Love Will Keep Us Alive…and Well

Try This: Peel a carrot. Take your time. Watch the bright orange emerge beneath the orange-brown surface. Optional: Eat the carrot.

Wellness Check
Andrea Gibson
In any moment 
on any given day, 
I can measure 
my wellness 
by this question:
Is my attention on loving, 
or is my attention on 
who isn’t loving me?

What does it mean to love? Should love make you feel warm and at ease? Or should it make you feel anxious and defensive? The answer seems obvious, but for all the love within and around us, we often find ourselves feeling rejected, abandoned, unloved. For many of us, those bad feelings take over sometimes and lead to mental and emotional anguish.

What Gibson’s poem asks us to do is shift our attention: instead of focusing on the pain of feeling unloved, focus on the abundance of love you have for other people, animals, things, places, activities, etc. It’s a shift from defense to offense. You’re not so caught up in worrying about how much people love you. Instead, you’re looking for ways to give love.

In a way, it’s like our recent post about fear and gratitude: when you’re feeling fearful, shift the focus to what you’re thankful for. Similarly, when you’re feeling unloved, shift the focus to what and who you love.

What does this look like? Let’s look at some examples…

Someone you really admire and like doesn’t seem to notice you. Or maybe they’re friendly but distant, clearly not interested in being your good friend. When this happens, you might have a couple of possible reactions: a) hating yourself for not being “worthy” of their attention; b) trying to force yourself into the person’s life, wearing them down until they “can’t help but love you”; or c) hating the person for not behaving the way you want them to behave.

Obviously, none of those responses are great for your health and wellbeing. Instead, shift the focus. Enjoy the good feelings you have about the person, but let that person be who they are. When you do this, you will probably feel an immediate change in your state of mind: from urgency/anxiety to calm. You can’t control how someone else responds to you, so savor your ability to feel love for them–and let go of expectation.

Maybe there are people in your life, whether you know them or not, who actively don’t like you and probably never will. Maybe you’re part of a minority group who suffers from the discrimination, misunderstanding, and intolerance of others. You could make yourself miserable by focusing on the people who don’t like you. Or, you could shift your attention to those you love. Love them. Be grateful for them.

Note: This does NOT mean that you can’t work to change prejudice and intolerance. You can educate, you can set an example, you can be involved in the community, etc. You can do all of these things with a love-focus rather than a defensive focus.

You’re in recovery from addiction or mental illness, and you know that some of the people in your life judge you. They may make snide comments, keep themselves at a distance, or hound you with advice for how to be different and “better.” Some of the people may be friends or family members. You love them, but you know they will never be able to love you in a healthy way. The solution? Love them, but do so from a distance. Don’t try to talk them out of their feelings. But don’t let them bully you either. Focus on the people who do love you back and love you well.

To repeat: where you put your attention makes all the difference. In this way, the “lesson” is very similar to our previous posts, Hell I and Hell 2, in that you can create heaven or hell for yourself based on what you pay attention to.

IMPORTANT: This advice is meant to provide comfort and peace. It does NOT mean it’s okay to ignore problems in relationships. It is also NOT meant to justify codependent behavior, in which you sacrifice your wellbeing to make sure the other person gets everything they want.

You may still need to have difficult conversations, set boundaries, and detach emotionally from people who habitually and intentionally hurt you. It’s just that your focus has changed from “me v. them” to something a little more balanced. You’re not hell-bent on proving yourself right or proving that you’re a victim–you’re focused instead on honoring your needs while also honoring the genuine love you have for the other person. Your intention changes from “must win this argument” to “let’s use the love we have for each other to repair and rebuild.”

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