What is between you and love?

There is a beautiful metaphor about the mother and child relationship that has been presented to me in many different shapes and forms recently.

The mother is the care taker and support system while the child is pure and transparent. The mother is committed to talking care of the baby, supporting the baby in every moment humanly possible. The baby embodies all of their feelings, moving through every emotion and expressing them in totality. The mother is there to embrace anything that comes up. The child is committed to his or her feelings and knows nothing outside of that, the mother sees the child from a higher perspective. There is a recognition of what is moving in the child and the mother takes the role of supporting the child. A mother is committed to stepping in and loving this child through every moment.

This is a reminder of the potential relationship we can have within ourselves. We can be both a child and a mother, letting ourselves show up in our feelings like a “child” while being present as a “mother” to support. Our relationship to ourselves can easily become a conflict, as the mother and child in us may not be communicating peacefully. The moment a feeling arises inside when we are hurt, we become that hurt child. The mother in us steps in and determines how we are going to handle this. This can be an opportunity to practice exploring what is between you and love. There is a relationship we hold within ourselves between our wounds and our power. Self love is when we have the power to hold our wounds and shadows without blame or shame. Accepting the pieces that are part of our human experience.

We begin to see that our misunderstandings of love are in relation to how we provide self love. The tools we know have been passed down from family and environmental conditions. The challenge of self love is the false identification of what that looks like. We aren’t taught self love by reading books or learning it on the outside. We begin to remember and experience glimpses of love while always returning back to our separation. Remembrance of love takes on many forms of expression, everything we have experienced is a valid piece of our process and embracing that is our power. The separation of love is a deep longing which we are constantly suppressing. Our whole life can be seen as a form of separation which we are constantly trying to understand. The doorway for exploring what is between you and love can be opened through the commitment of Yoga, in any form that may look like.