Chapter 48: It Takes a Valiant Effort to Love
It is time once again to Stew on this! It takes radical valiance for me to stand in my own sense of worth so I can give and receive love fully.
It is “Presidents Day” here in the US, an interesting segue from Valentine’s Day two days ago. I hope you are not terribly disappointed, but this chapter is more about Valentine’s Day.
I hope the day was beautiful celebration of love for you. I hope today is as well!
There are several theories on the origin of Valentine’s Day. The most prevalent is that Emperor Claudius II, who ruled Rome from 268-270AD, decided that single men made better soldiers than married men. So, logically, he outlawed marriage! A priest named Valentine rebelled against the ban and continued to perform weddings. He was promptly martyred and later granted sainthood.
That bit of history has nothing to do with this chapter, but it is cool, is it not?
Whatever its origin, I have long advocated using the holiday not just as a once-a-year celebration of romantic love, but also as a reminder to love self. I have even suggested sending ourselves a Valentine’s Day card!
I am sticking to that same theme in this chapter.
The name Valentine shares the same origin as the word valiant. The root of both words means “be strong” or “be worthy.” Valiant has evolved to include courage and determination as well as strength.
This is all amazingly fitting, because it takes tremendous strength, courage AND determination to love, whether in my romantic relationship or in the one with myself.
It takes radical valiance for me to stand in my own sense of worth so I can give and receive love fully.
Valiance is required because I still sometimes base my worth on “what I am not” rather than on what I am. I base it on the content of the life I have rather than the life I Am; on the reel rather than the real. I base it on other people’s opinions of me and their reactions to me, how much of things I have, how much I am doing, and generally whatever is happening in the latest film running through my head, rather than on the Truth.
Valentine’s Day is a reminder to be valiant and to love myself, not based on any specific reasons, pro or con, but simply because it is my job to nurture my human and to give him the sweetest, most beautiful experience of life possible.
I choose to be valiant and love myself simply because I am a unique, magnificent expression of Universal Intelligence, a child of this Universe.
I would love to stand in that awareness like a lighthouse, shining my light through the storms of the world as well as the storms within my own cranium. Alas, I have not achieved sufficient valiance to remain there all the time. And that is OK.
My focus is more practical: to return to that awareness as soon as I realize I have lost it. It is through repeatedly coming back “home” to the Truth that I learn to base my worth on It.
To do that, I intend to exercise my valiance by turning the other cheek.
For me, this does not mean being submissive or passive or apathetic. It does not require me to be a patsy. Indeed, it means the exact opposite!
“Turn the other cheek” reminds me that if someone or something knocks me off center, I choose not to react to it from that same level of consciousness. No matter what, even if I am “right”, I can first (re)turn to the “other side” of my being and respond from there. I want to turn my cheek to the “part” of me that can never be hurt without my permission, that is always at peace, that only knows the Truth of what I am – to the “place“ in my consciousness where Universal Intelligence and I are one.
That is where my ability to express love lies! And (re)turning to it with as little resistance as possible is true valiance.
Nonresistance to my own wholeness and worth is my highest vision of valiance. Resistance only causes more heat. I prefer going gently down the stream to the island of peace in my soul, to my heart, where the cooler breezes blow.
My strategy for getting there? When I recognize conflict, I use that as a reminder to go to my heart and ask myself, “what is blocking me from seeing, remembering, and knowing my own worth? My wholeness?”
It is a great question, because if I really knew my own worth and wholeness in that moment, there would be absolutely no need to take things so personally, to get angry or defensive, to shut down, or to have an uncontrollable need to be right.
I have often chosen being right over being valiant or loving. Perhaps especially with Hillary. I wonder if that is why Jesus picked the “right cheek” as his hypothetical place to get “slapped!” It is way more difficult for me to remember or to demonstrate my worth and wholeness when I become convinced that I am right and she is wrong.
I cannot remember a single instance when I felt good afterward about choosing being right over loving, or a single instance when that choice helped either of us to get our needs met. So, we both have worked long and hard to loosen our necks and open our hearts, so turning the other cheek has gotten easier.
We still sometimes lapse into the “who’s right game,” but we play it with more humor, lightness, gentleness and respect. And we leave the game and return to love much more quickly.
Hillary and I apply a lot of blissipline to help remember that we are NOT each other’s adversary. With valiance, I can also practice not being my own adversary.
Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, said, “The art of peace is the principle of nonresistance. Since it is nonresistant, it is victorious from the beginning. It is invincible because it contends with nothing.”
In Truth, I have nothing and no one to contend with. I have no adversary, except perhaps my own forgetfulness, the blind spots I still have to my own wholeness and worth. When I only contend with those, there is nothing to get defensive about, nothing to fight, and nothing to resist, because as soon as I remember my highest truth, there is only love.
Thinking I cannot love myself because of my blind spots is like thinking the sun is not up there on a cloudy day. Withholding love from myself because of past choices or behavior is not valiance. It is just another way for me to forget.
With valiance, I can take care of my human as my own greatest ally. When my blind spots show up, I can then listen for my needs. Empathize with myself. Appreciate myself. Nurture myself. Affirm my wholeness and worth.
I do not have to wait until next Valentine’s Day. Every morning, I intend to look in the mirror and ask, “Will you be my valentine?” And no matter how I am feeling, I intend to respond with a resounding, “YES!”
I am as valiant as anyone. I know that you are, too. As we express more love for ourselves, we become more valiant. And as we become more valiant, we become more loving. And we can take more of that out into the world.
Stew on that, and I will see you next time.
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