In the past week, perhaps because it was Thanksgiving week, I heard a snippet of a positive and uplifting story. I heard enough to get a pithy gem of a saying. I regret that I did not hear the whole story, because I cannot give credit where it is due. I don’t know the name of the program or the individual who told the story. But this saying is nonetheless worth passing on. Thank you to the person who generously broadcast it.
Here it is, “Love heals everything, the past, the present and the future.” That may sound sappy or saccharine to you, but I know that it’s true and far from saccharine. I imagine that everyone has heard the saying, “love conquers all,” which has a similar meaning. But the saying I just heard exudes more kinetic energy and has a clearer focus.
Here is the reason that I know that the saying is true. I worked for years as a therapist. Many times, the work was about discerning old pain and hurts, finding self-forgiveness and/or forgiveness for another. The work is about healing, and essentially about love entering someone’s changed perception of their life. The work involves the client, the counselor, and anyone else touched by the event.
So how is this healing love defined? In our culture, love generally means romantic love, or parental love. But there are many more shades of meaning. Looking into these meanings of love, I found definitions for four, seven, even eight types of love.
Which ones inform the meaning of love in the saying “love heals everything…?” First, when considering the past, a therapist, for example, needs to have a degree of self-love (philautia) to be able to support another. And a measure of enduring love (pragma) to stay with the process with understanding and commitment. The client needs to develop or strengthen their self-love, and then develop feelings of acceptance and kinship (storge) and a long-standing commitment (pragma) and/or friendship (philia). It’s a process. It is hard work!
But I propose that this difficult process does work for healing past hurts and trauma. And the present? I offer that, based on self-love, respect, acceptance and listening to another, ‘love’ can lead to more understanding and acceptance in the present. And, if we all provided this kind of support for others here and now, the future would take care of itself!