In a recent Connection Gem called “Love and Attachment Work,” I used the phrase, “love is.” Since that time, several Gem readers have written asking for clarification. I hope the following is of use.

Experience is a bundle of constantly moving and mutually conditioning phenomena that arise and disappear moment by moment. Sometimes it is helpful to zoom out a bit and notice the mechanics of experience in this way. Through this careful observation of experience, you might be able to find a place of choice where you previously saw none.

For example, you can observe that love is simply a bundle of experiences. Not something to believe or not believe in (Although, pragmatically speaking, your beliefs about love impacts your experience of it). In this way, it cannot really reside in one person or another, that is, you cannot hand someone a glass of love the way you might hand over a glass of water. Rather you are having a bundle of experience you call “love.” If love or being loved is a bundle of experience, it begs the question, how many different ways could you access such an experience; especially if it weren’t tied to a single person. Could you access the experience you call love from the person who holds the door open for you at the store? Could you experience love as the sun warms your back on a cold day? Could you experience love through relaxing the muscles around your heart? Just asking questions like this changes your experience significantly.

Perspectives and practices like these are simple. They don’t address all levels of healing and difficulty by any means. And, at the same time, they make a difference. Through repetition, they change your orientation. Habits that arise from a stuckness around how love should or shouldn’t be soften and release. And, you find yourself in moments of open aliveness and love.

Practice

The next time you are in an experience that you call love, take even a few moments and notice exactly what’s happening in that experience. Identify a few of the following: Thoughts, beliefs, emotions, body sensations, images, posture, impulses, energy, and behavior.