by John Welwood
If strong resistance to the pain of unlove comes up and becomes an obstacle, it’s best to shift your focus to the resistance itself. Resistance is understandable: It simply means not wanting to feel this pain. So you can acknowledge the resistance and give it room to be there as well. The pain and the resistance can each have their own space without having to cancel each other out. After making a separate space for the resistance to be there, you can then come back to the pain and continue working with it. Or if the resistance remains intense, then you can practice unconditional presence with it instead of with the original feeling.
Steps 1–4 may be enough to learn and practice for a while at first.
5. If you feel ready to go further, see if you can open yourself to the pain of unlove directly, letting down any barrier you may be maintaining against it. Can you open your heart to this pain, as a present, bodily felt experience? If so, see what that openness feels like.
6. A more advanced step: Having opened to the pain, now let your awareness enter right into the center of it. See if you can relax or let go into the sensations and become one with them. How does it affect you to be present right in the middle of the feeling that’s there?
Summary: Acknowledging the feeling is like meeting it. Allowing it is letting the feeling be there as it is. Opening is like opening a door to it and facing it directly, without turning away or shielding yourself from it. And entering it is like walking through that door and taking up residence right in the center of the feeling. If you can work with the sense of unlove in this way, it will help you tolerate that feeling and realize that you are bigger than it, and therefore no longer have to live in fear of it.
OWNING YOUR ANGER OR HATRED
Be aware that you may not be ready for this exercise at this time. People often need to work with their grief and hurt for a long time before they are ready to deal with their buried anger or hatred. If this is true for you, it is important to respect that. In that case, work more with the previous exercise.
It’s also important to distinguish between allowing yourself to feel anger or hatred and acting it out against others. This exercise is simply about helping you to let yourself have the feeling. It doesn’t imply that you must express these feelings to anyone. (Communicating anger can be important at times, but doing that in a productive way is a dedicated practice that is beyond the scope of this book.)
1. Think of a grievance you have toward someone in your life (for example, your parents or a lover who has not treated you well).
2. Can you acknowledge your feelings of anger or hatred toward that person? Don’t focus on this person’s crimes but, rather, on the sensations of anger or hatred in your body. Acknowledge these sensations without becoming carried away by judgment or stories of blame, guilt, or shame. If those stories come up, gently put them aside and come back to the bodily feeling.
3. Give the anger or hatred plenty of space to be there. It’s like a fire—if you keep the fire enclosed in a small space, it becomes like a pressure cooker that wants to explode. You can take the pressure off by opening up space around the feeling and allowing the anger or hatred to expand into that space. The feeling can expand to fill the whole room, the whole neighborhood, or the whole world. Breathe deeply. What is it like to let it expand out into space instead of keeping it compressed in your body?
This might be enough to do at first. If you want to go further:
4. Let the hatred have a voice. As though you were holding a microphone up to the feeling, invite it to say what it hates. You could repeat the following statement several times until you have expressed everything that is there: “I hate it when . . .”
5. Notice how you feel once you have given the hatred a voice. Does any sense of clarity, strength, or power become available? If so, open to that and feel it in your body.
Chapter 4
DEVELOPING UNCONDITIONAL PRESENCE: LETTING YOURSELF HAVE YOUR EXPERIENCE
This process is described more fully in chapters 3 and 4. In chapter 3 and the exercises for that chapter, it is presented as “meeting yourself in the place of unlove.” Here it is presented in a broader way that can apply to any feeling. The four main steps are acknowledging, allowing, opening, and entering.
1. Choose some experience in your life to focus on that you’re having difficulty with.
2. See if you are willing to turn toward this experience and explore how it affects you.
3. How does it feel in your body? Pay attention to the sensations and where in your body you feel them. Acknowledge what you’re feeling, just as it is, meeting it directly, making contact with how it feels in your body. (This is like saying hello to it.) What is it like to contact and acknowledge this feeling?
4. Having acknowledged the presence of these sensations in your body, see if you can then allow them to be there, giving them plenty of space to be just as they are. Hold the feeling in the space of awareness without:
reacting to it,
judging it,
trying to change or fix it,
getting caught in it,
identifying with it,
making it mean something about you, or
hardening against it.
Let yourself soften around it as the sky holds a cloud, without resistance, simply letting it be, or like a mother holding a baby, with gentleness and caring.
What is that like? How does it feel to allow it and give it space to be there, just as it is?
That might be enough to do for right now. If you want to go further:
5. See if you can open yourself, open your heart, to this feeling, letting down any barrier between you and it. Open directly to the sensations that are happening in your body. Pay attention to the feeling of the openness. What is that like?
6. Having opened to the sensations in your body, let your awareness relax and enter directly into the center of them and be one with them. This is like taking up residence there, coming alive in a place where you are usually shut down. What is it like to inhabit this feeling with awareness?
