What I've learned this year

I, like most people, have craved understanding and consideration and appreciation from the people most important to me. For years, the occasional note from my husband expressing appreciation for something about me was essential to my sense of worth. I loved the reassurance that they gave me that I was loved and my efforts were worthwhile to him and that he loved me for who I really was. I knew from universal experiences as a child in school that some people in powerful positions (the cool kids, the teachers, etc.) would respond with disappointment or rejection if my flaws were obvious, so I, like most people, worked to hide, or at least avoid admitting them. And I worked hard to succeed at good things that were recognized as worthwhile by others. The problem is that, unless I’m honest about my whole self, warts and all, I cannot feel like I am loved, warts and all. The result of course was that by hiding my sins and mistakes or by trying to do so, I totally thwarted my hopes of feeling loved and understood as I really am. Public or private recognition for the good I did was what I felt I needed to proximate that unconditional love or approval as much as possible. It reasurred me that I was of value to people important to me.

Articulating and facing my sins and mistakes and admitting them is necessary to feeling understood and fully loved as I really am (as well being necessary for repentance, but that’s food for another essay). Not all my human friends and family can be 100% loving 100% of the time. They will, even the most considerate of them, occasionally be less loving in response to my sins when I am honest about them. Fortunately, some of them are pretty good at keeping their percentages pretty high, even though they are not 100%, which is hopeful and helpful. But God is 100% able to be loving and understanding 100% of the time. And if I want to feel fully loved as I really am 100% of the time, I have to be fully open with Him about all of me, warts and all.

A few weeks ago I was working with an older man who had had a near death experience. I listened to him talk about how that had changed his life and was profoundly moved by the veracity of his comment, “I wish I could convey to you the love that is there.” We often fear condemnation when we approach God. That’s not God. God really is love.

I hope you have, in your life, experienced those times, now and again, when you have been able to fully express your thoughts and your real self with a true friend who understands and sympathizes and loves you. And you know, I hope, how warm and liberating that feels during those times together. The same thing on a much deeper and profound level can happen between you and God when you are fully open about who you are, what you are thinking, fearing, angry about, hoping, doubting, failing at, etc.etc. But it requires that you be completely honest. And that is a leap of faith that requires you to believe that, in spite of your fear to the contrary due to your experience with other humans, that he will respond with understanding, comprehensive love. Which he does. That leap of faith is one I still work on. It feels scary to be that honest.

But I have learned that that is the beginning of moving from feeling loved by God (which many of us do in part, now and again) to abiding in his love, even with our warts and all. (John 15)

Reading and thinking about some of Greg Baer’s thoughts on the subject of feeling loved and appreciated has led me back to the scriptures and over the past year I have found a rather remarkable change in my life as a result of the things I have learned or been reminded of. One of those remarkable changes has been in my need for recognition or affirmation from others, particularly from the ones closest to me. It has plummeted. My ability to work lovingly and happily and peacefully has increased and my insecurities, which have been in the usual normal range for human beings, have faded significantly. I am happier, more loving, more celebratory, and more at peace.

I could write a book on the subject but there are other things I’d rather do with my time right now. But here’s the outline.

a) I am personally responsible for my responses to others which should be and can be, through grace, consistently loving, appreciative and charitable (2 Ne. 10 and John 15),

b) I, like most people, when I don’t feel loved by others, seek to feel approval, respect, power, control, safety, or pleasure from them instead. Let’s call that “pseudolove”. And we all , often unconsciously, change our actions (hide our sins, speak half truths, pretend, seek recognition, don’t say what we’re thinking, act in hopes we'll be noticed, manipulate, role-play, pout, shout, accuse, get angry, whine, complain, play games, whatever) in order to get that pseudolove from people important to us. (Romans 3)

c) The surest way to empower myself to be consistently loving (instead of consistently approval or power seeking etc.) is to feel fully loved and accepted by someone else, warts and all (1 John 4)

d) The only being who can offer that kind of full love 100% of the time is God (Elder Uchtdorf’s conference talk[1], Moroni 7:47, John Murdock’s comments from his School of the Prophets experience[2]

e) In order to feel loved warts and all I have to be honest about my warts. It’s scary, but necessary. And I need to be honest with God as well as with others. (Daniel 9:20-23, Mosiah 4)

This is true.

