John Welwood: The Warm and Radiant Yes Of the Heart

Photo by Molly

Love Is the Recognition of Beauty and Other

Wisdom Quotes from John Welwood

 

The warm and radiant yes of the heart is perfect, like the sun, in bringing all things to life and nourishing all that is truly human. 

 

It is only through letting our heart break that we discover something unexpected: the heart cannot actually break, it can only break open. When we feel both our love for this world and the pain of this world ― together, at the same time ― the heart breaks out of its shell. To live with an open heart is to experience life full-strength.

 

A soul connection not only inspires us to expand, but also forces us to confront whatever stands in the way of that expansion.

 

The words "I love you," spoken in moments of genuine appreciation, wonder, or caring arise from something perfectly pure within us ― the capacity to open ourselves and say yes without reserve. Such moments of pure openheartedness bring us as close to natural perfection as we can come in this life.

 

Great love ― the kind that illumines and transforms us ― always includes a keen awareness of limitation as well. Though love may inspire us to expand and develop in new ways, we can never be all things to the one we love, or someone other than who we are. Yet once accepted, limitation also helps us develop essential qualities, such as patience, determination, compassion, and humor. When love comes down to earth ― bringing to light those dark corners we would prefer to ignore, encompassing all the different parts of who we are ― it gains depth and power. 

 

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A relationship that has any depth and power at all will inevitably penetrate our usual shield of defenses, exposing our most tender and sensitive spots, and leaving us feeling vulnerable ― literally, 'able to be wounded.' To love, in this sense, is to open ourselves to being hurt. The dream of love would have us believe that something is wrong if a relationship causes us pain. Yet trying to avoid the wound of love only creates a more permanent kind of damage. It prevents us from opening ourselves fully, and this keeps us from ever forming a deeply satisfying intimate connection.

 

The more two people open to each other, the more this wide-openness also brings to the surface all the obstacles to it: their deepest, darkest wounds, their desperation and mistrust, and their rawest emotional trigger points. Just as the sun's warmth causes clouds to arise by prompting the earth to release its moisture, so love's pure openness activates the thick clouds of our emotional wounding, the tight places where we are shut down, where we live in fear and resist love.

 

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery ― that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are ...This kind of unmasking ― speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges ― is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply. 

 

The less you demand total fulfillment from relationships, the more you can appreciate them for the beautiful tapestries they are, in which absolute and relative, perfect and imperfect, infinite and finite are marvelously interwoven. You can stop fighting the shifting tides of relative love and learn to ride them instead. And you come to appreciate more fully the simple, ordinary heroism involved in opening to another person and forging real intimacy.

 

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There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: Receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it. How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone's love or even pushed it away? Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and so find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in. 

 

We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. but the deeper truth is that we don't entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnects us from our own heart, exacerbating our sense of love's scarcity.

 

Not knowing that we can be loved for who we truly are prevents us from trusting in love itself, and this in turn causes us to turn away from life and doubt its benevolence.

 

You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, you become carried away with yourself. Indeed you are quite impossible in many ways. And still, you are beautiful beyond measure. For the core of what you are is fashioned out of love, that potent blend of openness, warmth, and clear, transparent presence. 

 

Meditation provides a way of learning how to let go. As we sit, the self we've been trying to construct and make into a nice, neat package continues to unravel.

 

In recognizing exactly where we have been unconscious, we become more conscious. And in seeing and feeling the ways we've gone dead, we start to revive and kindle our desire to live more expansively.

 

If there is one thing I've learned in thirty years as a psychotherapist, it is this: If you can let your experience happen, it will release its knots and unfold, leading to a deeper, more grounded experience of yourself. No matter how painful or scary your feelings appear to be, your willingness to engage with them draws forth your essential strength, leading in a more life-positive direction.

 

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At any moment, whatever we are experiencing, only one of two things is ever happening: either we are being with what is, or else we are resisting what is. Being with what is means letting ourselves have and feel our experience, just as it is right now. ... This is where genuine creativity, health, and communication, as well as spiritual power, arise from.

 

To allow yourself your own experience is the greatest act of self love. 

 

I would define love very simply: as a potent blend of openness and warmth, which allows us to make real contact, to take delight in and appreciate, and to be at one with ― our selves, others, and life itself. Openness ― the heart's pure, unconditional yes ― is love's essence. And warmth is love's basic expression, arising as a natural extension of this yes ― the desire to reach out and touch, connect with, and nourish what we love. 

 

A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other's individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level.

 

Love is the recognition of beauty.

 

Yet spiritual realizations often remain compartmentalized, apart from everyday life, or become used as a rationale for living in an impersonal or soulless way. That is why, if we are to live our realizations and bring them into this world, we also need to work on the vessel of spirit - our embodied humanity. Soulwork is the forging of this vessel... If spiritual work brings freedom, soulwork brings integration. Both are necessary for a complete human life. 

 

The light of unconditional love awakens the dormant seed potentials of the soul, helping them ripen, blossom, and bear fruit, allowing us to bring forth the unique gifts that are ours to offer in this life.

 

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We already have so much abundance. We truly do. We need not search too far. It is within. The reason we fail to recognize this is because we haven't quite mastered the art of being. For abundance to prevail, we must have LOVE, gratitude, acceptance and compassion.

 

Magic is a sudden opening of the mind to the wonder of existence. It is a sense that there is much more to life than we usually recognize; that we do not have to be confined by the limited views that our family, our society, or our own habitual thoughts impose on us; that life contains many dimensions, depths, textures, and meanings extending far beyond our familiar beliefs and concepts. 

 

Awareness born of love is the only force that can bring healing and renewal. Out of our love for another person, we become more willing to let our old identities wither and fall away, and enter a dark night of the soul, so that we may stand naked once more in the presence of the great mystery that lies at the core of our being. This is how love ripens us -by warming us from within, inspiring us to break out of our shell, and lighting our way through the dark passage to new birth. 

 

Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you're striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go.