Blog 1002 Learning to Love

In my last blog I posted a quote from Viktor Frankl on “The Meaning of Love”.  This quote was taken  from his world famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  There are many of us who would like to learn to love in the way he describes.  We would like to learn to love in a way that enables us to see what is potential in those around us and in a way that enables those around us to more easily actualize all that is good in themselves.  We would also like to learn to see and actualize all that is good in our own selves.

I would like to suggest an exercise that might be helpful.  The exercise is simple and yet could very possibly take a lifetime to master.  You simply choose an individual and attempt to feel within yourself a pure, plutonic, Christ like love for that individual.  I suggest you start with someone that you already have positive feelings toward.  After you master this exercise for those who are easy for you to love you could choose to work toward having loving feelings for those who are more difficult for you to love.  You can practice on anyone who crosses your path.  You don’t have to know the person well to do this exercise.

It might be helpful to close your eyes and visualize the individual that you are attempting to love in a pure, Christ like manner.  Allow yourself to sense or visualize your own body and soul filling with love and light from the Savior and extend that love to the individual you have chosen.  Notice anything within yourself that blocks you from freely extending those loving feelings to the other individual.  At first you may just sense a block or a void or a disruption.  As you continue you may be able to identify and release the cause of the block or the meaning of the disruption.  The cause is within yourself.  First look within yourself to see if you are judging this individual in any way.  If you find that you are judging this individual then release your judgments.  Simply dismiss them from your mind and your being.  Do not analyze them or wonder about them or dispute them.  Simply release the judgments from your mind.  Next look inside yourself for any criticism of this individual.  Again don’t analyze your criticisms just recognize them and release them from your mind and your being.   Check again inside yourself and see if there is a free flow of love and light to this individual or if it is blocked or disrupted in some way.  If so then look within your self again and check to see if you have any unkind thoughts or any ill will toward  this individual.  If so then simply release them.  Some people find it helpful or even essential to ask the Savior for His assistance in this process.  Check inside of yourself for any fear that may be blocking your capacity to love this individual in a pure Christ like manner.  Dismiss the fears.  Look for resentments, coveting, envy, jealousy or any other feeling that is blocking you from feeling the pure love of Christ for this person.  Check for each, one at a time, and release them.  When you have completed this exercise visualize your body and the other individuals body completely filled with unrestrained love and light. 

It is important in doing this exercise that you keep your mind and heart in the realm of truth.  It is not necessary to distort the truth in order to love another individual.  The Savior instructed us in the Sermon on the Mount to love our enemies.  He did not deny that they are our enemies and we do not have to deny that they are our enemies.  We can love our enemies as they are.  We do not have to distort them or their intentions in order to love them.  We do not need to pretend that they did not mean to hurt us or imagine that they are sorry for their behaviors.  We don’t need to assume they didn’t know they were hurting us.  We can simply choose to relinquish our judgments, release the unkind feelings and love them.  

Similarly it is not necessary to distort our own feelings, thoughts, actions or intentions in order to love another individual.  We do not need to make ourselves the “bad one” by saying things like “It is all right to hurt me”.  In the eyes of the Lord it is not all right to hurt people and that includes hurting you.  Neither is it necessary to distort the truth by accepting undeserved blame if the situation was truly not your fault.  When someone hurts us we do not have to say, "That is OK" or "It was my own fault that I got hurt".  It is important to keep our minds and hearts in truth in order to do this exercise.  I like to think of this exercise as being like the “mote and the beam” from the Savior’s teachings.  We are attempting to remove the “beam” from our own eyes so that we can see the “mote” more clearly in our brother’s eye.  We are not doing this exercise so that so we can deny the mote exists or in an attempt to cover it up or excuse it away.  When we finally can remove the “beam” from our eyes with the Savior’s help we are then in a position to see the "mote" more clearly and to receive direction from Him regarding our relationship with the other individual.