Realizing that “love is all you need” is easier than living that way
The year I turned 50, I got sick. Over the course of my illness, which required repeated hospitalizations, there were two weeks when it looked like I might be really sick – sick enough that I began to face my mortality.
As I did, what broke my heart was the idea of leaving my kids, my husband, my family, my friends before I was ready. Nothing else phased me – not the work I loved but might not complete, not the writing I might leave unwritten, not the fact so much might be left undone in our beloved creaky old house. What mattered most to me – actually, that’s a horrible understatement – the only thing that mattered was the people I love. I remember thinking, “I never want to forget this!”
As I slowly got better, I worked hard to get back to living my life. I got busy again. The work I loved quietly slid back up to the top of my priority list. As it did, I assured myself that there would be time “later” to sit and chat on the phone with my daughter, to take a long walk with my husband, or to meet my folks for dinner.
As I write, I’m shaking my head at myself – but compassionately. After all, this is the way most of us live. We do so, in part, because the world around us idolizes productivity, advancement, and success. But also because relationships are hard and messy. We humans struggle greatly with miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misperception. Loving, in short, isn’t always as easy or as orderly as working.
If we don’t learn something the first time, life always gives us another chance
Life, however, can be persistent. Wake-up calls to the importance of love come in a million shapes and sizes. My frightening illness was one, but I inadvertently hit the snooze alarm. Three years later, my brother died. This huge loss startled me awake again. I quickly realized that I again had things (to quote my dad) bass-ackward – I was prioritizing work and giving my relationships whatever was left over.
So began my “all you need is love” era. The Beatles song morphed from an earworm into a mantra for me. I hummed it whenever I felt tempted to say “yes” to another client, another class, another project. I hummed it when my phone rang, and my first instinct was to let it go to voicemail and call my daughter back later. I hummed it when I started thinking about cancelling our bi-weekly dinner with my parents because I felt too busy.
“All you need is love, love;
Love is all you need.”
– John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Moment after moment, month after month, Lennon and McCartney’s lyrics kept me on course in my intention to stay true to my rediscovered priority.
Practice gives us deep roots that shore us up in tough times
Two more losses, in quick succession, gave my practice of leading with love deep roots. Loving my mother-in-law and then my own mother through the final stages of their respective illnesses showed me just how powerful and transformative it can be to prioritize love. Convenience and preference played increasingly small roles in the choices I was making about how I spent my energy and time. All that mattered was that my actions conveyed to these two women how much I loved them.
In hindsight I wonder, if it wasn’t for my yoga practice, if I would have hit the snooze alarm again and again. If I had, it would not have been surprising. We humans have always struggled when it comes to loving one another. Over two thousand years ago Patanjali felt he needed to teach his students that, in addition to being hard, messy, and exhausting, relationships were everything. In Lennon and McCartney’s words, “love is all you need.”
Yoga’s teaching begins by showing us how we’re meant to live with – to love – one another
Before he even taught his yoga students how to move their bodies in coordination with their breath, Patanjali taught his students five principles that were meant to keep them in “right relationship” – that were meant to make it easier to love one another. These principles are called the yamas or laws of life. They are, according to Patanjali, universal – “unaffected by time, place, birth, or circumstance.” These remain lessons all of us need to learn.
Learning to live kindly and without causing harm (ahimsa), truthfully (satya), with integrity (asteya), moderately (bramacarya), and with an open and generous mind and heart (aparigraha), changes our relationships with others. But these changes last because practicing these principles also changes our relationship with ourselves.
As we learn to be kind, true, and trustworthy with ourselves, as we make more moderate choices and become more generous with what is ours, we find that our own inner landscape quiets down remarkably. Because we are experiencing less inner clutter and upheaval, there is less “mess” for us to spew – deliberately or inadvertently – onto those around us. We are free and clear to love.
Yoga draws us toward a life centered on love
Yoga changes us in ways that we often don’t notice as we dash through our busy lives, but its changes have deep roots. When we receive one (or, in my case, more) of life’s wake-up calls, we find that these roots have prepared our hearts to awaken and will steady us as we allow love to lead the way.
“All you need is love, love; Love is all you need.”
Happy Valentine’s Day. Go show someone that you love them.
The laws of life are five: non-violence, truthfulness, integrity, moderation, non-attachment. YS 2.30
These laws are universal – unaffected by time, place, birth, or circumstance, together they constitute the “Great Law of Life.” YS 2.31