter them is a critical piece, perhaps the critical piece, of our spiritual evolution.” Francis Klein and Manny Bartolome
My dear friends Francis Klein and Manny Bartolome, whom you might know from the Transforming Through Love Community of Love page, have given us a great gift by publishing the above quote. I especially appreciate their discussing the idea of non-love.
Non-love is the opposite of love. Love melts and unites hearts. Non-love hardens and separates hearts.
I found this wonderful quote in a description for a spiritual tool Francis and Manny created and listed in one of their online stores. Their words resonated so strongly within me I couldn’t not share them with you.
I ask you to reread the above paragraph and allow what you’ve read to light up some of the ways you unconsciously withdraw when you feel emotionally threatened.
Maybe you find ways to blame your beloveds instead of looking at how you’re not honoring them and their needs. Maybe you say a series of loving things to convince your partner you’re in it for the long haul before the familiar fear kicks in and you can’t physically or emotionally get away fast enough. Maybe you isolate yourself for days in the emotional cave that keeps you away from the true connection with others your heart wants most. Maybe you’ve come up with other ways of being non-love.
So how’s that working for you?
We’re being asked these days to choose to be non-love or love. We’re being asked these days to choose to expand our ability to love way beyond any previous experience.
Is it comfortable? Ha! Is it transformational? Yes!
Have you ever committed to being love to someone who is doing his or her best to present as non-love? It might be initially challenging to counter the distancing of others without taking it personally. Maybe they treat casual acquaintances much better than they treat you. Maybe they don’t smile at your or make eye contact with you. Maybe they counter your daily lovingkindness with daily criticism.
It’s not personal, even though it can feel very personal. Anything that isn’t love is an acquired defense response, and acquired defense responses can frequently be loved away.
As Instigator for The Love and Kindness Initiative, I have engaged with dozens of people during the past six months who have convinced me strangers don’t exist. All I’m doing is saying thank you to kind and loving people without expecting specific reactions. And it’s a rare day when I don’t give or receive at least three or four hugs from people I would have called strangers six months ago.
Our hearts are now connected, and it feels wonderful for us all to grow a community of love. When I am unconditional love with others, they become unconditional love with me and who knows how many others they will see long after I leave.
I’m promoting engaging with good people who appear to be non-love but want to return to being love. I’m promoting engaging with good people who’ve been deeply hurt, good people who’ve shut down their hearts, good people who want to trust again but don’t know how. You know who I mean. I’m promoting engaging with people who exhibit acquired defense responses, people who might be a lot like you. And becoming unconditional love is becoming more spiritually aware.
To see my friends’ Francis and Manny’s work, I invite you to visit https://www.etsy.com/shop/emannyb and
https://www.amazon.com/handmade/piecesoflight
If you want another reason to become unconditional love in the face of non-love, I invite you to consider the words of the Dalai Lama:
“Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger. Instead of getting angry, nurture a deep caring and respect for troublemakers because by creating such trying circumstances they provide us with invaluable opportunities to practice tolerance and patience.” The Dalai Lama
Look for love and kindness in your part of the world.
Say thank you to the people who are being love and kindness in your part of the world, and don’t forget to say thank you to yourself for being love and kindness.
And watch how wonderful it feels, as a result of your choosing to be love and kindness to those who present as non-love, to experience the growth of more love in our world.
Let’s do this together.
Copyright 2019 by Sheryl Hirsch-Kramer. All rights reserved for any future use.
