In May I went to a baby shower and played with a 2 year old girl for a long time, framing up for her to do acrobatics hanging from my hands and climbing up my legs.
She was a natural, engaging all the right muscles to get where she wanted to go in midair, expertly using the anchor points I offered her.
Some children really know how to be held.
And, if you've ever tried to hold a child that is upset, you know they all know how to be *very hard to hold.*
But there are also children who don't quite know how to be held. Their muscles are disengaged at crucial places. They *want* to be held, flipped, maneuvered, played with, and it's 3x more exhausting for anyone who offers this to them.
This is an example of physical holding, but emotional holding works exactly the same way. The muscles we firm up to be held well emotionally are muscles of belief in ourselves and in others' willingness to love us. Without engagement in those crucial anchor points, we're collapsing in the arms of love and exhausting our loved one unnecessarily. We aren't receiving the full experience of holding and play that is available there.
Knowing how to love and be loved are patterns as clear and specific as any particular flavor of abuse.
Where abuse looks with eyes of blame, devotional love looks with eyes of personal responsibility and understanding of the other's sacred will and sovereignty.
Where abuse speaks with harsh words of criticism, devotional love speaks life into the lovable qualities and traits and the way each quality and trait is a welcome gift to be present in the moment.
Where abuse punishes and controls, devotional love surrenders, feels, expresses, and witnesses expression.
As surely as we can find specific words of abuse readily in a moment of anger, "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" for example, we can be taught and practice new automatic responses to these moments, "it seems like you're having some big feelings."
As surely as abuse is built on pillars about the way things and people should be and how to punish them when they aren't like that, devotional love is built on pillars about the way things are and the way we can accommodate any and all that might arise, the way we can be intimate with the in-between moments, the way we can be at peace.
If all you were offered as a child was something more to cry about, how could you know how to be held by someone, present and attentive, observing you in a big feeling?
This is specific stuff. You were meant to learn love from other people. You were meant to learn what it DOES look like, not just what it doesn't look like.
What's possible might just blow your mind.