Love as I AM
This is not the conventional “roses and chocolate box” variety. It is not the biblical version, either. The Greeks have a number of words for love. They narrowed God down to only one word because all the other words were too human! If I could, I would take them all, but for thousands of years if we take the Bible seriously, we have agape and the others, which are closer to the term I enjoy in God I change direction and go to the study of being and say, love is the power that overwhelms separation, a nice neutral term. There are no roses here. I prefer love as “I am”. It is ontologically speaking, the study of being, “I am” is about being. In a community, there are ways of being. We could talk about, when you join me, I say “We are” and when we look at you alone, we say, “You are”. Then we look into the future and say “You can be” In psychotherapy, establishing relationships is about learning to love. Here the focus is on congruence, accepting the other person, empathy and challenging the other person. Congruence is both who I am and I am a mess. Acceptance is being warm and UPR, the unconditional positive regard for all of all humanity. Empathy is being but not owning your shoe and certain a certain “Aha moment”.Challenge is positive and negative. Practice makes perfect. I spent 18 weeks learning and unlearning. Love is very difficult to do, but once you take it, life takes off. Getting other people to own these principles help: Wendy did the course with me and my children follow it. Below is a summary of the above.
Explaining the graphic
The Genuine or Congruent I AM quadrant refers to me, the other and God. The Acceptant WE ARE quadrant refers to me, others and God. The Empathic YOU ARE quadrant refers to me, the other and God. The Challenge YOU CAN BE quadrant refers to me, others and God. When we as human beings learn the first two quadrants of “being God’s gift to me and others”, and being a total gemors but at the same time being warm and having an unconditional regard for all human beings. That is the easy part and the easy part. The Third quadrant considers the capacity that all human beings have to climb into the shoes of the other (and God) without judgement. It takes huge training in listening with every faculty in the Spirit. With hard work, not the first time, you will achieve “An aha moment!”. Then the fourth quadrant, you will know, because all human beings begin with Challenge. If you follow the process above the Spirit will guide you a balanced critique on the other person and God!
