Have you ever had an experience where you hear something, and you know it's the first time you've ever heard it, but it has such an impact on you that it's as if you've known it all along? Perhaps as if it is a reminder of something you experienced in a past life, or is just ingrained in your soul? The first time I heard the words "the love that you withhold is the pain that you carry" it was one such experience for me.
It was one of those moments where you think to yourself "wow that's so true" and "that's so profound" but you're really thinking it from an intellectual standpoint instead of an experiential one. Well, unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you want to look at it) no words that I've ever heard in my life have been more viscerally true. They were certainly very emotional moments, and private, to be honest. But, in the spirit of opening our hearts for the benefit of others, I'm going to get a little personal here and tell you some stories, because there are two times in my life that these words have just "popped" back into my head.
The first time was during a very challenging break up for me. I hadn't even been with my partner for very long; just over a year. But our compatibility was so good that it really felt to me like it was an "easy" relationship. We got along well, shared a lot of the same interests and how we enjoyed passing our time, generally speaking. We had similar friend groups and could blend right into each other's social circles with absolutely no issues. To me, at the time, it seemed like a perfect match.
But, what I thought made it so great was also the Achilles heel. It was so "easy" that I ultimately took it for granted. I didn't put as much care into the relationship as I should have, and neither did she. As time passed the effort towards effective communication also waned on both of our ends. After a series of bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances (on both of our ends) she broke up with me in a very impersonal way and for a moment it absolutely devastated me.
I say "for a moment" because during one of our conversations as I could feel it coming that our relationship was about to end I had that feeling like your heart is sinking into your chest. Like a black hole of pain that will eternally be sucking in energy. But, all of a sudden, those words popped into my head "the love that you withhold is the pain that you carry" and there was a complete reversal from a sinking heart to an exploding one. I've heard people talk before about "opening your heart chakra" and if this wasn't it then I don't know what else could be.
Everything turned around in a second. I went from feeling pain to feeling empowered because I understood what happened. I couldn't feel sorry for myself in that instant because I knew that I had completely created that situation by my own actions. I took for granted so many aspects of that relationship that I was withholding love. And in the instant that I knew the relationship was ending I felt so much pain because I had been withholding that love for so long and it escalated into a situation that couldn't be reconciled, and that withheld love expressed itself as pain.
In retrospect I consider myself fortunate for the situation. The words "the love that you withhold is the pain that you carry" changed from an intellectual understanding to a truly visceral experience. Of course it was very uncomfortable not only in the moment of the break up but the entire time things were escalating into it. But the lesson learned was invaluable. It sparked a serious pursuit of looking inward which resulted in me not only repairing some other relationships, including some with my family, but opened up the possibilities for other ones. I currently have a partner that I'm very much in love with and this relationship would not have happened had I not done the necessary inner work to open myself up to a more true, intimate relationship.
So, all good, lesson learned, right?! Well clearly not, because if you remember reading the start of this article I said there were two instances that those words popped into my head, haha. But c'est la vie, huh? We always think we've learned the lesson - and we may even make significant changes in our life - but at some point life can reveal to us that there are still ways that we need to integrate these lessons, and still more to learn.
And for me this happened again just recently. My partner and I currently live together with her two cats. And I love these cats but she really loves them. I am literally in awe of how much she loves them. It's the kind of love that makes me know she would be a great mother. One of the cats, Dr Gonzo, is a BIG BOY. And not in a chonker fat cat kind of way. I think of him like a little bulldog. He's got these broad shoulders, and even kind of stiffs up when you hold him more like a dog would than a cat. There's the "folk legend" that "cats always land on their feet" but I honestly don't think this guy would. I'm afraid to even try, haha.
Over a period of a couple of months Dr Gonzo started losing weight, and at first it seemed fine. His diet had been switched up and he honestly started to get a little more flexible and cat like. The little rascal got a boost in energy and started jumping up on the counters and getting into all sorts of mischief that he really hadn't done previously because of his bulkiness. It honestly was starting to get a little annoying because we'd be laying down for bed and just hear him getting up on counters trying to get into bags of food and stuff.
After a series of unfortunate events trying to clean him up one day, he tried to take a bite out of my partner and ended up breaking his tooth. It was a scary moment considering we'd noticed how he'd been losing the weight so rapidly so she scheduled an emergency room visit for him the next morning. And that was when we got the news that Dr Gonzo had cancer, with presumably only a short amount of time he was going to be with us.
I honestly didn't think I was going to have such a difficult time with it, but man, it has been. As many pet owners can agree, they become part of your family. To be brutally honest, the uncertainty is one of the hardest parts. If I go to sleep will he be alive when I wake up? If I leave the house to go to work am I going to come home to a dead member of my family? I think these things but I know it's tearing my partner apart 10x more than me.
