📅 Thought for today:

‘Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.’

— Karl A Menninger

#thoughtfortoday #love #cure #gift #giving #receiving #unconditional

This is my final thought this week about gifts we can give which are valued by the receiver but require no financial outlay.

After companionship, acceptance, empathy, and listening I imagine a few of you have guessed I’d end with love.

Many cultures of the world, and their associated languages, have a variety of words for the different types and circumstances of love. In English, we use one word, whereas other languages (such as Greek, or Japanese) have several words.

So let me be clear that I am not talking of romantic or lustful love. I am talking about the absence of judgement and the presence of acceptance and empathy. In therapist speak we talk of “unconditional positive regard” which is often interpreted as “love” for a client.

The limitations of our language lead to moral ambiguity with those words, when they really should not.

To offer your love is the greatest gift you can give yet both parties gain through the act of giving. That is, I think, the most remarkable thing about it.

It is hard to offer love, to act out of love, to be loving without choosing who we want to give this gift to.

I have been asked many times how I can work with “________” (insert here the worst criminal activity you can think of) – to help them is to condone them I have been told.

“You should cut them off, refuse to work with them, they don’t deserve our support”.

I don’t agree. To offer our love unconditionally is to offer hope to the hopeless, worth to the worthless, use to the useless and help to the helpless. These are the words I hear from people at their lowest ebb.

So maybe spare a thought for those that would benefit from a little more hope in their lives and as Greg Lake sang,

“Lend your love to me tonight
Don’t ask me who or what is right
I have no strength I cannot fight
Just flood my darkness with your light”