I believe, quite simply, that love is the reason we are here on earth, and that nothing is more meaningful or powerful than the expression of love. I see every problem in the human condition as the result of a lack of love, and every solution as more expansive and inclusive love.
But in order to understand just why love is such a powerful force, we must understand the nature of love and how it works at its most fundamental level. And that essentially is this: attention is the food of love.
That’s right, attention is the food of love. Our attention nourishes and sustains our love. Just as sound needs to travel through the medium of air, our love needs to travel through the media of our attention.
The basic idea that “our love begins with our attention” is actually lesson three of The 7 Lessons of Love. I wrote those lessons many years ago and the more I learn and discover about the nature of love, the more truth I find in them.
Because the fact is, in order to be truly there for someone, you have to actually be there. This is why the Zen teacher John Tarrant wrote, “Attention is the most basic form of love. Through it, we bless and are blessed.” and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh expressed, “The most precious gift we have to offer another human is our presence.”
This applies not just to romantic relationships with another person, and not just to our family and friends, but also applies to ourselves and to the world. So, to begin with our discussion on attention being the food of love, let us first look at ourselves from when we first came into this life.
To Ourselves
The idea of love, in the form of our attention, begins as soon as we come into this world. Young infants need attention, they demand attention, and if they feel they are not getting the attention they need, it triggers the most basic survival concerns of, “Will I survive?” As infants we not only need someone to pay attention to us to get our physical sustenance and keep us safe and sheltered, we also need the attention of love and affection in order to develop our mental and emotional capacities.
We need someone to gaze at us so we learn facial expressions, talk to us so we learn language, and comfort us with touch so we understand the importance of physical closeness and intimacy. We need someone to sooth us when we are emotionally agitated, and to help build our own emotional scaffolding off of theirs.
And when we don’t receive that loving, attuned attention from our caregivers as much as we want or need, it’s reflected in how we relate to others as adults. The body of research supporting this idea is known as attachment theory, which I wrote about last week when I covered 5 ways to build a more secure attachment. The basic idea is that if we did not experience loving attention as a developing infant and instead were often neglected, we will grow up to be wary and avoid emotionally connecting with others. However, if we received sporadic attention, overly imposing attention, or full-on abandonment, we develop more anxious attachments that desires connection but is afraid it will disappear. This results in us often being wary and overly diligent of our partner’s behavior.
So, our more challenging attachment patterns resulted from a lack of attuned loving attention. And those attachment patterns can only be repaired by that same loving attention, which, quite surprisingly, we can offer ourselves, right here and now. When I wrote last week about ways to build a secure attachment, I pointed out that meditation is often described as a kind of “spiritual reparenting” in which we can give ourselves the loving attention we did not receive from our parents. This is one of the most fundamental lessons I have learned during trainings such as, Stanford’s Compassion Cultivation Training and Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer’s Mindful Self-Compassion Training: we have the capacity to heal ourselves with our innate loving nature.
This is something that came up with a recent Learn to Love podcast episode with Dr. Heather Bartos. In the show Dr. Bartos said that most people’s idea of “self-love” is simply a form of indulgence that manifests as escapism. Rather than giving ourselves loving presence, accept our imperfections, and be present with our emotions, we pour a glass of wine and make ourselves a bubble bath. Although self-care can be an important part of self-love, if it means avoiding our own emotional issues, they will come back with a vengeance.
Another key lesson that I’ve learned about loving attention is that the more we are able to be present and compassionate with ourselves, the better we will be able to be present and compassionate with others as well.
To Others
There is a reason why therapy is so effective and why talking to a friend is so healing, attention is the food of love.
People talk a lot about the five love languages of service, giving, words, time, and touch. And whenever I see those five actions, I think about how attention covers all five of them. Quality time is when two partners in a relationship remove any distractions in order to spend time emotionally connecting. Our time and attention are also gifts that we can offer each and every moment. If we want to offer words of affirmation, we do that with eye contact and by giving our undivided attention. Physical touch is, of course, going to involve our loving attention too. The act of love making is one of the few times in a person’s life when they are present the most, which is one of the biggest reasons why it is such a pleasurable experience.
Attention can also be an act of service, which is not just limited to our partners. Giving loving attention to those that need it is a wonderful form of healing one can offer the world. When I work with men in prison, one of the biggest challenges for the “men on the inside” is feeling that they have largely been forgotten by society. Life sentences have a feeling of “lock them up and throw away the key.” And the sense of isolation from the world is its own special kind of torture. Many prisoners simply want their stories to be heard by a world that doesn’t seem to care.
So, if you want to truly love someone, you have get close to them. If you want to love another person, listen to their story. This would solve so many problems in the world, because when we actually listen to another person’s story, we realize our own similarities and common humanity. We learn the truth of the old adage, “Be kind to everyone you meet, because each person is fighting a hard battle.” Everybody is suffering in some way, and if we are able to listen to their suffering, it would not only alleviate some of their troubles, but our own issues won’t seem so isolating either. We will realize that whatever we are going through in our own life, others are also going through their own trials and tribulations.
Listening to another person’s story is a gateway to peace in this world. There is an inscription at the Murambi Genocide Memorial in Rwanda that reads, “If you knew me, and if you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me.” Violence stems from a sense of “othering,” and evildoers in the world will intentionally create a sense of separation to do their evil acts. The solution to shifting away from “us versus them” to “us versus the problem” is to listen to the “other side” and sincerely listen to their stories.
This is another fundamental lesson of attention. In order to find the courage to be present in this moment, we have to find the courage to be present in all moments. Whether we are bringing our attention to the flower blooming before us, or the racial injustices all around us, it is the same. In this way our attention can bring positive change to the world.
To the World
The same loving attention we can offer ourselves is the same loving attention we can offer each other, which is the same loving attention we can offer the world. I’ve been exploring a lot of these ideas and they are expressed in many ways in my newest poetry collection, Pebbles. Starting next week, I’ll be posting poems and thoughts based on my book. You can learn more about the book by pre-ordering it here today.
Pebbles features short and profound poems designed to express that loving this moment, is the same as loving each other and loving the world. One poem in particular goes,
watching television while eating
the meal is missedglued to your phone while talking
the love is gonebeing with one thing
you gain everything
This reflects one of the biggest crises today: the crises of our time. Nowadays we spend way more time gazing into our phones than our partner’s eyes, way more time typing into a screen than feeling our fingers in the sand. If attention is the food of love, then our love right now is starving because our phones, apps, ads and more vie for our limited and increasingly thinning attention.
Our challenge then, and the challenge of our times, is to learn to slow down again, and learn to be fully present with each other and ourselves. I’ll revisit this theme next week on the blog.
What do you think, how do you offer loving attention to the world? Let me know with a comment below.
