Many thanks to you for sticking through with me as a meander down this winding road that is a personal underworld journey. There are two more posts in this series that will follow in the next few weeks. In this post, I remember the wisdom of bell hooks’s “All About Love” and its connection to my understanding of personal power. Thanks for reading samar writes. ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.I revisited “All About Love” recently. If you haven’t read this book, it’s short, and contains so many delicious nuggets of medicine. While I don’t personally care for the dated references to gender, I acknowledge the fact that it was written at a time when language regarding gender was so very limited. It still doesn’t take away from the fact that writing about love in the way bell hooks did is still so incredibly relevant now. Why is loving ourselves so difficult? The answer to this is simple, but the healing process is complicated. It is hard to love ourselves because that requires a complete divorce from the imagination of the oppressive forces. And, while the answer is simple, the act of doing is a life long journey of unlearning the lies we were forced to ingest for a false sense of safety. But, what I want to talk about is how we are taught that lying to ourselves and others is what brings us happiness. “Ignorance is bliss”, if you will. Most people run in the other direction when confronted with inner healing. So many do not want to confront the wounds because the truth hurts. Even if we know the lie does more damage, we would rather remain asleep to the truth out of fear of perceived pain or discomfort. My form of running from pain has always been busyness. If I had a ton to do, there was no room for “the work.” I would always allow for the facilitation and growth of others. But I would keep myself boxed in. One of the most remarkable revelations that I encountered in this book was “we do not come here knowing how to love.” But, we do come here knowing how respond to being cared for. hooks goes into detail about the difference between care and love. Most of what we mistake for love is actually care. Most of us can locate the ways in which people, even our abusers, may have cared for us. This is one of the reasons why leaving abusive relationships can be difficult. Coming back to this with fresh eyes helped me have more grace and compassion for my younger self that sought out love in mentoring relationships when I didn’t know how to love myself. “[love is] the will to extend one's self for the the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.” - bell hooks in All About Love This quote hit me in the gut, y’all. Pow. Ooof. While care is “a dimension of love” it is not love entirely. "Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.” I didn’t know how to do any of those things collectively for myself. I knew to an extent how that might look for others. I would bend over backwards to make others feel cared for, respected, and trusted. I would make them my responsibility. I would neglect my own needs to show my commitment. But, my love was missing that grounded dimension of self love. At times, I neglected care for my body, mind, and soul. This is where it was easy for me to lose myself in my mentoring relationships. This is why it was easy to find myself in relationship after relationship of abusive partners, friends, mentors, and workplaces. Typing this has been difficult. I keep stopping and breathing deeply into my grief for my younger self. They had no idea. I imagine walking up to them and wrapping my arms around them, squeezing firmly. I look into their eyes and remind them that they don’t have to know, yet. But, we will get there. And, it won’t hurt. hooks also speaks about how we are conditioned from early on to lie. We are made to believe that telling the truth will only cause harm. In some cases, we may have even learned that the truth is dangerous. I’ve come to abhor the phrase “the truth hurts”. So what if it does? The pursuit of gratuitous pleasure at all costs will be the end of joy. More so, it is the running away from any and all discomfort in our lives that places us in positions where we choose suppression and oppression. This is not victim blaming. It is an acknowledgement of the seriousness of these acts that lead us to our demise. And, I do not use the word “demise” lightly. Our world is filled with countless examples of our choosing oppression over discomfort. Inevitably, this leads to serious harm not only for ourselves, but others as we scramble to hold power over one another. As I emerge from this underworld journey and look at my wounds, I see that the giving away of my power is complicated, and began with the lack of sincere love in my family home. Neither of my parents were capable of loving us children. Being a parent has taught me this. It is one of the most challenging roles in my life that I do not take lightly. It has asked more of me and not just because my kids deserve it, but even more so: I deserve this deep love.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samarjadecreative.substack.com
