WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CARE?
Uprooting definitions & discovering the truth
What does it mean to care? This my friends is a loaded question. Our definitions of care are both culturally and personally informed. Society has given us ideas about what it means to be caring and we have created our own stories about what caring is and isn’t. We associate caring or being cared about with certain feelings and sensations. When we feel specific ways in the presence of ourselves or others we equate those feelings and sensations as care. What happens though, when we feel or have sensations in the presence of ourselves or others, that we don’t like? We might say “he/she is mean, they are only concerned about themselves” or “he/she is so self-centered or “they are so mis-attuned.” While all of these statements might very well be true, what do they have to do with caring or not caring? I know that’s challenging and bit confronting to suggest or question. I feel challenged by it at times as well. However I am a lover of inner peace, so for me I must investigate what I am believing and feeling about what’s occurring, so that I can identify the true source of pain for myself.
If someone is “fully absorbed” in and with one’s self and you want them to be focused in a different way so that you feel differently in their presence, then that is about you and what you care about. For example, say you care about connecting and relating with someone, but they seem to have no interest in connecting and relating with you. It is easy to come to the assumption that they don’t care about you. Maybe that’s true, perhaps they don’t, but if you don’t directly ask them you don’t know. You might say something like “Hey I notice that I really want to connect with you and to me that looks like you wanting to eat dinner with me, take a walk, go on a vacation or advocate for me in some way, but when I ask you to do those things you say no. I then assume you don’t care about me. Is it true that you don’t care about me?”
In that statement you have taken accountability for your feelings, revealed your assumptions and asked a direct question. Whether or not the person gives you an honest answer will be revealed, but at least you’ve opened a real dialogue. They might say “you know I really want to do those things with you, but I feel stressed about xyz and so I just can’t make myself available to you in those ways.” Another potential response they could have might be, “it’s true I don’t care for you.” It might hurt to hear it, but at least you know the truth and can take appropriate actions for yourself, rather than attempting to get something from a source/person that isn’t open to give it. Other potential responses might be them telling you what they think you want to hear, or the opposite of that where they ignore you. They might also superficially brush you off with something like “you’re being ridiculous, which means that they likely don’t value those things with you that you desire with them, but they don’t have the courage to tell you. They might be afraid to lose your love, or perhaps they have definitions that they are a mean or bad person if they don’t value what you value, and so they shy away from their authenticity in immature ways.
ALL THE WAYS OF CARE
Multitudes of perspectives
We all care about, well, whatever it is that we care about. There is not always agreement about what should be cared about on a personal level, same is true at the collective level. What if somehow we could find the space inside of our very own being to allow people to care about what they do care about, and not care about what they don’t care about? We don’t have to agree with what anyone else cares about, just like they don’t have to agree with what we care about, even though we often desperately want them to. Some things that people care about might be in direct conflict with what we care about. How do we create the openness inside of ourselves to allow that to exist? Whether or not we do or don’t create that inner space, that thing exists. There is nothing we can do about it. What exists, exists. We could go to war with it, which is often the “solution” people choose, simply because they can’t see another way. They can’t see another way because they haven’t allowed what already is to be. They are busy being in resistance to existence. They don’t understand how harmony naturally occurs when we stop all the fighting, allowing everything to rest into its proper place. This is true for both our personal lives and the collective at large. It’s so obvious, perhaps a bit too obvious for most to see.
I am a firm believer that we each want the same things, yet we look at it all in very different ways. One person’s way of moving towards connection, love or peace, might look absolutely opposite of another’s, simply because they have very different perspectives. We are all a unique facet of the infinitely large crystal of creation. There is just one crystal, but there are endless perspectives. We can’t really know another’s perspective. We can imagine what their perspective might be and feel like, but we can’t know it. In that way we are each a unique flavor or aspect of the all that is. The all that is, is all that is, and somehow everything contained inside of it, including you and me, fits. I fit, you fit, the guy you don’t know down the street fits, your spouse fits, your boss and colleagues fit, your enemy fits, the people you disagree with the most fit. If we all just realized that we fit, rather than fighting to fit or to have the highest, supreme, and most right perspective or way, we would all have a very different experience of life.
Care about what you care about just because you care about it and not very any other reason. Not to get others to agree, see or hear what you think matters or what you want. Care just because you can’t not care for what you care about. Let the only agenda in your caring be that you care about what you care for. Stop the underlying manipulation to get others on your side or to see or agree on your perspective. As you let be, the more resonance you will find. Things will “clean themselves up” in your life. This might mean that some relationships end and that others are born. It might mean jobs, careers or businesses that once fulfilled you no longer do and new things arrive that matter to you. Social causes that once were very important now morph into something else. We often don’t give ourselves the permission to care about what we care about fully, but the more we do the more we will feel relaxed inside of ourselves. This is being in alignment. We stop holding onto things that have run their rhythm, or doing things that we don’t care about, just because we think it is expected of us or that we might lose something if we don’t. It is the end of self and other manipulation. It is true authenticity and care. People are as they are, you are as you are. Focus on what is your’s to care about and let all else be.
Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractic & Subtle Energy Healing, Boulder, Colorado
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