Love is something you feel not something you write

My friend's daughter recently graduated from college. Family flew in from all over the country to celebrate together.

And then her family flew back home.

My friend told me she was standing at the airport, watching her family head in the opposite direction, when she felt an intense aching in her chest.

I think the name of that aching is love.

Dr. Curt Thompson says you can talk about love all day long, but sensing it in your body is evidence of its truth.

In my work life, I spend a lot of time in three spaces: preventing substance misuse, promoting mental health and growing awareness about the connection between adverse childhood experiences and lifelong health and wellness.

The beautiful and yet challenging thing about my work is how often I have the opportunity to talk about love. I never thought I'd find myself in a space where I'd be paid to talk about the protective and healing power of love.

It's truth, though. There is no greater predictor of our overall wellness than how deeply we sense the receiving and giving of love.

It feels beautiful to be able to teach and promote that.

The challenge?

When you spend hundreds of hours talking about and writing about the power of deeply sensing love, and at the same time realize you are someone who has rarely experienced that deep aching in the chest, that is hard.

You begin questioning a lot about yourself. I suppose at the heart of that questioning is what kind of a person doesn't deeply feel or give love?

Love - the aching kind.

I find solace in recognizing that I DO feel that kind of love every time I drop my boys off; every time I see them once again walk toward my car. It's a reminder that I'm not broken.

Full of cracks, maybe, but not broken.

But there is a conflict, of sorts, maybe even an ever present longing, when you live a life where love is far more academic than ache. When love is something you spend more time discussing than feeling.

I do feel it more these days. Love. 

For that I'm thankful.

Because more than ever, when I pass my messages on to audiences, whether it's speaking or writing, I know I'm not teaching them but rather feeling them.

Whether the audience is experiencing the aching of love or the longing to ache, I get it. And more than ever, I know the answer to so many questions we are all trying to answer is found in that ache.

It's found in soothing their longing.

It's a gift these days to journey in pursuit of that answer WITH others far more than I am trying to teach that answer TO others.

Because this answer is far more ache than lesson. It is far more heart than pen and paper and voice.

It is far more together than alone.

Because no speech or article can heal the destructiveness of alone.

But love can.

The aching kind.