ATTENTION & LOVE

It has been said that -

Love is the quality of our attention.


Love and Attention are very closely related --
To love and be loved is a basic human need;
It's natural.

That need gets perverted, however,
When the being denies love and attention to itself,
Demanding instead that all its needs be met by others.
The "give" side of "give-and-take" dries up,
Because no-one can give away what they don't have.
Flick-passing works for football, but not for love.
Love must be received and experienced
Before it can be paid forward.
Love comes through you....

If you regard yourself as unworthy of love and attention,
You will feel unloved,
Even 'though the the whole world might be paying attention to you.
There is never enough to satiate the hunger of self-imposed impoverishment.
And you -- unloved orphan -- will get to be right --
If you insist that you are "unlovable",
It will not be long before the rest of existence supports and agrees with you.
Now that's love!

When we suppress or deny our need for self-acceptance,
Our need for love subverts itself
Into a symbolic addiction to solicitousness from others;
We'll do anything to be the centre of attention,
Even if that attention is abusive.

If you want love and quality attention
(And who, in their right mind, does not?)
Give it --
Not as a negotiation in order to get it back,
But give it freely
For the inherent joy of giving
To yourself and others
As an expression of your natural being.

Whatever you put out
Will come back to you --
Maybe not directly from the place you sowed it,
But come back to you it will,
Many times blessed,
For that is the Law of Sowing and Reaping.