Take the gloves off

touch, hands,love,feel

We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.

When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.

It’s like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable.

― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

 


Sources: Photo: Inside Silence by Laura Makabresku. Quote: Waves of Beauty

Comments

  1. This is so true. The people who spend the most time covering up who they are are often the ones complaining about loneliness and being taken advantage of. But if we don’t show our true selves, we can’t be loved for our true selves…

    Liked by 1 person

    • Alexis, yes. Your insight reminded me of this:

      He could exhibit many different qualities, including self-sacrifice and concern, but they all served….to preserve himself as he was. No one could love him: he loved himself so much, not in the sense of emotion but in the sense of self-preservation, that there didn’t seem to be any love that could be added, it was excessive as it was; and almost all his actions had a thin layer of fear for himself, the apprehension that events could interfere with his plans and destroy his plots.

      ~ Sergei Lebedev, Oblivion. Translated by Antonina Bouis (New Vessel Press. 2016)

      Liked by 4 people

  2. Oh pal, bam.bam.bam. Took my breath away

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Nepo is a poet. I am not.
    When I sense this in people, the gloves, the shields, the protection, I sometimes want to grab them by the shoulders and I want to ask,
    “What did they do to you? What happened that made you this way? ”

    It’s painful. Even if they speak the same language you do, doesn’t make any difference.

    People come into the world naked, body and soul. I’m glad we learned to dress. But the soul must stay bare.

    This is beautiful, paired with this photo. Thanks for posting.

    Liked by 5 people

  4. I suspect we’ve all known someone who is ‘thoroughly insulated’ — I can think of several right now. And I must confess that having been scalded by emotion on more than one occasion, the temptation to ‘suit up’ before engaging can be powerful. But boy, you sacrifice an awful lot if you choose to live this way. Beautiful reminder, pal, and that photo is perfect. May you connect meaningfully today. 😌

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I so believe this.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. LOVE this passage David! ❤
    Diana xo

    Liked by 1 person

  7. From an ardent glove-wearer, thanks for reminding me about the fresh, sometimes shocking sensations of the cold door handles and soft kisses.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Reblogged this on dreamingofsquirrels and commented:
    I am sharing such a wonderful post….enjoy. And take your gloves off.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. David Walden says:

    I recently went back through my journals and could see entries centered around personal moments of great difficulty where I wasn’t being honest, although the only audience I had was myself. Its hard sometimes to confront life exactly as the way it is, without some sort of insulation.

    Liked by 1 person

    • David, terrific insight. I’m confident I would have landed in same place if I had journals and performed a similar retrospective. You thoughts reminded me of:

      An Australian shaman once said to me that this voice – truth, knowledge, God, whatever you want to call it – is soft, like a butterfly on your finger; you could flick it off with an absent motion and lose it, just like that. We wish truth would grab us by the lapels, but we have to come to it, sometimes through voluntary attunement, a moral decision, but usually it’s good old Shiva.

      ~ Marc Ian Barasch in an interview by Derrick Jensen for “The Sun” (Healing Dreams)

      Liked by 2 people

  10. Love Nepo. I often refer to this book. No gloves. 🙏🏻

    Liked by 1 person

  11. i absolutely love every word of this. read it 5 times.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Awesome Pal !! It took my breathe away..

    Liked by 1 person

  13. No gloves. Lets really feel. Love this Nepo passage and the photo David 💛

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Reblogged this on A Grateful Man and commented:
    Wisdom.

    With Love,
    Russ

    Like

  15. No gloves here. 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Oh, lord, this is gorgeous and real. It’s The Emperor’s New Clothes in reverse for me.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. I only wear gloves when my hands are cold, or to wash dishes. Otherwise, no gloves. I like to feel the true nature of things, and want other people who care to really get to know me to likewise do so. You want to shake. No gloves allowed!

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: