Allies that Help Us Love Better
The Surprising Gifts of Difficult Emotions
Love, the real kind, the kind that sticks around and is with you when shit hits the fan, is present, responsible, genuine, and willing to meet us where we are. What provides dopamine hits - the kind of ‘loving feelings’ that are intense, seductive, glamorous, fantastically projecting, distracting us from pain are often mirages, and far from actual love.
As an animist, my teachers are often emotions, living spirit beings in their own right. These guides are often not ones that are easy to hang out with, they can feel uncomfortable, intimidating, inconvenient, and often pack a brutally honest punch. But if I’m ready and open to listening, to paying attention, they have taught me more about love than the “pastel” emotions, and can show us what we need in a healthy relationship.
I don’t consider myself especially ‘good’ at loving, but I am always open to learning from these four allies specifically. I do my best to be aware when they enter my mind and body, and when I notice they are there, I pause and listen.
Resentment— this ally has shone undeniable lights on where I am giving without realistic assessments of my limits, of the boundaries I have failed to set or neglected to maintain. In recent years, I've noticed how the meaning of resentment can include my tendency to fawn, and in many ways, it has taught me what my patterns (helpful and unhelpful) tend to be. Resentment shows me what I need to change to love in a way that truly feels good and within capacity, so that love can be sustained.
Boredom— this ally reminds me of the necessity of the unknown and spontaneity, and is an invitation for partners to be silly, vulnerable, and for their natural quirkiness to fuel creativity and fun.
Frustration— this ally has taught me what I need to feel grounded, safe, and noticed as a lover. Frustration teaches me to see the deeper needs of being recognized as a person, and then it is my work to verbalize it in a way that is non-violent and kind.
Rage— this ally reveals within me old, old wounds from early childhood. Rage as an emotion that represents an immense bottling of helplessness and despair. When I feel rage, they are rarely about the present day relationship, but my inner child asking me to attend to her.
To my teacher-friends, Resentment, Boredom, Frustration, and Rage, a heartfelt thank you; and to all my friends, wishing you a joyous Valentine's Day. Because love begins with ourselves, not as a cliché, but as a courageous journey of recognizing and fulfilling our needs. This often involves time travel, deciphering and translating our dreams, reshaping patterns, connecting with the morphic fields of our ancestry, and redefining our relationship with rest and creativity. Despite the challenges of Resentment, Boredom, Frustration, and Rage, their invaluable gifts remind us that we truly matter. And intriguingly, when we live in ways that reinforce that we matter, those allies tend to visit us less.
If you're interested in relating to the world through an animist lens, be more attuned to what it means to be connected, alive, and in love, consider joining us in the upcoming Black Holes Birthing Stars. The creative writing series is an occult course that invites each of us to approach renewal and creativity with willingness and openness as we harness the Spring season’s Wood Element of Taoist philosophy. Relating with spirit communication, through writing magic, these allies welcome us to make kin and ritualize the themes of change, emergence, the release of duality, courage, and the imaginal to rewriting our narratives, and leaning into intuition to chart new paths.
We start live-stream sessions March 25. Sliding scale and Partial Scholarships available. More HERE.
Mimi
Founder, spirit communicator and Wu shamanic occultist
(This post is an updated and expanded Valentine’s Day article from 2022.)