054 – Mini Musing: Visions of Love

Sarah Tacy [00:00:06]:
Hello. Welcome. I’m Sara Tacy, and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown, and the pull feels real. Together, we share our grief, laughter, love, and life saving tools. Join us. Hello, and welcome to this mini musing. It’s the last episode of February, and I’ve dedicated this month to variety of ways that love can look, that self revelation can look.

Sarah Tacy [00:00:57]:
Self love. And maybe I didn’t share this and I’ll share this now, which is that when I was in Costa Rica, it had been 10 years since I had been there. So interestingly enough, Jennifer Fox, who did the Imbolc episode, spoke a lot about Nosara Costa Rica, and that is where I spent a decent amount of time from 2005 till 2014. It’s where I felt most alive. It’s where I felt most challenged. It’s where I felt my grandmother’s spirit returned to me with messages. It’s where I taught my 1st 100 hour teacher training, which I did before I ever even taught a 2 hour workshop. And there were people from around the world that came.

Sarah Tacy [00:01:42]:
And so this place held such a feeling of life for me. And I returned 10 years later for my husband’s 40th birthday. I returned with my parents. I returned with 2 kids. The last time I was there, I was child free and I noticed a difference and I could judge myself for having perhaps less capacity or that my body looked different than it did 10 years ago. And it reminded me of my need to engage again and again, in practices of self love. And so, so far, we have had a story, I believe, starting with Jennifer Fox, which is the like right before February, on the Eve of Imbolc, who had a story of being with a partner since knowing him since 2nd grade and being in a relationship, which I’m sure many times over, but one in particular where he has a massive stroke and she enters perimenopause and everything that they know comes to an end and they enter this primordial ooze together. And she shares about getting through those years.

Sarah Tacy [00:03:05]:
And I think it’s a 7 year period of what we might consider the winter cycle or the fertile void and coming out a new on the other side, having a sense of maidenhood, having a sense of new beginnings, having a sense of hope. After her episode, we have Jennifer Racioppi who tells us a story of liberation and resilience in which her path there ended up being an ending to a marriage in which she deeply loved and cared for this man and through the circumstances that were real and through the efforts and the deep digging came in a need for uncoupling, a need for unwinding. And I wonder how much we really said this of how much she has discovered about herself. And I know she noted this, the growth in capacity, the growth in happiness, the expansion that she’s feeling on the other side. On February 13th, we listened in to letters that my friend Taylor McFarland and I wrote to each other years ago that we called Holding A Vision in which we hold a vision for somebody else, somebody that we love, somebody that we can see with loving eyes, somebody that we can see a more beautiful world for. And perhaps I’d even say that in Jennifer Fox’s episode, part of the ritual for Imbolc was to write a letter for ourselves, which would show a practice of self love. Following that is an episode with Dana Myers. And you may be like, I don’t need a recap.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:57]:
I’ve listened to them all. Or the reason why I’m recapping is to hear a variety of ways that love shows up. The one that Taylor and I had wasn’t necessary to be in a romantic relationship and the romantic relationships that I’ve had on this month have been heterosexual. And clearly, that is not necessary. And they have been with cisgender people. And clearly, that is not necessary. That is not a prerequisite. And we’ve had examples of ways we can do this with friends, ways we can do it for ourselves.