Interestingly and happily, as you recognize these things in yourself you can begin to recognize it in others. One analogy I heard was this: Imagine that you are lying beside a swimming pool on a warm summer day. You’ve finished swimming and are letting the sun dry you off while you read a book in anticipation of changing and going to a movie with some friends. While lying there you feel someone splashing you and your book from the pool. What’s your first reaction? Probably annoyance and dismay. Maybe anger and frustration.

You look up and over into the pool and realize that the splashing is coming from a woman who is drowning in the deep end of the pool. How quickly do your emotions change from annoyance to a strong desire to help? Pretty quickly. Her actions haven’t changed, but your understanding of them certainly has.

Once you have recognized the ways that you express your lack of feeling loved (see b, above) you begin to be able to recognize those expressions of feeling unloved or insecure in love in the actions and words of others. You can see their sin-hiding, anger, accusations, silence, hiding, role-playing, half-truths, silences, control seeking, etc, etc, for what they really are; feeling not so loved and seeking to procure pseudolove (power, reassurance, safety, control, approbation etc.). And when you understand that about them, then you are in the position to understand what they really need from you; real love, godly love, love that loves them as they are, warts and all. You can, figuratively, go from yelling at them or anguishing about their splashing to trying to help to pull them out of the swimming pool they are drowning in.

Understanding these “splashing” patterns in yourself enables you to see them in others with compassion. And it frees you to respond with what they need from you; honest, helpful godly love, instead with frustration, annoyance, insecurity, hurt or whatever else you might otherwise be inclined feel or express.

But, you might say, what if they won’t respond to love? They might not. That is their choice. Your choice is whether or not to give it. Their choice is whether or not to accept it. But their choice does not affect yours, because yours is not based on how they respond to it, it is based on how loved you feel by God, not by them.

Have you ever noticed in the Book of Mormon how, in spite of Laman and Lemuel’s consistently awful behavior, Lehi is never portrayed as getting angry at them? They are awful and mean and power hungry, seeking control and safety and pleasure. Lehi consistently speaks the truth to them and expresses concern and sorrow but never gets upset or angry, never throws in the towel and continually tries to express his love and include them. Some people may think that it is simply because he is their father. But the world is full of fathers who get upset and reject their aggravating teenage and adult sons. I think that a good part of the reason for his continually love-based response to these annoying men is found in his words towards the end of his life: “But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.”

Looking back over my life I realize I was blessed with two parents who did a remarkable job of making me feel loved, warts and all, much of the time when I was growing up. I realize now what an incredibly empowering gift that was for me as a child. And I am learning more seriously what an eternally empowering gift God’s full and heavenly love is. It frees me.

[1]  “In one of these meetings the prophet told us if we could humble ourselves before God, and exercise strong faith, we should see the face of the Lord. And about midday the visions of my mind were opened, and the eyes of my understanding were enlightened, and I saw the form of a man, most lovely, the visage of his face was sound and fair as the sun. His hair a bright silver grey, curled in most majestic form, His eyes a keen penetrating blue, and the skin of his neck a most beautiful white and he was covered from the neck to the feet with a loose garment, pure white, whiter than any garment I have ever before seen. His countenance was most penetrating, and yet most lovely. And while I was endeavoring to comprehend the whole personage from head to feet it slipped from me, and the vision was closed up. But it left on my mind the impression of love, for months, that I never felt before to that degree.”    

 John Murdock Journal, typescript, BYU Archives, p.13

[2] “The Love of God”, address given in the October 2009 General Conference, http://lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/the-love-of-god?lang=eng)