The Kiss that Kills: Love that Builds Immunity

I read something fascinating this morning. Lauren Sompayrac, author of How The Immune System Works,  says that, when a mother kisses her baby, she picks up a sample of that special baby-grubbiness soup that is on the baby's skin--that special mix of everything the baby's been in contact with since her last bath. Then, Mom's immune system analyzes for pathogens her sample of whatever Baby has been rolling or crawling around in, and the next day Mom produces breast milk specially tailored to kill whatever little nastiness was brewing up on Baby's face.

Babies crawl around in filthy environments (even the ones that look clean to us aren't all that pristine!), pick up anything that catches their attention, and put everything they meet into their mouths. Even the most helicopter-ish of parents can't be watching EVERY moment. And babies' immune systems are not fully developed, so this pattern of casual access to potentially harmful bacteria has found a good match in a breastfeeding Mom who kisses her baby's face regularly.

What really fascinates me about this little miracle of Nature's artful design and maintenance of us little short-lived organisms called humans is the great 7 Childhood Treasures metaphor it suggests. For there is another way that the love embodied by a kiss can kill something else that can harm our children.

What happens to love?

What happens to love? Someone tells me s/he loves me, maybe we’re even very close, sharing a deep emotional intimacy. Then, something happens. Something always happens; maybe hurt feelings or a misunderstanding. Maybe I create a genuinely deep wound in the one who loves me, as I act out my own pain. And the result is...love goes. Swiftly as it flowed into my life, as from an opened floodgate, love dries up. It goes. At least, the other person’s ability to think well of me goes. The space between us that was once filled with love fills with anger, distance, and pain. What happens to love?

Recently, a friend asked me for my definition of love and I shared my favorite, which comes from M. Scott Peck’s classic self-help book, The Road Less Traveled (1978). Reflecting the work of Erich Fromm, Peck wrote that love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” 

This definition works for me in so many ways. First, it says that love is for the purpose of nurture. Good. So, love is not for controlling each other. Physical violence and threats don’t fit under the category of nurture, either. Nor is love for worshiping each other as “better,” either than self or past friends or partners. It isn’t to provide me with a yardstick to unfavorably compare my abilities, accomplishments, or attributes to another’s, to create new ways to loathe myself. My loving of another should nurture my spiritual growth, or it should nurture the spiritual growth of my beloved. So, if my purpose, your purpose, anyone’s purpose, in loving is to nurture spiritual growth in ourselves and others, then how can love ever go? 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how do you fight?

Had a fight lately? I've been witness to a few lately, or heard the aftermath reports of them. I'm not talking about a physical fight, from which wounds often heal quickly, but a verbal fight, which can inflict wounds that never heal. These are the fights in which words, tone of voice, facial expression and body language take the place of fists and feet that bruise the body. Verbal fights can bruise the spirit, the mind and the heart, sometimes invisibly. Have you had that kind of fight with someone you care about in the past few months? Past few weeks? Past few days? If you have verbal fights with your friends and loved ones on a regular basis, then the 7 Childhood Treasures have some wisdom for you.

First, the wisdom of childhood has taught me that fights, in and of themselves, do not harm a relationship. Bringing to the surface and then working through the issues that come up are necessary features of all relationships. Disagreements and misunderstandings (AKA "fights") can result in stronger, more durable relationships for family members, friends, and couples. Whether conflict leads to healing and growth or creates an un-crossable chasm of pain depends on how you fight.

So how do you fight? Do you do it consciously, with the intention to heal an issue? Or do you let your fight explode from your gut, which you've allowed to twist into a knot over several hours, days, weeks or longer? Do you express your feelings from your perspective, or do you tell the other person who they are, what they think, how they feel, and what's wrong about all of that? Do you listen with respect to the other person's point of view, or do you try to shoot it down, demeaning it as less valid than your perspective?

My recent observations have led me to look at the ways we fight -- "dirty" and "clean" -- and to think about the Childhood Treasures that make the difference. Here's what I've observed....

Confidentially, let me tell you the latest...

Why is it so hard to know something that only I know, something told me in confidence? How can the urge to share it, even with just one highly-trusted individual, so frequently overwhelm my good intentions and good judgment?

You've done this, right? When have you revealed to another something told you in confidence? Maybe

only once, or maybe a long time ago, but you've done it, haven't you? Maybe your violation of confidentiality ignited a giant firestorm of interpersonal betrayal and damaged relationships. Maybe nobody ever found out. Maybe you felt guilty for days, weeks, months or years afterward. Maybe you still carry the guilt decades later. Maybe you forgave yourself or were forgiven by the one whose confidence you betrayed. Maybe you've convinced yourself that it "wasn't a big deal."

