LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Rachel Khong!

Even your teacup loves you

Dear Lovelets!

I learned a new word yesterday, as I was listening to a new podcast. The word is “subscendence.” This word (as I understood it) is meant to be the opposite of “transcendence,” which is a state of being that I have been chasing my entire life. My search for transcendence means that I am always trying to elevate myself to higher and higher planes of existence — to get out of this body, to get away from this world, to get closer to some mythical idea of a distant, perfect God.

But to “subscend” is the opposite — to sink deeper into the body, at the cellular level. Rather than trying to levitate emotionally and spiritually away from the often heavy and difficult reality of having a body, one goes deeper down into it. And there, the divine is also to be found.

But subscendence can be hard. The limitations of the body can break your heart. Our bodies are constantly disappointing us. And pain, as Ram Dass said, is the most “seductive” of all distractions, demanding our attention and constantly pulling us toward an awful awareness of suffering. But what if it’s true that God and Love can be found right there, within the pain, within the limitations?

Our special guest this week, the gifted and generous-hearted writer Rachel Khong, has brought us with great immediacy and urgency into the realm of subscendence, with a letter from Love that is such a powerful meditation upon the devastating poignancy of having a body that, once again, has let you down.

What if Unconditional Love could be found even there? What if this is the place where the divine is needed the most — in, as Rachel calls them, “the hidden parts”?

Let’s shine some love on those hidden parts, dear ones.

Go gently into your subscendence.

I love you dearly,

Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know today about the limitations of my body?

Oh, sweetheart. Let’s move through this one slowly. And prepare yourself, too, because you will read and hear some devastating stories from your fellow Lovelets on this. All of whom have experienced firsthand what everyone will experience firsthand — how disappointing, if not devastating, it can be to watch your own body get sick, age, fall to pieces.

My love, I could talk a big game here about how you need to detach, and how you need to practice acceptance, and how to live in accordance with nature’s will, and how you are not this body, and blah blah blah — but I am not that sort of Love. I do not give lectures and I never assign you to tasks that are beyond your reach. If I did, I would not be Love.

I could also get all coachy on your ass and tell you that aging and sickness are all just a state of mind, and that you can push back against that mindset by working harder, meditating more, elevating the vibration, and driving yourself even harder for greatness and limitless growth.

But I would rather not.

Dearest bag of jelly and bones, I would rather return your attention to something you recently heard from a woman whom you much admire — a woman who is much older than you, and who always seems to be a pretty good sport about life. She confided in you that she was struck by how “embarrassing” it is to have this elderly body. The crazy shape of her feet now. The way her hands and eyes don’t work anymore, and how slowly she has to walk. The spotting and sagging skin. The host of weird growths, and all the strange ailments that she can’t seem to recover from.

Embarrassing, she said. How embarrassing!

Can we just stay with that for a moment, dearest?

Yes, sweetie. You have started to experience this embarrassment too. And there will only be more of it. You were taught that your body was there to be pushed — that it was to be used as a tool of work, to be ever strengthened, to be an uncomplaining mule in a field, pulling a plow until the moment you die in mid-pull. You were taught to never stop, to never complain. You were taught “use it or lose it.” You were taught to stay youthful forever, by any means necessary.

But honey, you’re tired. And you’re finding it harder to push. You never thought of yourself as a very energetic person, but you do often think lately, “I sure used to have a lot more energy than THIS.”

Yes, dear. You certainly did used to have more energy than this, and way more bounce-back. But angel child, you are more than half a century old. Imagine what a 55-year-old car would look like, or drive like. You can’t ask as much of your body as you used to. You won’t recover from sickness as fast as you used to. It will cost you more to have sleepless nights now. Travel with all its demands has become harder, and it will get harder still.

And this is just the beginning, dear.

Decay is on its way!

How embarrassing!

Sweetheart, we don’t ask you to like it. We don’t ask you to not be sad or embarrassed or frightened by your physical limitations. But because we love you, we ask this of you: try not to fight it too hard, okay? You will need all your energy now, to live a good and useful and even enjoyable life, so please don’t use that energy to try to reverse your aging, or to biohack longevity (or whatever they are calling it these days), or to compete against some younger version of yourself.

Hey, remember when you used to be able to do 50 pushups in a row  — real pushups? We remember it too. That was awesome. Now you can’t do that. Yep. That’s done for.

Isn’t it somehow more calming to just say that — that it’s done for — than to dream of trying to find a trainer who will get you in the best shape of your life?

Honey, WHY?

Can you love yourself anyway, even if the best shape of your life is two decades behind you? Can you stop trying to get those arms back? You’re hurting yourself, little one. You’re hurting yourself.

Bottom line here: it’s not kind to treat a middle-aged mule like it’s a young mule. Actually, it’s not kind to treat yourself like a mule at all.

We won’t ask you not to be afraid or embarrassed or shocked by what it’s like to live in a body that is showing its age and its pain in so many ways. It’s embarrassing and shocking and fearful to feel your physical reality and limitations, we get it!

But we might ask you to be a bit gentler to yourself, sweetie, as you watch yourself age and decay, as you feel yourself lag and hurt. Maybe you can even be affectionate. Certainly you can be sympathetic.

Your body is an old friend, and she will soon be an even older friend. Can you be sweet to her? Can you not taunt her or make her feel badly about herself? Can you give her more rest?

Most of all, precious spirit, can you let her have limitations?

And can you remember that even as your body decays and breaks down and can’t do anymore all the things you used to ask of it, your soul — housed miraculously within that body — grows wiser, calmer, more evolved, more loving. Almost as if your soul is an invisible tree that is growing out of the soon-to-be-compost of this loyal body. Yes, exactly that. Exactly that.

Say thank you to the old mule for us, little one, and be kind to your friend the future compost pile. She needs you now, in the same way that you have always needed her.

Now sit with us quietly for a moment, and stop pushing. Just for a moment. Stop pushing. We love you so dearly, and it’s time to rest.

Prompt

The theme of this week’s letters is one of the many universal experiences that —though the details differ — I think we can all relate to: the sometimes humbling nature of these human forms we take. If you want to join us in reflecting on the ways in which our bodies don’t always cooperate (and our responses to that), you might pose this question: Dear Love, what would you have me know about the limitations of my body?

A few days ago, I was lucky enough to have dinner with these beautiful Letters From Love alumni — Arshay Cooper, Martha Beck, Marie Forleo, sweet Mekhi, and his mother, Nayah. My heart is so full!