Learning to Love: Growing Relationships with God and Others

I was scrolling through Instagram yesterday and came across a short video of a man interviewing a couple that had been together for 42 years. In one of the answers to a "what's the secret" sort of question, one of them said "your attention is your love". This statement of course rang quite a few bells for me. I immediately began thinking of attentiveness in prayer and in meditation. I began thinking of being truly present with the one your with and listening deeply. Early in recovery, I learned I would not only need to establish real relationships with other people but that I would also need to form, maintain and grow a relationship with a Higher Power of my own understanding - however limited that understanding may be.

What does it mean to share a love for our Higher Power or to have love for our fellows? Relationships, of any kind, were never really my strong suit prior to recovery. Of course, I was a champion at "situationships" - these sort of quid pro quo entanglements that I would stay in as long as they served me well. But actually experiencing, nurturing and growing a relationship was beyond my capacity as a self-centered alcoholic.

The Christian Mystic’s View of Love for God and Others

Saint Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Carmelite, wrote of offering our focused attention in prayer as an offering of love for God. By disregarding the outside world and our own desires and agendas for a time, we can participate fully in our relationship with God. For Teresa, loving God meant offering all of oneself - mind, body and heart - in such devotion. This same expression could be carried through to relationships with others.

Julian of Norwich, a 14th century theologian and mystic, wrote of God's presence with us and in all things - even in our suffering. In our attempts to do the same for others, our actions can be a reflection of God's love for us. Reflecting God's compassion for us toward someone else is yet another way we can show love with our attention. Julian wrote extensively about the necessity for - and gift of - having a compassionate heart. Being truly present with and for someone else is a wonderful way to express compassionate awareness and to embody a reassuring presence.

For the 16th century Carmelite friar, John of the Cross, attentiveness and self-forgetfulness were two primary requisites for establishing a true and fruitful union with the Divine. The same two goals would translate to any relationship - divine or not. He wrote extensively about true love being expressed in deeds not just feelings or words. In our attempts to grow closer to God and to others we practice "forgetting" ourselves and focus our attention in the direction of the relationship.

A Buddhist View of Showing Love for Others

One of the Six Paramitas (Six Perfections) in Buddhism is Dana Paramita - or, the perfection of giving. In this paramita, we practice giving to the other. But what can we give?

• We give our True Presence. In our time spent with the other person, we offer our presence, our listening, our attention without distraction. In giving our True Presence, the person we're with understands we value them and our time spent with them. We remove for them any doubt as to our intent to be with them.

• We give our Freedom. In showing our attention, we offer it without craving or greed. We offer attention without jealousy or fear. With our freedom from these we can give our free attention to another without any hindrance or motivation of self-centered desire.

• We give Understanding. Understanding is "the flower" of the practice. When we give our True Presence, listening deeply without any selfish or self-centered motivations, we can offer true understanding - letting the one we love know they are loved.

Love is much more than a feeling wrapped in words. Love is action. Love is attention. Love is a focus. Love is what we can give.

As we learn what love is and then how to direct it toward others and our Higher Power, we begin to reside in that same love. The love we give to others is the love we give ourselves. The love we express in growing and deepening a relationship with our Higher Power is the love we experience ourselves.