Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 4 — Love Always Protects

“Pain may well remind us that we are alive, but love reminds us why we are alive.” Trystan Owain Hughes

Love always protects. In fact, it’s the only thing that does. And as with several other things in this book, it has dual meaning to me.

My daughter gave me this gift a few years ago and I found it to be one of the most touching and meaningful gifts I had ever received from her. I hung it in my bedroom so I would be sure to see it each and every day. I often gazed at it wondering why she bought it for me, what “love always protects” meant to her when she bought it.

Love Always Protects, Part I

“The nervous system is shaped by experience. As children, we don’t experience our parents’ intentions. We experience their nervous systems. Their presence, or absence. Their involvement or neglect. Our nervous system attunes to their nervous system. It picks up what is modeled, what is exposed to and what is inherited. Love, as an intention, when not embodied, becomes fear, and this is what the child experiences.” @awakenwithally

If you are a parent, check your body and if you’re feeling defensive by these words, stick with me through this section as I think you may be feeling what I used to feel when I read something like that quote.

Remember this as my baseline belief about myself. I am an imperfect human, so I will undoubtedly make mistakes in any relationship I am in, no matter how healed and educated I ever become. Humans are simply imperfect, which is why compassion is so necessary. I was not aware or educated enough about myself emotionally or physically to know what a nervous system was or that it could be having a negative effect on anyone else in my life without my conscious awareness. This has been a huge gift for me to begin to learn about the nervous system because it allows me to look at my past behaviors with more compassion than I could have otherwise. I prefer to refer to my nervous system as my body because it keeps it simple and there’s enough going on this mind and body that I need simplicity. You can read more through the following link, but these are the basics, “ The nervous system has two main parts: The central nervous system is made up of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system is made up of nerves that branch off from the spinal cord and extend to all parts of the body. ” “ Different types of neurons control or perform different activities. For instance, motor neurons transmit messages from the brain to the muscles to generate movement. Sensory neurons detect light, sound, odor, taste, pressure, and heat and send messages about those things to the brain. Other parts of the nervous system control involuntary processes. These include keeping a regular heartbeat, releasing hormones like adrenaline, opening the pupil in response to light, and regulating the digestive system. ”

What are the parts of the nervous system? | NICHD - Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (nih.gov)

As a reminder, when Ginger explained very early on about the parts of the brain and, at a high level, how they function, I began to understand that the brain operates based on past experiences and leads me to behave in ways that keep me safe. So, it only made sense that when I had n’t fully healed my brain from those past experiences, I could not expect my brain to function in a different way. It wasn’t about my willpower, desire, or intelligence that I could not change my behaviors, it was about the logical function of my brain.

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