What we feed will grow and what we neglect will wither.
The simplicity of this axiom belies the enormous challenge it can be to foster what we want most, rather than bolster what we want least.
Beneath all our bravado and shyness, our fears and woundings, surely we humans most want to love and be loved. We want to see and be seen. We want to delight and play and commune with each other. Yet, we’re also designed to protect ourselves. Our nervous systems are wired to keep us alert and fend off danger. The natural tendency to protect ourselves is what closes our hearts. This is how we feed the very thing we don’t want (feeling isolated), and thwart what we desire (feeling connected).
Balancing our deepest longings for closeness with our biological and social wiring for safety takes practice….a great deal of practice, for most of us. In September, life gave me a new laboratory for my own practice. After many years of living alone, I’m now navigating the often delicate terrain of collaborating in heart and home. Day after day, in myriad subtle ways, I am given the choice to narrow or widen my heart—to defend or expand my sense of self and my capacity to give and receive love.
Just last weekend, my sweetheart and I saw the movie Marriage Story, a film that makes visible this ubiquitous human choice for closeness or isolation. The need to balance connection and protection not only exists in our most intimate relating, it is part of every human interaction.
With accelerating levels of social and ecological devastation, our modern tendency toward isolation and the impulse to defend ourselves against others is dangerously high. Extreme alienation makes all manner of atrocities not only more possible, but likely. It seems to me (and many others!) that a healthy future for all of us lies in our willingness to cultivate a felt sense of intimate, (inter)related community.
The noun community comes from the early Latin communitatem, meaning “fellowship of relations or feelings.” The verb commune, comes from the Old French comuner, meaning “to make common, share.” It could be said that real community is created by relating and sharing that which we hold in common. And what we have most in common is the human capacity to give, receive, and feel love.
Whether we are with our intimate partner, our family, colleagues, or neighbors, genuine relational rapport requires vulnerability. Our human bind is that opening our hearts is the only way to receive what we most need and want, but doing so risks pain. When we open ourselves to give/receive love we always risk the ache of not being seen or received as we are—we risk the pain of being left or rejected.
Closing our hearts might yield a sense of protection from the heartache we fear, but doing so gives way to the pain of emotional isolation and, ultimately, emotional numbness. When we are desensitized to the full range of human emotions, the intensity of extreme fear, anger, and hatred can become our means of feeling emotionally alive.
Whether we live with our hearts open or closed, simply being human carries the unavoidable risk of loss and the certainty of pain. Therefore, the most relevant question is whether we are strengthening what we want (closeness) or growing what we don’t want (isolation).
The choice is always ours. In every interaction, every moment.
Since making the choice toward what we most want is far easier said than done, it helps to have safe environments for learning. Mutual practice strengthens our resolve to keep making the vulnerable choice, and can cultivate deeply satisfying and omni-beneficial community. If the practice of open-hearted relating sounds good to you, perhaps you’d enjoy one of the following…
In our most recent podcast episode, Lisa Fitzhugh and I consider the role of love and vulnerability in politics.
Here in Bellingham, my collaborator in heart and home, Stephen Podry, and I are hosting evenings of Resilient Relating, a heart-opening practice of community.
As always, I’m grateful when you share my offerings, and your reflections. Every vulnerable interaction is a precious thread in the web of human community.
Explore with me through Creative Catalyst or The Gladstone Creative Community Lab, a community supported project to artfully co-create a New Earth culture.