Regardless of level of guilt felt or forgiveness sought, are you ready to explore, with deep honesty, the whys of that mistake? Will you join me in seeking to understand the humanity of our poor choices, so that we can make better ones in the future? The 7 Childhood Treasures have some wisdom to offer you. Can you bear to see, with the gentle eyes of your heart, what has driven you to betray those who trusted you with private information?

If not, move on to some other blog post. If so, proceed at your own risk. Deep honesty has been known to cause serious reflection, personal revelation, and change.

How do you know whether I really care?

Hello, gentle reader. I have been thinking of you very often since my last post. Even if you are new to this blog, I have been thinking of you very often.

What? You didn't know? How can you not know how fond

I am of you, how much I rely on you? How can you not know how important you are to me?

Oh. You haven't heard a peep out of me for seven weeks...and you think that means I don't care? But I do.

How do you decide which story to believe: mine or yours? How do you know whether I really care?

The answer is truly simple.

Can I Make You Feel Safe?

Sometimes, I hear folks speak of their safety or lack of it. The most frequent expression is, "I don't feel safe," often spoken in reference to being in the presence of a particular person or a group/venue, as in, "I don't feel safe around J____." I wonder about these words and what they really mean.

If I don't feel safe, then I must feel myself to be in danger. If so, in danger from what? I am lucky to live in a part of the world where I am not in immediate physical danger. No overt war is being waged inside my country's borders. My neighborhood is without visible criminal elements and the dangers that follow their illegal enterprises. There aren't even any vicious looking dogs on my block. Even J_____, that person around whom "I don't feel safe," is not waving a weapon at me or advancing upon me with menace.

Many of those from whom I have heard this sentiment -- "I don't feel safe" -- live in similar circumstances of apparent safety. This mismatch of reality and perception begs the question, then: What is the source of danger? I look around and ask myself, is there someone lurking nearby ready to do this person harm? Is there an impending natural or man-made disaster roaring toward us? Every time, the answer is no. But the implied plea is for someone else to take some action to remove or reduce the threat. "I don't feel safe" seems to often be a request that someone do something about that lack of safety. Maybe we should make J_____ go away? Or maybe we just need him/her to act differently?

If there is no imminent threat of physical harm, then the fearsome danger must be from less tangible harms -- emotional or psychological damages. Fine. Valid. I appreciate that this damage can be as great, greater even, than physical harm. But how can you be made safe when your fear is of humanity's human-ness? Yes, there are a few individuals out there who seem to be on a mission to be mean but my experience is that, mostly, this kind of damage happens when well-intentioned, even loving, friends or family members "act out" of their own wounds. When I am emotionally or psychologically hurt by someone's behavior, it is most often when that person is reacting from a subconscious fear, rather than acting with conscious intent to hurt me.

Can I make you, me, or anyone else feel safe from that kind of harm? Can I stop every person in the world from acting out their internal dramas in ways that affect others? Well....in a word, no.

The 7 Childhood Treasures offers an alternative to this impossibility. You can make yourself safe from that kind of harm. Never again do you need to feel that you are not safe, if you have two wondrous tools. First, you need an awareness that you always have choice about your behavior (another blog post, another day). Second, you need boundaries.

Loving you as you need to be loved

I feel so clearly this morning how love is an act of patience and presence. Love asks not to be pushed or hurried. It says, "I am a river that flows," and I cannot force the river to flow faster. By the same token, if I  surrender to the river, I may be spun in a whirlpool, battered upon rocky rapids, tossed over the edge of a waterfall, or floated gently into a pocket of stagnation. Love requires awareness of and eyes-wide navigation of Her currents. The act of loving is one of focused learning, not of A-B-Cs and 1-2-3s, but of the contours of another's heart, mind, and soul.

In the marvelous book, All About Love, bell hooks quotes M. Scott Peck's

definition of love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." This definition of love appeals to me, as it requires choice and intention. These words describe love as my own directed action, rather than as something I "fall" into. These words require me to be conscious of -- and present to -- both myself and you, as my beloved. Loving each other as adults requires the same focused attention as parenting a newborn. I must see each subtle clue and cue that communicates what you need. I need to learn, thoroughly, how you need to be loved.

bell hooks goes on to write, "To truly love we must mix various ingredients -- care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication."This view of love explains why Love is not one of the 7 Childhood Treasures. Love requires that ALL the Treasures be developed -- gemstones cut just so and polished to a lustrous glow -- to reveal every possible facet of their beauty. It is the integration of the capacities for Trust, Independence, Faith, Negotiation, Vision, Compromise and Acceptance that enable me to intentionally love you, to love you with recognition and respect for who you are, not with affection, only. I can easily be affectionate with anyone. Truly seeing and respecting someone requires focused and joyful effort.

