2.2 Response
STAGE 2: Awareness of Self
MY RELATIONSHIPS
GENERATING LIFE
RESPONSE
Aim: To become aware that, in relationships, authentic love keeps responding even to the point of risking rejection.
Reading
The gift of love (1 Cor 13:1-8a): If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Comment
To love in all the dimensions suggested by St. Paul, means relating with honesty and accepting vulnerability. In other words, it means taking risks. In fact, the essence of authentic love is the willingness to share the most fragile and tender parts of myself with another. It is the willingness to talk about my deepest fears, self-doubts, and yearnings. It takes courage to allow my innermost feelings to be seen by another. It’s scary. There’s no guarantee that he or she will not reject me.
So why take the chance of being rejected? The answer is because it allows me to take the relationship a quantum leap forward. When I risk in this way, I open myself to love, support, and healing from another. I allow myself to trust another human being. I allow another to enter intimately into my life. This could be a profound experience and a spiritual blessing!
If I want my significant relationships to grow and flourish, I must work to heal and transform the deepest fears I hold about them. Some of these fears are: fear of being rejected, of being betrayed, of being abandoned, of not being seen or heard, of being misunderstood, of losing my freedom, of losing myself, of not being deserving of love, etc.
Personal Reflection and Sharing
The first step in this process is discerning my fears in my relationships. The second step is being willing to share these fears with the ones I love.
- In my relationships, especially in my intimate relationships, what is it I fear most? In other words, what is the fear (or fears) that I find most difficult to tell someone I love?
- In my sharing, if I were to say something “risky”, some-thing I have never said to someone I love, what is it? Am I ready to share the same with the person/s directly involved?
[2-2] CALL RESPONSE COMMITMENT PRAYER