love

hi! it's been a long time, huh? sheesh. what happened to all of june?

My colleague Robin and I have been totally immersed in writing the curriculum for our new parenting model, Connected Parenting. We taught it once and now are completely revising it before we teach it again starting in September. Lemme know if you are interested - we have two 5 week classes scheduled in Boulder -- one for parents of younger kids, and one for parents of teens. Sure, I'm biased, but I think it's a very powerful model. Parents are reporting profound changes in their family dynamics, and some say that power struggles have been almost completely eliminated since they began using our techniques. It's a very rewarding class to teach!

So that's awesome, and can I just tell you how deeply inspiring it is to have found my professional soul mate?

My creative partnership with Robin is absolutely seamless. When my words are stuck, she knows exactly what I mean to say, and says it better. I swear we are both dialed in to the exact same frequency, and we just race along the creative highway passing the baton off to each other effortlessly. I've never experienced anything like it!

So my writing energy has been joyfully dedicated to that project, and not to blogging. And might be for a while longer yet ...

(ps, if you are looking for a highly gifted psychotherapist in Boulder, I'd love to give you Robin's number!)

Today my friend deb's blog inspired me to git 'er done - to write just a little teeny bit on my blog, just to say hello. of course, once my lil ol opinions start flowing, it's hard to shut me up ...

anyhoo, I had a curious new experience the other day. Kevin told me he loved me, which he mentions with great devotion and frequency, bless his heart, and I felt a new reaction wake up inside me. I've never been the type to just parrot it back. I say it plenty, but only when it bubbles up from inside, never as a reaction to hearing it. I usually just smile and receive it joyfully.

but this time, I felt such overpowering delight that he was having the experience of love INSIDE him. It didn't even feel personal - not like he loved ME, rather that he simply LOVED. and it IS so wonderful to love.

I was happy to be an inspiration for that feeling within him, but I didn't give it any significance about me. It didn't mean I was lovable or good or whatever - it just meant that in that moment, his heart was open, and I happened to be in front of him to celebrate. I was just sort of an innocent bystander.

The source of Love was inside him, not between us. It's inside me, too, of course. That realization came to me years ago. But it was novel to witness that from the outside. And it was so poignant.

Love wasn't about where we've been or where we are headed together. It was just right there, in that moment, a joyful expansion of his heart. I felt honored to witness it. I knew I could take no credit for it, and therefore also no blame for times when he may not feel it.

And some kind of long-held belief in me about being responsible for helping/hurting others simply melted away, leaving just this moment and the joy of it - Love flowing freely through his heart, and my heart, and overflowing into the space between.

It was so pure, yet so impersonal. Weird, huh?

But I liked it a lot. It sort of changed everything. And at the same time, nothing has changed.

Maybe the stream of Love is just always flowing along, minding its own Love Business.

Sometimes we dip our toes in, and sometimes we dive deep, and sometimes we just shiver on the bank or wander off to drier territory.

The stream, well, it doesn't seem to mind much what we do.

Could be that it's having too much fun bubbling and babbling along on its way to the ocean to even notice ...