7. Does anything new become available (such as relief, peace, expansiveness, groundedness, strength) when you allow, open to, and inhabit the feeling? If so, acknowledge and open to this new feeling that has emerged through this practice, paying attention to how it is in your body. This will help your body become accustomed to it, integrating the new experience.
SAYING YES TO YOURSELF
This is a shorthand version of unconditional presence, which you can apply in the midst of your daily life situations.
Every day, at any time, you can simply notice what is happening in your experience, touching it lightly with your awareness: “Yes, this is here right now: I’m afraid . . . I am giving myself a hard time . . . I’m disconnected from myself,” and so on.
Don’t try to manipulate your experience or arrive at some better place. Rather, simply touch your experience, like putting your finger on a touch-screen computer. Contact the experience with your awareness and let it be as it is. If you start to judge the experience, you can touch that too: “Yes, I’m judging myself right now. Yes, I’m having a hard time accepting myself right now.” Touch it and let it be. There’s no need to make your experience right or wrong. It’s just what is right now, neither good nor bad in itself.
A slight variation of this practice is to let yourself open to and be touched by what you’re experiencing, rather than actively touching it. Let it touch you and then let it be. This may allow further softening toward what you’re experiencing.
KIND UNDERSTANDING FOR YOURSELF
This exercise can help you let go of grievances you hold against yourself.
Consider some way that you get down on yourself, give yourself a hard time, judge or hate yourself.
What’s the grievance you have against yourself?
Notice how it feels to hold on to that grievance, how it affects your nervous system. (For example, does it make you anxious, contracted, subdued, or depressed?)
Conside
r how the problem you are judging has developed out of not feeling loved.
Recognizing that, see if you can hold what you’re judging in kind understanding, as though you were a wise, all-knowing, all-compassionate parent, teacher, or friend.
What words of understanding would this wise one say to you?
How do those words affect you?
To conclude, see what it feels like to hold your judgment of yourself in an open space of nonjudgmental awareness.
LOVING-KINDNESS
I am including two loving-kindness exercises here that involve saying certain phrases silently to yourself while in a contemplative mood. These phrases are not meant to be autosuggestions or positive affirmations. The purpose is not to fabricate or crank up loving-kindness, but to let these phrases resonate within you and to explore the experience you have while repeating them.
Begin by sitting quietly and taking a few breaths. (If you meditate, you can do this practice as part of a meditation session.) Say a phrase silently a few times and then just let it resonate within you before going on to the next phrase. You can repeat the set of phrases as many times as you like.
LOVING-KINDNESS PART ONE. The first exercise is more psychologically oriented; it is directed toward the wounded place within yourself. This can be especially potent at times when you’re feeling your wound, your vulnerability, or the pain of unlove. You can also speak each phrase directly to the wounded child within you, if that helps.
May I feel loved.
May I know that I am held in love.
May I know that love is my intrinsic nature.
LOVING-KINDNESS PART TWO. The second exercise is more spiritually oriented, because it involves encouraging yourself to live in the space of the open heart. On the inbreath, breathe into the heart center, in the center of your chest, and then say the phrase silently on the outbreath. Say each one a few times before moving on to the next. After saying each phrase a few times, take a few breaths in silence, letting yourself feel what it evokes. (These phrases are taken, with minor adaptation, from Ezra Bayda’s excellent book Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life.)
1. May I dwell in the open heart.
After saying this phrase, sense what is there. If you feel heart energy, openness, or warmth, let yourself experience that. If you feel nothing, let that be, and repeat the phrase again on the outbreath.
2. May I attend to whatever clouds the heart.
After saying this, notice any obstacles to the open heart that may be present, such as impatience, fear, irritation, apathy, resentment, or judgment. See if you can simply extend the warmth of loving-kindness toward these mind-states, like letting the sun’s rays touch the clouds in the sky. Don’t judge or try to correct anything.
3. May I be awake in this moment just as it is.
This is a more general encouragement to say yes to whatever you are experiencing. After speaking this phrase, simply be aware of whatever sensations, perceptions, feelings, or thoughts are present right now, letting them all be there just as they are.
4. May the heart in all beings be awakened.
With this phrase, have a sense of extending loving-kindness to all beings. You are doing this by wishing that their heart be awakened, that they gain access to the open heart—which is the source of true peace and joy. You can start by thinking of someone close to you, wishing this for that person. Then you could extend that out to all beings, especially those who are suffering, lost, or disconnected from themselves. If you like, you can imagine specific populations on the planet who are suffering or acting out aggression.
5. May I dwell in the open heart.
You can end the practice by repeating this first phrase again.
Chapter 5
IDENTIFYING OBSTACLES TO RECEIVING LOVE
This exercise involves a repeating question to help you see what obstacles you have to receiving love. As with the other repeating-question exercises, it is best done in pairs. If you don’t have a partner to work with, you can ask yourself the questions, pause to contemplate them, then answer aloud or by writing in a journal.