Sarah Tacy [00:05:33]:
And when Dana Myers came on, it was about self pleasure. And, yes, she also spoke into committing time if you’re in a relationship or pleasure together. And this idea slightly blew my mind. I’m I’m more and more when I first heard to speak, like, oh, yeah. Why would pleasure be a bad thing? Why do I feel shame about that? Why can’t this just be in my life as an important thing? And in that episode, even thinking of pleasure as a way to tell our bodies that we’re safe when we’re stressed. And I want to highlight there. So maybe this is a highlight reel to begin with. I want to highlight there that she honored the transition.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:18]:
So not to say I feel scared and stressed. I am a self pleasure. And then maybe shame that we can’t get there, but to say, and what would I need to transition? A massage, dancing to a certain song, Going out in nature, having a deep conversation, knowing the amount of time that you have with somebody might help with that. And she mentioned erotica reading a certain book. Allowing time for transition so that we can choose. I’m moving towards pleasure. And that being a dedication of self love and love for others. During this time, I’ve been reading a book by Bell Hooks.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:04]:
As I started writing down quotes, I realized this could very easily turn into me doing a book report. So I think what I’ll do is just say a few parts that popped out, a few parts that I can pull up here because what I’m interested in in this episode is just highlighting the ideas of what is love, which is what bell hooks helps us define self love. And then I’m gonna add into that, what role is pleasure? And also add in that I have an inquiry of what role does anger have? As Poe brought to us, Poe Hung Yoo, how could expressing, for her, she speaks about expressing in yin ways, anger, help us have greater access to our pleasure, authenticity. And I’m going to add love, truth, integrity. Bell hooks book is called All About Love. And then under that it says new visions. How perfect is that with the holding a vision? I believe the reason why it’s new vision, because she describes how so many of us think that love is a feeling that we attach punishment and reward with a sensation of love or lack of love. She starts by introducing Scott Peck’s work from The Road Less Travelled, which was published in 1978, and that he was echoing the words of Eric Frome by defining love as, and I quote, the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.

Sarah Tacy [00:08:59]:
Explaining further, he continues, love is as love does. Love is as love does. Bell Hook says, therefore we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful or abusive. Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are by definition, the opposite of nurturance and care. Later on in her book, she says realistically confronting lovelessness is part of the healing process. Hook Sarah for more folks, it is just too threatening to embrace a definition of love that would no longer enable us to see love as present in our families. Too many of us need to cling to the notion of love that either makes abuse acceptable, or at least makes it seem that whatever happened was not that bad.

Sarah Tacy [00:09:51]:
She says I did not feel loved in our household, but I did feel cared for. She says that genuine love is a combination of care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, and respect. Genuine love is a combination of care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, and respect. Love is as love does. In a different definition, she adds a word recognition, and I love that. Can you imagine if the one that cared for you or in you caring for yourself, there’s an element of recognition or an alchemical alignment. We call it accurate reflection. I see you.

Sarah Tacy [00:10:35]:
I see how hard this is. I know that sharing that truth was really hard. I can feel in myself. So this goes to the truth telling, like I can feel in myself that it was hard to receive that truth, but I’m so grateful. I would prefer that you say the truth than cover it up. Hooks says there can be no love without justice and that the heart of justice is truth telling. And so there’s a whole big section on truth telling and how when we don’t tell the truth, we stay surface. I can really feel that in various conversations.

Sarah Tacy [00:11:18]:
And I would say without throwing any shade on anyone, we get to reveal what we’re ready to reveal. But in various conversations where people feel the truth is too vulnerable. And so they keep it surface and they answer surface. How are you doing today? I’m doing well. Thank you. Are you really? I have some time. Do you want to tell me how you’re really feeling? You know, what do you do for work? And it may be a one word answer or it could go in and someone could say what the work is really for them or what is hard or how is your relationship going? And I’ll say one more thing, which is that this idea of cathexis or cathecting, which is when we feel a deep draw to someone, Pet points out that that’s often us confusing it for love. So again, as we think about our primary relationships and as we vision into a new world, so I would say perhaps less to judge what something was even though we can totally thank you.

Sarah Tacy [00:12:33]:
So helpful to orient to like, oh, that actually isn’t what I want or that’s what it was and this is what I do want. If we start moving into, I want someone here who is on behalf of my spiritual growth, which could be a confusing definition if you are thinking that somebody’s abuse is on behalf of our spiritual growth. Anything in life could be on behalf of our spiritual growth. I would say this is with the idea and in the context of saying that they want to nurture and nourish you, not that you get stronger by surviving them. That would not necessarily be love. It would just be what the relationship serves. So as I begin to think into my own relationships, I can think of times where it’s like, Oh, that’s really, really not great if I have to have the context of love is as love does because my empathetic heart can say, oh, but this person was feeling challenged at this time. And that’s why this action was taken.

