Love: how we use it to burden others

We tend to believe that loving somebody is a straight-forward thing to do. It is not. It is intricately complex, bound up in all kinds of values and beliefs about how love should be expressed in different situations and with different people.

However, there is one aspect of loving - apart from with children - which could be more widely applied. Those of us who tend to read spiritual literature invariably come across the injunction that we need to love unconditionally. This is something I have always resisted, even resented. When I love somebody I want to be loved back. When I do something for somebody then I really would like that person to be equally thoughtful.

I hope you noticed the implied value judgment in my last statement - that when I do something for somebody means that I'm being thoughtful, a good person, a good friend. But am I really?

Here is a different view that I have gradually been coming to via all kinds of experiences over the years. Up until recently all these experiences were disconnected and now, over the last few years, they have mostly finally come together.

About two years ago I made friends with Gerry. Gerry is an old man, a street person. He's homeless. He taught me a lot about this particular aspect of loving.

When I first met him my instinct was to buy him a coffee, something to eat, perhaps give him some money. He never, ever allowed me to. All I wanted was to help, to make life a little easier for him. 'Absolutely not', he told me firmly, 'I'm homeless, not a beggar.' He only allows me to buy him something to eat as long as next time he can buy me a coffee in return. That's the deal, no compromises.

Letting him be is still something I find incredibly difficult, especially in winter. But this is what he needs. He needs me to trust him that he knows what's best for him - and, what's best for him is something that he defines, not I.

I found his decision and what I regarded as his inflexibility and stubbornness incredibly hard to accept. More than that, I resented him for it yet couldn't work out why I felt so resentful. Then I got it: I resented him because he wouldn't allow me to feel good about myself.

A more recent example came my way from a totally different experience. I had been exploring with a friend an issue that had been bothering me and she came up with an idea. 'Call so-and-so', she urged, 'he's just right for this.' A few days later she asked me if I'd called him. Guiltily I said I'd been too busy. She clearly was put out.

That apparently simple incident brought up all kinds of feelings in me. Guilt that I hadn't followed up her well-meaning suggestion, resentment at being pushed. 'If she asks again', I promised myself, 'I'll just tell her I left them a voicemail message. That'll get her off my back.' Worse of all was feeling anxious that, if I didn't do what she'd suggested she might be critical of me or, worse, not want to be friends with me anymore. To stop that from happening the only way was, I thought, not to discuss personal issues with her again. Of course that's not true. I could still discuss personal issues with her but say, truthfully, that I just need to talk and that I only need her - or, most likely, him - to listen.

I, too, have given out lots of well-meaning advice to people in my time and then enthusiastically checked 'And? How did it go?' keen for them to tell me what a great idea I'd given them - and hurt if they seemed reluctant to follow it up. I also would take their reluctance as an implicit criticism of my judgment.

I also came to admit to myself that my advice giving was not always necessarily selfless in motive even though that might have been my original intention. What I came to see is that sometimes it became a means of control with the implicit assumption that 'I know better than you.'

What I learned over the years is that giving advice and support is a good thing to do as long as I then leave it to them to decide whether or not to take it up. That was something I found very difficult because I was brought up to believe that fixing and rescuing (irrespective of whether or not the other person wanted to be fixed and rescued) is an important way to express love.

My personal experience nowadays is that just letting someone be was one of the hardest things I had to learn but what I came to realize is that by placing the responsibility where it belongs - with them and not with me - I was actually empowering them and that is a genuinely loving thing to do.

As with all my learning, that too was a long process interspersed with major insights. It became one that has enhanced my relationships because it freed people to be who they choose to be and do what they choose to do - as long as it doesn't cause me or someone else any actual (as opposed to imagined) harm. And they know that I'm there for them if and when they want me to be.

If you recognize yourself to be one of life's fixers and rescuers yet admit that it doesn't always generate undying gratitude you may like to start by looking at your own motives. I wanted people to need me - what do you want? This is as good a place as any to start.

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