One person asks: What’s scary about opening to love and letting it all the way in? The other person looks within and then answers in a sentence or two. Then the questioner asks again, and the responder answers again. There is no other dialogue during the exercise. This process continues for 5 to 10 minutes.
The questioner and responder change roles.
Once you have identified your deep fears about letting love in, see if you can hold these fears in the space of loving-kindness. Be the space of awareness that holds them in warmth and openness.
OPENING TO YOUR LONGING FOR LOVE
This exercise helps you experience the energy of your longing as a way to open up your capacity to receive.
Notice some way in which you feel cut off from love right now.
How does this separation from love affect you in your body?
In this feeling of separation, notice if there is any longing to be more connected with love.
Now turn toward this inner longing and let yourself feel it directly.
Open to the energy of the longing as an experience in your body. Drop all focus on the outer object or on ideas about fulfilling the longing. Stay with the energy of your deep wish for love. Let that longing touch you.
What happens when you open to the longing? What’s your experience?
Chapter 6
ABSOLUTE LOVE PRACTICE
This is a condensed version of the practice presented in chapter 6.
1. Settle into your body. Spend a few moments settling into your body and taking a few deep breaths.
2. Acknowledge your separation from love. Acknowledge some way in which you feel cut off or separate from love in your life. See how the lack of love feels in your body and feel that directly.
3. Feel the energy of your longing. In the place where you feel separate from love, notice your longing to feel more connected. Acknowledge your desire to be held in love, to be loved as you are.
Open to the pure energy of this wish or longing without focusing on trying to get anything from anybody in particular. Feel the energy contained in the longing and let your attention rest in this bodily feeling. Sense the natural desire of the heart to abide in all-embracing, pure love.
4. Open the heart and crown centers. Feel the energy of your longing in your heart center, in the center of your chest. As the energy of the longing stirs, notice any way your heart seems to come alive or open. Let your crown center, at the top and back of your head, also become soft and receptive. Feel this receptive openness in both the heart and the crown centers.
5. Let yourself receive. Notice the desire to receive love that is contained in your longing. What that desire is essentially saying is, “I want to let you enter me.” Let yourself acknowledge and feel that yes to receiving.
As you open to receiving, check and see: Is there any presence of love at hand right now? Don’t think about it or look too hard. Rather, sense this very softly, very subtly: Is the presence of love available right now, is it anywhere at hand? Don’t imagine or fabricate anything with your mind. Don’t make it up. Simply experience what’s there.
If there is some sense of warmth or love at hand, let it enter you, let your pores drink it in. Feel the cells of your body bathing in the presence of love.
Give yourself plenty of time to be with whatever you’re experiencing.
6. Let yourself melt and let love hold you. Feeling the presence of love, let yourself relax and melt into it. Let yourself be held by love. Soften the boundaries of the body and feel what it’s like to melt into this warmth.
Can you feel love as a gentle presence that holds you, allowing you to relax and let go? Instead of having to hold yourself up, let love be your ground.
MAY YOU BE HAPPY
This simple practice for extending loving-kindness to others is taken from the book Tonglen by Pema Chödrön, an American Buddhist nun. (This book contains many ot
her valuable practices and discussions of loving-kindness and compassion as well.)
Here is the practice as Pema Chödrön describes it:
Walk down the street, perhaps for just one or two blocks, with the intention of staying as open as possible to whomever you meet. This is a training in being more emotionally honest with yourself and being more emotionally available to others. As you are walking . . . have the feeling that the area of your heart and chest is open. As you pass people, you might even feel a subtle connection between their heart and yours, as if you and they were linked by an invisible cord. You could think to yourself, “May you be happy,” as you pass them. The main point is to feel a sense of interconnectedness with all the people you meet.
Pema advises noticing without judgment the thoughts and feelings that arise as you pass each person. Notice whatever you go through: fear, aversion, judging, shutting down, or opening up. Be kind and nonjudgmental toward yourself in this process as well.
This can be a good practice to do whenever you find yourself judging or blaming someone. Let that judgment be a reminder to say silently to that person, “May you be happy.” This is a great act of compassion for yourself as well, as it immediately reduces inner stress.
Acknowledgments
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK my wife, Jennifer, as well as my editor, Eden Steinberg, for editing the manuscript and giving me helpful suggestions, and also for their enthusiastic support of the book. I also want to express appreciation for the students and clients I have worked with, whose struggle to find, honor, and open their hearts has been a source of inspiration and learning for me. Finally, I want to acknowledge Arnaud Desjardins for the chapter on absolute love in his book, Toward the Fullness of Life, which was one of several influences that originally sparked my engagement with the themes of this book.