Sarah Tacy [00:13:36]:
I think to take away from some of the black and white, it could say like that was not a loving action. That is not how love acts. For me. I might take that out of that person doesn’t have the capacity to love, but more seeing when a person is moving into it or when I myself am learning how to love someone for exactly who they are, how they are while knowing what boundaries I have. I am really into the idea that love is as love does. I’m into the idea that it has to do with respect and care and the word commitment, responsibility, self responsibility, responsibility to each other. Because if I were just seeking a feeling, it would make sense why, why someone could say like, Oh, I’m just staying in this marriage. It doesn’t feel good.

Sarah Tacy [00:14:28]:
I’m not in love anymore. I’m not ever actually suggesting here that one should stay in a loveless marriage or stay committed to something that doesn’t feel right. But I am interested in the idea that the feeling of love can be title, but that the action of love could be steady. That’s interesting to me. I’m interested in the idea that the feeling of love may be title, but that the action of love can be steady. If I’m to touch back on the idea of self love while also doing those mini book report, I can now begin to move towards the idea of self love. I’ll start by Hook’s quote that says self love cannot flourish in isolation. I read this line and I said, thank you.

Sarah Tacy [00:15:27]:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because in a world where we can so highlight independence and self responsibility, If we’re not also seeking for outside world to treat us as well as our inside world. We start to treat ourselves on the inside world. If we don’t start looking for possibilities of a more beautiful life on the outside and on the inside. And that sometimes like in the example of having a friend holding a vision, sometimes somebody can show you such love and care and respect that you begin to open up to new possibilities of how you could treat yourself. So as we go into self love, it feels important to me that it’s not an either or, but that it can be a both and self love and relational health.

Sarah Tacy [00:16:22]:
Repeating the ingredients that bell hooks names trust, commitment, care, respect, knowledge, responsibility, recognition. She says the wounded heart learned self love by first overcoming low self esteem and therefore she then pulled up a book called The 6 Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. Here are the 6 pillars, the practice of living consciously, self acceptance, self responsibility, self assertiveness, living purposefully, and the Practice of Personal Integrity. This is an entire book. It is not something that we will go into each one. She and her book does spend a chapter going into each one of these pillars. I’m going to read them again. So in order to build self esteem, the 6 pillars would be the practice of living consciously, self acceptance, self responsibility, self assertiveness.

Sarah Tacy [00:17:29]:
Notice that you have a desire, taking time to feel and choose. Number 5, living purposefully. What are you giving back? What moves you? And the practice of personal integrity, truth telling, and reminder that I did an entire episode with Tamika Schilbe and the art of truth telling. What I love about these pillars is that it expands my idea of self love a little bit beyond the, I need to look in the mirror and say, I love you you and notice how my body is changing and my skin is changing and look for gratitude that that might be one element that might be self acceptance, but that self love just to include and be reminded of the ways that I live consciously. To remember that I, if I’m thinking about self love. That every time that I’ve taken responsibility for something or every time that I can take responsibility, that that gets to be self love. That boundary setting is self love. That as I do things that some might say are selfish, I do them because I feel like I’m living purposefully that that is self love.

Sarah Tacy [00:18:50]:
And some, of course, if they were say community service, then someone might not say that selfish. But the purposefully might be that I’m doing a yoga practice. It might be that I choose time away from my family in order to go lead or receive a retreat or be in circle. It may be community Sarah. And the practice of personal integrity, every time I have a hard conversation with myself or a hard conversation with a friend or a family member. To honor truth, my truth, my experience that that gets to be self love. It just helps me see all the ways that I am loving myself and it helps me find greater purpose in some of these things that may feel fragmented or separate, that I can weave them together as a practice of self love. And those things feel somewhat dry as well.

