2023-03-14-Gil-Love When It is Hard (2 of 5) Reactive or Nurturing

3:05PM Mar 17, 2023

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

nurturing

reactive mode

system

reacting

challenge

love

operate

mode

goodwill

protective

wanting

person

live

sense

reactivity

wishing

wells

transactional

reactive

nurture

So hello everyone, and we're here at the second talk for this week series on Love in times of challenge. And so just just repeat a little bit what I said for the guided meditation we have many systems operating within us, and physical, psychological and physiological mental systems, some of which can work independent enough from each other, and some work together and, but even some of their independent can cooperate. So, for people who can hear and people who can walk, those two functions can operate independent from each other. And, but also, they can support each other your walk, and hearing a car coming from behind you, makes you safer as you walk. And so, we have two primary systems and in Buddhism, it focuses on the most common way they talk about it is the wholesome and the unwholesome, but they don't know if that really represents Well, what happens for us inside what I want to emphasize. I'd like to, I like to think of them as being the protective and, and the nurturing. They protect protective and the cultivating. So the protective is what reacts. And the reactive mode was something dangerous happened, suddenly, we have to act instinctively and quickly and just react, you know, without thinking about it. But this reactive mode can operate when there's no immediate pressing danger. And so, and sometimes we're reacting to is our own thoughts live sits quietly sometimes in our bodies being by myself and, and I started to have a little fantasy imagination of some scene that turned out to be kind of dangerous. And I could feel my system reacting to it, I get tense and activated and, and a little bit feel the alarm comes up. And it's all a product of my imagination is not a real thing of my system is reacting to the imagination. And so some people that end up living in a reactive mode, this protective mode, way too often in such a way that protective mode is not really protecting us. It's doing the opposite, that overprotection overreacting of always being in this reactive mode is phenomenally stressful for us for the system. So so it has its role, but it's can be overdone. The other system is the nurturing one, that one allows that cultivate something to grow and develop from the inside out, and nurtures that, the wholesome in us, and that system has operates very differently. It doesn't react to anything. It it wells up from within, and we create the conditions for it, we create the ease, and part of the reason to relax deeply and, and live with less less stress is so this deeper system, the nurturing system can operate best. And that nurturing system sometimes has a lot of intelligence that can help us find our way through life's challenges in a very different way than the protective system does. Which tends to focus on the immediacy of things and and then sees things through the blinds that lens of threat and fear doesn't see things through this lens of the wholeness of it. And so there's nurturing system is where love exists the kind of deep abiding a nurturing love, which wells up from the inside, and does not get entangled with the reactive system. Sometimes what we call love is mostly in this world of reactivity, transactional love, love that comes from maybe feeling insecure. And what we really are in love with is not a person, but we're like searching for a second purity in someone and someone seems to provide security and that's what we're really wanting. And the strong want for security, the strong one for children, the strong one for praise strong want to be associated with someone who somehow builds up our sense of self. It's, it's kind of trying to find our way in the reactive mode. Rather than the love being something that wells up from the inside. That's not transactional, it's not looking for getting something from someone else. Some people love others occasionally, why they love them in quotation marks, is because they love their being loved. And it's so meaningful to be loved, that they're in love with being loved more, they're in love with the other person. So the love thing can be complicated when it's mixed up with the reactive mode. But what we do when we really can relax deeply, and what Buddhism really champions is a non transactional love, a love which is not in needing or getting something from another person, but has a number of beautiful qualities. It has a tremendous appreciate appreciation of others for who they are, there is valuing others, like this is an you just have a tremendous sense of value and the importance of this person, there's a lot of respect for the other person. That respect that also includes kind of granting them giving them their autonomy, letting them make their own choices, and have their own independent life in a certain way and not needing to fold their life into mine, so that I feel safe or secure. And, and then there are the primary characteristics of this Buddhist love is goodwill is well wishing, wishing really wishing someone well. And that well wishing is not, you know, calculated well wishing, but rather just a nurturing feeling like you want to nurture this person, or maybe that's what it was suffocating for some people they feel to nurtured, but but we just went through, we want the best in them. And we take the light and in the possibility of them thriving and being well and, and, and this combination of respect, appreciation and valuing. And wishing people well and wanting to support the wellness and people is kind of this constellation that is metta loving kindness. And that's the nurturing system. So these things can operate together, they can be mutually supportive. But what happens when we're challenged some challenges, trigger the reactive system, the protective system so strongly that it's the only one that's operating. And if it's only the reactive system, it's fine if the mountain lion is attacking you, but it's not fine. If it's, you're going for a job interview, and the job interview is in a month, and the whole month, you're just living kind of biting your fingernails and pacing around your room and kind of activated in some kind of tense way. That's not healthy living that kind of reactive mode. To have to be hurt deeply. And to live in the reactive mode that just keeps us close to the Earth and keeps us spinning in the reactive mode is also not healthy for us. So that to live solely this reactive mode is not healthy. So when we're challenged, the important question I'd like to propose is where's the love? Can there be love here? Can there be kindness here? Where does or where does kindness begin? Where do I find it here. And some of that we find in wanting it to be there to want to have love to want to have goodwill and mettā. That desire for it is profound. It's the beginning of love. Even if you can't do it in a conventional way, you're beginning it by just wanting it and just appreciating that wanting and relaxing as opposed to being in this transactional mode of wanting and then depending on getting what we want. It's wanting and appreciating the wellspring within in which it comes from. And so when we're challenged notice if you're forgetting this other whole system, the nurturing system within And what can you do to tap into it? What can you do to let the nurturing system support you

to do to do self care to, to find ways in which to settle the reactivity enough, or put it aside enough, so that the nurturing system has a chance to, to emerge as well. Maybe it's something maybe going for a walk or stepping away from challenging things, spending time with a friend who makes you kind of feel happy. So that you're not always kind of caught in the realm of your challenge. And, and then you come back to the challenge in this with, with this other mode available, the nurturing mode, the kind mode, the goodwill mode, and maybe your ability to engage in the challenge will be very different than if you're only living in the reactive mode. So this is a, this is a suggestion, then that there is kind of a strategic stepping away from our challenges, when possible, when it's not the mountain lion there. And meditation is one of the ways to step away from it. So we're thinking about are chronically if we can, but find some way to step away enough, so it's not obsessing the mind. And allow something deeper to emerge from the inside some sense of well being some sense of peace and sense of calm, some sense of goodwill, of kindness, look for the kindness. And sometimes it's enough to just ask the question, what's the kind thing to do here? What will be the kind thing right now? And inserting that in the middle of the, you know, swirl of challenges can contribute to there being a light, you know, appearing in a dark room it can, it can create space, and it places been costed claustrophobic. So non transactional love non tracks transactional mettā, and goodwill? What do you know about that? What do you know about love? How is it that your love for others is mixed up with transactional love are mixed up with the reactive system? Is there a clarification of purification of love? That's possible when we quiet the reactive mode down dramatically? And now and then keep asking what would be the kind thing here? What would be the supportive thing here. And finally, this mode of coming from the nurturing mode, that kind mode is, is one that wants the best for everyone involved, not just for oneself, not just for the other, for everyone involved. And believe it or not, even for the people who are our biggest challenge, even for the people who you might think of as your enemies. The Goodwill mode has no boundaries for who deserves and doesn't deserve our basic goodwill. So thank you. And I hope that you take these words and reflect on them and think about them, maybe have conversations with people about them and see if you can really kind of discover for yourself this nurturing mode, the loving mode and and how it can become a greater resource for you. Don't let it atrophy. Thank you