Why this memory

Some memories stand out as significant. Moments that were somehow pivotal, if not transformative. When a memory surfaces unbeckoned its something to pay attention to.

One such memory has been floating around my mind. I’m talking with Rachael, we’ve been dating a while but are far from getting engaged, and she’s looking at me and listening with deep attentiveness. But there’s also a gleam in her eye. Something mischievous shining through, and with a big smile, she puts her hand on my chest and I feel something tingling or buzzing in my heart.

I can’t help but laugh nervously, confused and unnerved by the experience. I ask her what she’s doing and she says, “I’m just loving you.” Well, whatever she was doing with her love and intention was opening my heart up. It was opening me up to my emotional world and experience. I can’t help but compare it to a rose blossoming. My heart, tight and contracted, protected and unripe, was being beckoned open. Was it magic? Witchery? Love? All of the above?

It was one of many experiences over the years where she helped pull me out of my head and into my emotions and my bodily sensation. She helped bring me into the present.

It sounds like something from the world of fairy tales. And maybe it is. Why not find ways to weave the surreal and mythic into everyday life? Isn’t that part of the unique gift we humans bring to world?

But why am I sharing this story memory? Because it points to two powerful truths that it never hurts to reinforce.

The first is the Truth of the simple power of Love. Simply loving someone deeply can open them up and help their hearts blossom.

Rachael, long before she studied somatic psychotherapy at Naropa, or trained in the Somasource lineage with Melissa Michaels learning to facilitate dancing and embodied movement was in touch with this Truth.

At some point years later, Rachael admitted that part of what attracted her to me was that she saw something dark and broken underneath my Aquarian charm. She was curious to see what Love might do for that dark subterranean mess.

She was perceiving accurately. Like most people, I didn't make it through childhood without baggage; despite my loving parents and privileged life circumstances. Then again, I don't believe it's possible to make it to adulthood without a bump or two. It's precisely the wounds we endure that gift us with insight into what it means to be a human. And with the right support we can alchemize that insight into wisdom.

There's no doubt that Love from Rachael was supportive on my journey. But what was most profound was learning to love myself. And especially learning to love my own dark shadowy and twisted parts. Somehow loving the aspects of myself that I had relegated to the dungeons of my subconscious, released me from the hurt and liberated more of my power.

In the end of the day, my role as an acupuncturist, a coach, and a facilitator is to create a space where the people I work with can bathe in unconditional Love. It’s love that does the magic. And love is so simple and available to us all.

The second powerful truth is that we need each other. This seems to be something very present for me. Were it not for loving Connection with another person I would have stayed stuck, heart closed, numb to my emotional world.

Yes, we get hurt, even wounded, in relationships too, but healing and growth simply cannot happen in isolation. It can’t happen with a book or a video, and certainly not with a gadget. We need other humans, and I dare say we need other beings from the more than human world too, from trees to bees to butterflies.

“The work” we all have is to find our internal impediments, the places where we disconnect and cut off flow and unkink them. And, you guessed it, that’s best done in a container of Love and Connection.

With Love,

Noah and Rachel