WHAT IS LOVE, LOVE AS A PRACTICE

It is always up to us to expend the energy it takes to act with love in accordance with the grace we are given. Thus, love is a practice. We do not have to strive for love; it is in us already, but it takes
practice to show it. Some specific ways of practicing love are by showing what I call the “five A’s”: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. These are the components of love
that make a relationship a truly caring connection. They can be directed toward ourselves and others.

• We pay attention with an engaged and sustained alertness to the needs and feelings of ourselves and others, both by listening and by awareness of nonverbal cues. We are genuinely interested in who we and others really are and what we/they feel.
• We accept ourselves and others just as we are, free of judgments or censure. At the same time, we are discerning. We acknowledge the appealing side of ourselves and others all the way to the top and the unappealing side all the way to the bottom, while love continues unchecked and undiminished.
• We appreciate, or value, ourselves and others. To value people is to cherish their worth. It is an unconditional worth since it cannot be damaged or erased. It is not based on behavior, history, successes, or failures. Appreciation also includes acknowledgment of the good that others do and thanking them and of the goodness they are and praising it.

• We feel and show affection by caring for our own bodies and by respectful physical touching of and intimacy with others, according to what is appropriate within each relationship.
• Allowing does not mean granting permission to show personal liberty. It means welcoming the full expression of someone’s deepest needs and wishes. We can do this for ourselves as well by making our own choices with unabashed alacrity. We are not trying to squeeze or squash ourselves into a persona—or a spiritual practice—that others may find appealing but does not fit us. Our practice is opening to who we are and what we are ready for.

We may wonder about the difference between allowing and accepting. It helps to compare their opposites: the opposite of allowing is controlling; the opposite of acceptance is rejection and
judgment.

Allowing is supporting someone’s choice even if we do not agree with it. Allowing does not always mean accepting, but accepting always includes allowing. For example, a father may not accept
his daughter’s eccentric, artistic personality, but he does not criticize her for it or stop her from pursuing it. He supports his child’s choice to go to art school by paying the tuition, even if he would
prefer her to have chosen a more conventional career.

Acceptance is about welcoming personality traits; allowing is about supporting the choices and lifestyle that follow them. Allowing also involves welcoming the full emergence of all that someone really is. Preventing full emergence results in more than a personal loss. It is a blow to the purposes of evolution itself, which requires everything each of us has in every era so it can progress.

Compassion, caring, respect, and all the other forms of love are not left out of our description. They can be described with the same five A’s directed toward specific needs. For instance, compassion
is the response of the five A’s to pain. Caring is their expression of concern. Respect is the way they honor individuals and their boundaries. Trust is their expression of reliability.

We can use an analogy to understand the origin of the five A’s. To have a healthy body, we require sustenance from food groups: whole grains; fruit; vegetables; dairy; and protein from meat, fish,
or other sources. Each of these groups targets different systems in the body, such as muscle, skin, blood, bones, and so forth. Each is a necessary building block of a healthy body. If one is missing, there is a deficiency that can cause illness.

Likewise, we require specific forms of love that build the systems in our psyche. The five A’s, like the food groups, are not arbitrary. Each of them is a specific and necessary building block of our psychological makeup. If one is missing, we feel the deficiency, and a part of us suffers. Here is how each A contributes to our psychological health:

• Attention is necessary so that we can be known. This makes it possible for us to express our needs and have others understand them, early in life by our caregivers and later by our partners or loved ones. If people did not pay attention to us, we would feel isolated, and we would not trust ourselves to show others what we need and receive appropriate responses. Attention from others supports our sense of being recognized and having power.
• Acceptance is necessary so that our unique qualities, both positive and negative, can be granted hospitality. Without acceptance, our true self has to go into hiding. We doubt our talents and singular gifts. We also doubt that our shadow side can be befriended and become a source of creativity. Our self-esteem cannot grow unless our full self is validated. Acceptance by others supports our trust in ourselves as having a lot to offer the world.
• Appreciation is necessary so that our contributions can be recognized and received with gratitude.
Without appreciation, we feel that we are taken for granted. Our actions and words fall flat and have no impact. This damages our sense of power and self-confidence in the world around us. Appreciation from others supports our sense of our own value.
• Affection is necessary so that our bodies can feel held, honored, and cherished. We know that physical holding contributes to the development of the brain in early life. We also know that touch gives us pleasure and comfort throughout life. Without holding and affectionate touching, our bodily sense of self-worth suffers. Affection from others, caress by caress, supports our pride in our body.
• Allowing is necessary so that we can experience the freedom to live in accordance with our deepest needs, values, and wishes. Allowing also shows us we can move out on our own when the time is right. In adulthood, allowing means being able to pursue our dreams and move as we wish in the world without being judged, controlled, or inhibited by others. Allowing by others is what supports the journey archetype. An archetype is a familiar and universal theme in the collective
consciousness of humankind, expressed in stories and myths, that describes a human energy, potential, and purpose.

It is curious to note that the plots of fairy tales often hinge on deficits of the five A’s in relationships. For instance, the story of Sleeping Beauty is based on a lack of attention to one of the princess’s
godmothers. Hansel and Gretel lack acceptance by their stepmother. The Beast in Beauty and the Beast lacks affection.

Cinderella lacks appreciation. Snow White is not allowed to be as beautiful as she is and live. In each example, the story has a happy ending, because someone comes along who makes up for what was missing. As adults, we understand that we are primarily the ones who must serve that purpose. We cannot expect to be rescued, but there are wonderful people who love us by showing us the five A’s that save us from isolation and despair. The one thing to remember is that those who give us what was missing in our past also show us what was missing. That combination of fulfillment and grief can be hard to hold, so we have to be patient with ourselves.


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