I love you, what do you need?

I overdid it this week. Pushed too hard. Tired of my prolonged lethargy (it takes me a while to come out of my winter hibernation) and subsequent lack of muscle tone and cardio prowess, I decided to get my rump in gear and get active. I've embraced a vigorous daily yoga practice and made a commitment to walk or hike every day. This being my first week, and feeling pretty excited about getting in better shape, I didn't really moderate my activity. Every day I taught my yoga classes, then also did my own practice, then made sure I got a solid hike in. Mind you, this is going straight from the sloth state. Now, nearing the end of the week, my body is like, "wtf?"

Yesterday I was on my mat (trying to squeeze in my own practice before going to teach a class) and ten minutes into class I realized I made a terrible mistake. Between teaching and taking classes all week my body was tired and not up for this. Crap. 65 more minutes. I examined my options here. I could push harder and plow through. I could say to myself, "Come on! Just push through it! Get into the pose! This is how you get stronger!" This was tempting, as an image of my arm flab flashed in my mind's eye. I considered it. Then instead, I decided I would take my cues from my body and if that meant resting in child's pose for a bit while everyone else was rocking their Triangles and Warriors, so be it.

So instead of telling myself to "push harder!", I stood quietly on my mat and said to my tired body, "I love you. What do you need?" Immediately I felt a sense of safety, relief. In posing that question I had just given my overtaxed system two very beneficial and necessary things: love and support. Wow, I thought, what a powerful question. What if we asked ourselves this regularly? What if we asked others this regularly? Hmmmm. I pondered this for the rest of class (which was easy because I spent most of it in child's pose anyway).

I love you, what do you need? This could be a game changer. I began to run through all the scenarios in which this one simple question could be so healing, supportive, and facilitate a healthy relationship with ourselves and with others.

When we are upset about something what would happen if we paused our internal dialogue that tends to take a critical and judgmental voice and asked ourselves instead this question. Might we create the space for a solution to appear? A solution that is grounded in our greatest good, rather than guilt, fear, or anger? Might we realize what we need isn't this mental loop of internal ranting, but rather rest, or to be heard, or a hug, or to blow off the grocery shopping and go see a movie, or to walk past the fear and do that thing we've been afraid to do, or to shift the internal dialogue from negative to supportive? This one question stops the judgment. It shifts the dialogue. It moves past the critical observer and tunes us in to something deeper. To be our best selves we first need to have a healthy and loving relationship with ourselves. Obviously there will be a big difference in our quality of life when the internal dialogue is something like "I love you, what do you need?" rather than something like "Come on you nitwit, get it together!"

Taking this beyond ourselves, can we begin approaching the world at large from this framework of I love you, what do you need? Can you imagine how much more peaceful our interactions would be? We don't have to say this phrase out loud (unless you want to be known as that quirky hippie in your town) but we can embrace it. We can adopt it as an attitude. I think it just might allow us to stay in a space of loving response versus judgmental reaction. We can't understand anyone's else's journey, not fully. But we can help each other along the way and conversely help our own hearts open a little bit more by doing so.

I for one tend to go through my day navigating humanity with anything from mild to acute irritation and forgetting to be patient and tolerant. For example, I live on a curvy mountain road that is very popular with the cyclists. Nine times out of ten I will get behind a cyclist or ten (and procrastinator that I am I'm usually running late) and can't pass because of the curves. I crawl behind them at ten miles an hour, aggravated that I can't move along. When I found myself in this very scenario today I started reflecting on this strategy. I saw this cyclist poking along in front of me and silently said, I love you, what do you need? What I imagine this person needed was for the car behind her to get off her ass and give her a little space. I found my patience and chilled out. It might feel a little funny to offer the "I love you" bit, especially to a stranger, but when I do it immediately reminds me of our shared humanity. It reminds me to be kind to people as I too wish to be treated with kindness. The whole question immediately shifts my focus from my irritation into the other person's shoes. So helpful!

Perhaps this can be a way to begin to really see each other. When we are out in the world dealing with others, if we could shift our focus from you're a giant pain in the ass to what do you need, we can open a pathway for deeper love and compassion to flow. In this way, we can truly begin to walk each other home by walking, just briefly, in each other's shoes.

Another scenario. Imagine being engaged in a conversation with a friend or romantic partner. They are upset about something going awry in their life and ranting away. What is the most supportive way to respond to this? I love you, what do you need? This relieves us of the responsibility of trying to guess and assume what someone needs from us. It gives them the chance to tell us what they really need from us in that moment (let's face it, we are not so good at this as humans. We try to fix when they just want us to listen, we try to advise when we really don't have sound advice to give, we tell them they are overreacting or to calm down when they need to rant and rave). We try to swoop in and fill some sort of role in this person's process. Usually we take a stabbing guess at how to approach this and kind of forget that this is their process and to ask what they need from us. When we do ask it is empowering to them and their process. Plus, it's a reality check for us, the listener. We aren't responsible. This isn't our stuff. We are taking a supportive role here. This one simple question is empowering in two ways: 1. It's loving, and 2. It's supportive. The two necessary ingredients for any genuine conflict resolution or conscious conversation.

Or perhaps we're actually engaged in an argument with another. How often do we remember to embrace love and support when we argue with our partners? We are typically so focused on our point of view that we only half hear the other person's point of view. We get caught up in our own feelings, our own needs. We are distracted by defending our opinion and thinking of the best way to present our case. How beneficial for both people if an agreement was in place that each person would ask the other this question and then listen. 

If we could make space in the argument to look at each other and say, I love you, what do you need, this one question could open such doors! The answers would likely reveal deeper needs that haven't been addressed. Maybe we'll think what they need is stupid or unrealistic. Okay. Can we give it to them anyway? Do we have to understand it or relate to it?

We are all so different. We have such different needs and so much of our chafing comes in wanting others to understand us and 'get us' and consequently support us because they understand us and get us. We may never understand or get each other as fully as we'd like, but we can move past that bit and honor each other regardless.

I love you, what do you need. When I let those seven words run through my mind I feel my heart opening. I feel myself coming closer to my personal goals of being compassionate and patient, with myself and with others. I feel a remembering of what's important. When I get to the end of my life and reflect on the choices I've made, I know I won't be proud of all the times I grumbled and groused about the slow moving cyclists on my road. But I will feel happy about the times I let go of irrelevant frustrations and embraced something deeper and more loving instead. And so as I wish to have more of those instances in my repertoire to reflect upon in my old age, I practice this now. I love you, what do you need? With myself, always first with myself, and from there with the world around me.