Love Lasik

Baby bird in Niwot, CO

Dance transformed me into a more open-hearted woman. Becoming a counselor is yet another quest to chase out the places where I am afraid of intimacy. Witnessing (and urging) another person into the terrifying territory of feelings has required that I be equally brave.

Being open-hearted sounds either medical or perhaps like what follows will be Hallmark sentimentality. Sure, I’m now a big mush-ball when it comes to the people whom I love, but recently, my new understanding has been like Lasik surgery to the heart. Lasik permanently changes the shape of the cornea. In the same way, what I need to do to love more fully has become clear, and my heart and self are permanently altered.

Rainbow over Niwot, CO

Why is intimacy terrifying? (Counselors ask a lot of questions.) Being “burned” makes it less enticing to jump back into the water. And I’m not just talking about the relationship between couples. It applies to the connection with our parents, children, extended family and friends. We throw daggers between ourselves and others just to keep them back. Like some fake watch salesman on a NYC street corner, we hide the daggers inside special pockets of our coat – just in case someone gets too close.

Niwot, CO

  How do we do it? We judge. The other
  is too slow, too uncultured, too smart,
  too shut down, too fat, too emotional,
  too unemotional... the list goes on. Our
  egos convince us that it’s super
  important that we teach the other person
  a lesson (even if the person will learn whatever they are supposed to
  learn in their own way, on their own time). Or we argue politics
  when in fact our tantrum may have to do with poor early attachment
  to a parent. Or we hold strings to the money or time that we give. (I
  was there for you; therefore, you should be here for me now.) Or, we judge based on another’s appearance or seeming difference. And we are equally harsh on ourselves.

Captured on a visit to my sister and family

Our only job is to love... and that requires that we become bigger than ourselves, entering possibly unknown territory. When we love we set ourselves and the other free. Our egos, pesky little buggers, have the power to convince us that if we don’t do what they tell us to do everything will fall apart. And if everything falls apart, we will have no control, and then it will be our fault that the world ends because someone didn’t load the dishwasher correctly.

In NYC with my girls

  We live in an angry
  culture, and it’s not just
  road rage. Yesterday I
  saw a father walk up to
  his teenage son in the
  airport and twist his
  arm so hard I thought the boy would cry out. Love, and the healing of the
  world, begins at home. Undoing the fear of love begins at home. Where do
  you throw daggers to keep people back? Who do you need to manage so
  you will look better? Will you need to wait until you are dying to decide that
  love is really worth the pain?

LASIK is a surgical procedure intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LOVE is a radical choice intended to reduce a person's dependency on the illusion of separation.