Consciously seeking and creating

Yes. I freely admit it. I am an extremely sporadic blogger right now. Don't look; I'll fess up: I last posted on February 15th, almost 7 weeks ago. I have many quite excellent reasons to explain my absence but know that none of them is truly important right now. I also have much to say that will be MUCH more interesting and enlivening! Please don't judge me. :)

This morning I listened to a video sent to me by a friend -- a heady little exploration of the intersections between spirituality and quantum physics. One of the scientists in the piece said, "The act of consciousness searching is the creative force that puts something in place."

Fascinating. That statement exactly describes how I feel about Leaps (and smaller movements) of Faith. When I truly believe -- heart, mind, and soul -- that I have a
purpose beyond my daily mundane life, then I become that "consciousness searching." I say to the universe, to life, to the Divine: "I see this possibility that has not yet become reality. I believe in it and I will give my time, energy and focus to make it so."

This gift of belief in and conscious searching for a Big Dream is how I define the Childhood Treasure of Faith. Real commitment to a life purpose is, indeed, a creative force that puts many things in place. For what are you consciously searching? And no, I don't mean the shiny new car or house you want. What is the change you wish to see in the world? What is your conscious searching creating, right now? What is being put in place that was not there before?

Is There Love Enough for Me?

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Remember how you experienced this day in childhood? My own childhood was, perhaps, longer ago that some of yours, so my experience may be different from yours. In my middle class elementary school, each child decorated a shoe box with tissue and construction paper hearts in red, pink, lavender and white, adding touches of lace-like paper doilies, if we were lucky enough to have some.Through a slot in the box's lid, our classmates dropped small white envelopes containing their offerings of love and friendship. Inside each envelope, an image of a cowboy, princess, space ranger or ballerina asked, "Will you be my valentine?"

Back then, teachers did not require that every child give a valentine to every other child, as I believe most do today. Perhaps adults in the late 1950s and early 60s were not so concerned that a child's self-esteem is fragile and must be protected from all negative experience. What I remember is that there was always a moment of noticing that some child in my class had not given me a valentine. There was that momentary heartache of thinking, "S/he doesn't like me."

Moments like this were just one source of confirmation of a "Truth" I thought I knew: there is not enough love for me to have my share. What was your childhood belief about love and its availability to you? What is your belief today? Is there love enough for you?

The Childhood Treasure of Independence calls to me on this day after Valentine's Day, to share what it knows of love's availability. I've decided to give Independence its voice today and hope you enjoy this interview....

What Babies Know

This week, I was blessed by the opportunity to hold a young infant. I always love that first sensation of fragility, as a parent or grandparent transfers into my arms that precious little miracle who has only recently entered the world. How do they let go?

Then the tiny sensory bundle that is a baby is there; back curving along the inside of my arm, bobbing head cradled in my palm. The complex scent that is a newborn creates a little bubble around the two of us. I am swept into the voice of this new child, learning about him or her as I smell freshly washed skin and hair, or a diaper that needs changing, or stale cigarette smoke. I feel the way he moves in my arms and I hear they way she "speaks," making long vowel sounds or strings of little "eh-eh-eh-eh" sounds. At the same time, my eyes take in hair and skin, movement, and facial expressions, and I learn more about this babe.

This is how babies experience us: pure sensory input (but without all the language to describe it as I have). For a newborn, each of us adults is nothing but a single sensory image. Everything about us that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted or felt with the skin/body, streams into the infant like threads onto a hi-speed loom. In the shortest space of time imaginable -- SNAP! -- like that, but a million times faster -- those individual sensory threads are braided together into a whole. You, the adult holding the baby, are a sensory experience for Baby but you don't yet have a name.

This way of apprehending reality is the rich vein of ore from which this little being can mine the Childhood Treasure of Trust, if we adults know how to help.

Creating the Art of the Possible

January is almost over and this is my first post this month. Like many of you, I have been struggling with physical dis-ease. My body has been painfully congested, infected with bacteria.... As I fought for health, I often pushed my body for more hours of wakeful activity than it wanted to give. In a month of busy schedule and frequent travel, my desire to heal my physical self was at odds with my calendar and my desire to do my job with excellence.

I strove for balance between these two realities; I used many tools, some from the world of science and some from the world of Spirit. I neither "gave in" to the illusion that physical symptoms are all that I am, nor ignored the reality of those symptoms' persistence. Some days I was more successful in that balance than others; others days I was the lone guest at a truly boring pity party.



You may be wondering: What does this tale have to do with the 7 Childhood Treasures? I didn't make the connection myself until yesterday, as I sat in an airport waiting area, coughing like a tubercular patient from the early 1900s, watching a four-year-old boy practice his capacity for Negotiation with his father.

Learning to negotiate is a developmental imperative at four years of age but Negotiation's manifestations look nothing like the refined art exhibited in the adult world by skilled diplomats and business leaders. In fact, in tends to look at lot like this kid on the right.