Sarah Tacy [00:19:58]:
Which is why I’m also interested in pleasure and anger. And pleasure could be put into living purposefully or the practice of living consciously. But I find that so much when I think about nervous system regulation and I think of stability and I think of these 6 pillars, there can feel to me to be this very right way of living and this very good girl energy. And so what I love about even the word witch or the idea of spell or ritual or the idea that there are ways to have fight or flight outlets or rage or anger or sensuality is that it brings in this more animalistic part that gets to be included instead of getting pushed aside for some more idealized heavenly fitting into the desires of a female in the patriarchy. If my self love includes my wild one, that falls under self acceptance. If my self love and that self acceptance includes the angry parts And that I would give it a place in a way to move. So I will have more guests coming on the podcast to talk about anger and their process with it and how they move it. Because I’m getting so interested because I think that’s been frozen in me for 40 years.

Sarah Tacy [00:21:35]:
Anger? I don’t have anger. I might be frustrated. And as Poe suggested that as we move our anger, we have more access to our pleasure centers. And as I begin moving more into pleasure. So here I am talking about these more animalistic ways and senses. I can look at part of my journaling that I do in the morning and evening. And in the evening, there’s one where I write down my wins for the day, because often it helps me see that my day was so much better than I even recognize that I passed over so many beautiful parts and didn’t see them. And so I start writing my wins.

Sarah Tacy [00:22:10]:
And if I can change the word wins to pleasure points, then I might see, oh, like just recognition of the pleasure that is already there. And as I take time to sense into them, what did they feel like? What did they smell like? What did they look like? What did my body feel like when I did these things? That pleasure and self pleasure is not only about the sexual action of self pleasure, but that it could include the food you eat, the meals you have, the friends that you’re with, the nature that you’re in. I think that beginning a pleasure practice has so much to do with sensing. In yoga classes, I used to always ask people, would they be willing? Do they have any access to being sensual? And by that, I mean by sensing what they’re feeling in their hands, at the tip of their toes, the energy moving through their body. Any vision that may be coming, any pulsations that they have, any sensation is the sensual. My mini musings sometimes feel very tangential to me. And if I were to take this time at the end to bring it together would be that my review of the February podcast was to simply offer the many ways that love, self love, self recognition can look. And then to offer perhaps for many of us an updated definition of love.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:54]:
Love is as love does. Abuse doesn’t get to be coupled with love. No, thank you. I will have a new vision of what love can be, And that will be for myself and that will be with my friendships and that will be with my family. And as I work on that love with others, I will work on the self love of myself, which comes through self esteem and the 6 pillars. And I will add the animal parts, the sensing parts, the pleasure parts, the anger release. I say release as if it’s, we want to get rid of it and pleasure, we want to take it in. So I’m just noticing that in myself.

Sarah Tacy [00:24:30]:
I’m noticing that in myself. So as I close out, I will close out as I generally do with, I wonder statements. Again, I wonder if there’s any pleasure and anger. I wonder what anger looks like with the yin. I wonder how much of my life can be filled with love that is defined as love is, as love does. That love is here for my spiritual awakening and for that of those I love to nourish it, to support it. Show me so many examples where this is possible. Show me in those who are not yet my friends, but have friendships with others that hold this vibration, this energy, this action.

Sarah Tacy [00:25:21]:
Show me as people begin to act this way towards me. Help this clarify my yes and my no. May I receive more true love? May I give more true love? May commitment and truth telling and recognition be a deep part of who I am. May the animal in me, may the wild side of me be included. Thank you so much. Welcome into the almost spring energy. I will say here in Maine that the fap and the maple trees, which is more like water than the sticky sap it’s running now that the black cap chickadees are out and they’re singing that signs of life are coming. So for me, this adds a little extra energy and a little extra hope.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:27]:
Blessings Until next time. Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at Sarah tasey.com.

Sarah Tacy [00:27:04]:
And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it’s wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or 2. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.