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Ain't Misbehavin' Anymore, Back to My Frequency

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Remembering What I Forgot

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I’ve been stuck, watching folks misbehaving. One of those folks has most certainly been me. It seems I forgot some of the fundamental truths I’ve discovered. They got buried under the blankets when I got slammed with that awful flu, and for some reason finding my way back to them was Herculean work.

I forgot that

  • I can’t love someone and keep score of what they’re doing.
  • I can’t be thinking about what they’re actions must say about what they think about me. Truth is they’re not thinking about me at all — I am.
  • I can’t be my best when I’m focused on being let down or angry.

What was I thinking? Unconditional love is unconditional, if I don’t know that . . . My whole life has shown me that I’m always clear and right when I follow that simple frequency.

So, to all of my friends who’ve felt the fallout of a head and heart turned in the wrong direction, I’m sorry. I’ve behaved badly.

I ain’t misbehavin’ anymore. I’m moving forward instead.

Whew! What a relief!

Back to the regularly scheduled changing the world. . . .

What’s your frequency?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Unconditional Love

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Can we talk about . . .

unconditional love.

Unconditional love is like a package that comes without strings. I arrives without asking, delivered on a breeze. No invoice is ever written. No charge is ever made. It’s so softly sent that it can go unnoticed as if it didn’t exist.

Unconditional love seeks no reward, no response, no glory for its gift. It sees the reality of a whole human as he or she lives. The dirty socks on the floor and the ringed milk glass in the sink don’t change the astounding feeling of love for the heart who has done these small worldly things.

It’s the opposite of indifference. Indifference has no soul.

It’s surrender to another the way one surrenders to music or art.

Unconditional love is patient, brave, and relentlessly disarmed.

I’ve seen it. I know.

Unconditional love begins when we stop to understand that I hurt me when I hurt you.

It’s believing that inside the happiness of others is where we will find our own.

What does it take to let go?

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The Art of Giving a Gift to Someone You Know

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Can we talk about . . .

giving gifts.

I’ve been thinking about how some folks think they are other-centered, really believe they are, when they don’t quite know how to be. It shows when they buy gifts for people they care about. The gifts don’t always work out.

I have an agreement with my closest friends about giving gifts. When we see something that so perfectly suits the other we buy it and it send it no matter when. When a birthday comes and we haven’t found it, then we don’t. We like it a lot just like that.

Giving with head and heart has a full-on view of the person who will receive it.

Why do we sometimes give gifts those we love without looking?

Companies do it. Parents do it. Husbands, and wives, and lovers do it. Children do it too. Though young children do it least.

I know you know what I mean. It’s that episode of the TV show Frazier in which they try to buy Frazier’s dad a new chair. He loves that chair duct tape and all. What sort of gift separates a guy from something he loves? Who is the gift really for?

It’s the cross pen I got one year for a gift from someone who knew me for over a decade. It was engraved with the wrong initials. It wasn’t the engraver’s mistake.

It’s the shirt, or the tie, or the dress that you would never wear — that so obviously doesn’t reflect who you are.

It’s sad, because often the receiver had no request, no need, and now sees a face filled with anticipation of a joyous response and must blend gratitude with honesty.

The art of giving a gift is accomplished so easily. I don’t understand how we miss this.

A friend said to me recently, “I knew exactly what to buy, because I know her, because I love her.” His gift for her was all about her.

That is the art of giving an unconditional gift.

We have so many gifts to share and so many ways to connect.

A gift can be a kind word, a smile, and hand on a shoulder that says, “I know you. I see you. I am aware you exist.” It’s something that shows I heard you, when you didn’t know I was listening.

How do you recognize a gift from someone who knows you?

–ME “Liz’ Strauss

Related
Personal Identity: What Is Humility?

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In the end, to make a life better . . .

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I’ve been thinking . . .

about Mihaela, Robyn, and Adam, .all three asked me a question — not the same question, but somehow leading to the same answer . . .

I know that on that last day, I will look upon what went before and see that every hurt I caused could have been avoided, if only I had a little more unconditional love to go around.

The words — words that I wrote in beauty and wonder came from love. . . . But sharp, thoughtless replies could not have left their mark, if I had lived the idea of unconditional love at a trying moment.

The father’s hand that held mine gave me unconditional love. I knew it in my soul, in my fingers. I might have passed that love on with a touch, a kind word, a care to someone’s feelings.

If only . . .

Mihaela, Robyn, and Adam, I made this contract once.

I will be the writer that strives to keep alive the music of the language, to hold head and heart together in the words, and to write with hope and passion that one person is better because he or she read what I wrote. — — Contract with Lisa.

On that last day I will have lived it. I will be that writer, that human being.

I have the power to make a life better through the unconditional love inside me.

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