The other day we were laying down to rest and Dr Gonzo came to lay with us which he normally does and it was just a very sad moment. We could tell it was different, and he was suffering. It hadn't really been that way up until this point. Dr Gonzo had this annoying habit where he really had no bodily awareness and he would just come and lay down on you in a very awkward position, or walk around on you for 5 or 10 minutes before deciding on a good spot to sit down. But tonight he wasn't doing that, and both my partner and I were crying, and that's when those words popped into my head "the love that you withhold is the pain that you carry."
Unfortunately, this time hasn't been as easy as the last time. This wasn't sharp a turning point where I immediately started to feel better. It actually made things worse at the beginning. I thought of all the times I would get annoyed with him for walking around on me when I'm trying to get to sleep. I thought of all the times I'd get upset when I could tell he was making a mess by jumping up on the counters in the kitchen. And my heart was absolutely broken because I would give anything for him to be doing either of those things at that point. I'd give anything for him to be up to all of his old hi-jinks.
Not only that, but even just in our day to day lives in the past I'd almost play this good cop bad cop routine with my partner towards him. She is so incredibly loving towards these cats that when she was around I'd be tougher on them. But (ssssshhhhhhhhh) don't tell her - when she wasn't around I'd be extra nice because obviously I'd have to make up for the fact that she wasn't there showering them with her love ;)
But it didn't matter. It was too late. Watching this beautiful creature suffer made me completely regret being minorly annoyed and even faking being annoyed. At this point, all that I wanted was for Dr Gonzo to know that I loved him and that I would do anything for him to get better or just to make the time we have left together as excellent as possible. The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.
There were those words again. After my intellectual understanding, and even my visceral experience, somehow I had not fully managed to integrate it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here now, feeling this way, and writing this up. But that's also why I feel inspired to write. In a sense it's cathartic, but more importantly I think it's a profoundly important message that can help a lot of people. I think we could all benefit from setting aside some time to clear our minds and just sit with these words and see what they meant to us.
So I did, and fortunately, the vibe did slowly start to change. I took every extra moment I had to treat him with love and appreciation. To pet his little paws and tell him that I love him. And the nights slowly shifted from sad times with crying to just being as loving as possible. After getting over the initial regret or shame of withholding love, and shifting into giving all that I had and then reaching a little deeper for some more, those feelings of regret started to move into acceptance and compassion.
Withholding love can take a lot of forms. Sometimes we may, against our better judgment, take some actions that cause harm to another. There are extreme cases where physical harm is involved, which may be a little beyond the "withholding love" paradigm, although it certainly still is. But the more subtle ones where maybe we just use some harsh words in a non-constructive way or ignore someone are the kind that allow that inner pain to sneakily build up over time until the moment it has to be released. If we start to review our decisions to take actions like this more frequently, we can realize sooner that we may not only be causing pain out there but we are withholding love and building up the potential for pain within ourselves.
We can also withhold love from ourselves, which in my opinion is like doing double duty for building up that pain. There's the obvious self-inflected pain that comes from not loving oneself but also that non-obvious, subtle pain building up from a sort of inner-betrayal that one day we may have to face ourselves for. Even a simple lack of forgiveness, again for oneself OR others, can be withholding love. One could even look at it from a perspective that holding onto a grudge IS holding onto pain.
While this was certainly some heavy stuff that was covered here, my ultimate intention in writing it is to encourage us to reflect on these things more in our day to day lives so that we feel comfortable to express our love more freely and avoid that situation where we withhold it until it ultimately is released as pain. In the end, everyone loses when we withhold our love, so let's soften ourselves up a bit and make sure to express that extra little bit of love to the members of our community, human and non-human, for the benefit of all beings.
But Where Did You Hear That?
I assume some people were going to have this question. I wanted to save it for the end as kind of an after thought because it's really the strength of the words alone that should be the focus. "Focus on the message, not the messenger" as they say. But this was actually a very interesting part of the experience for me too, so I want to share it. I heard these words in a video interview with Alex Collier from 1994. Alex Collier claims to have been contacted by extra terrestrials, and the words the love that you withhold is the pain that you carry were one of his most memorable moments that he had with one of his contacts. How interesting is it that these words hold so much weight that they've been ingrained into my consciousness enough to express themselves at opportune moments in my life when I had a lesson to be learned from them? This was the first ever interview or anything I had seen with anyone claiming to have had an experience with extra terrestrials. And, it certainly shaped my opinion for how I viewed them going forward. If you are interested in these kinds of subjects I'd suggest watching it. Hearing what he is saying almost 30 years ago holds a lot of weight with the current social, cultural, and political climate. And regardless of if you believe in or are interested in these kinds of subjects, the words themselves hold the same weight. So, if it does spark your interest, enjoy :)