What´s love got to do with it?
“Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to nuclear war, none is so great as the deadening of our response” Joanna Macy
Our responses to the unprecedented upheavals of our time are often numbed by reactively closing our hearts. With a hardened, closed heart, we seem more protected and feel safer; it’s a natural reaction of the survival instinct. But it also makes us significantly less alive.
And is it even true that we are safer when we become hard and close ourselves off?
Don’t we need more heart qualities to respond empathetically and appropriately?
With a closed heart, we lose contact with the most important people, things, and living beings we love. Yet, our love is actually the basis of our pain and grief: Precisely because we love a partner, it is painful when we feel hurt by them. Precisely because we love our child, it is terrible when they become seriously ill or are in pain. Precisely because we love nature, because we are connected to all life forms, the earth, and all the wonders of the universe – precisely for this reason we grieve when nature and life are destroyed.
Staying connected to our loving heart can fundamentally change our experience of crises. Love and an open heart have the wonderful ability to connect us with gratitude, awe, curiosity, loving kindness, and compassion for ourselves and others. And these are the qualities we need most in difficult times – and they make our lives worth living.
A scientific study by Paul Gilbert et al. (published by the British Psychological Society) shows that supporting people in developing their compassion for themselves and others has a strong influence on the quality of affect – negative feelings are reduced and positive feelings are encouraged.
Some people, especially those with strong tendencies toward self-criticism or depression, have difficulty with self-compassion and accepting compassion – or are even afraid of it, as clinical observations show. However, if one succeeds in accessing compassion for oneself and others, this can regulate threat-based emotions. Isn’t the ability to regulate threat-based emotions precisely what we need most in the face of the meta-crisis?
Certain factors make us vulnerable to totalitarianism, as Mattias Desmet describes in his book “The Psychology of Totalitarianism.” Mattias Desmet is a professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University and is considered a leading expert on the phenomenon of massification.
Totalitarianism is no accident and does not develop in a vacuum. Its origin lies in the phenomenon of “mass education.” A general feeling of loneliness and a lack of social ties and meaning gives rise to fears and dissatisfaction, which in turn manifest themselves in frustration and aggression.
Desmet describes dynamics that have existed for some time but have increased exponentially with the COVID pandemic. So-called “bullsh* jobs” that offer no meaning and don’t really contribute to social well-being also contribute to the lack of meaningfulness. The term (we will discuss this in more detail elsewhere) was coined by David Graeber in his book “Bullshit Jobs – The True Meaning of Work”: “A bullshit job is an occupation that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or harmful that even the worker cannot justify its existence. So, it’s not about jobs that no one wants to do, but rather about jobs that no one actually needs.” Here, too, the sense of meaning and the connectedness that can arise through meaningful interaction are missing.”
Our illusion of having life and nature under control separates us from reality. As Mattias Desmut noted: “Precisely this attitude of wanting to primarily control, manage, and organize our lives and our world is a prerequisite for totalitarianism.”
Life is not in our hands: that we exist at all, that our organism functions harmoniously and incredibly complexly, and everything that life offers us – we do not control any of that.
So what guides us if not our control? To whom or what could we surrender and trust? When we consider our lives: What was essential and valuable, worth living? And: Did we “make” that happen—or did it happen to us? To fall in love, to love at all, to be able to experience joy, to be overwhelmed by nature or deeply touched by a child: That, too, is grace.
We will never have everything under control – and that’s a good thing.
Joanna Macy again: “To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe – to participate in the dance of life, with senses that perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it – is a wonder beyond words.”
