{"id":51877,"date":"2023-01-11T10:06:19","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T18:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/?p=51877"},"modified":"2023-01-19T07:47:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T15:47:35","slug":"love-willingness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/love-willingness\/","title":{"rendered":"Love &#038; Willingness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Love and Willingness | Whole Heart Connection\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ho6FSAJaaCU?list=PLhypaO-fw3IEvZTMLBCfVr0Dr1_IIP6YC\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The health of the will is a very big topic for this time of year. Stephen Cowan reminds me that the character for &#8220;will&#8221; could be translated as will, but it could more helpfully be translated as willingness.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.kb-image_662cf8-63 .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-image kb-image_662cf8-63\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-1.jpg\" class=\"kb-advanced-image-link\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"kb-img wp-image-52373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-1-286x300.jpg 286w, https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-1-95x100.jpg 95w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>How&#8217;s your willingness? Let&#8217;s start with deceptively simple matters like, &#8220;Hi, you&#8217;re here. Are you willing to be here?&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We could respond, &#8220;What are you talking about? I&#8217;m here; obviously, I&#8217;m willing to be here.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, wait. It&#8217;s deceptively simple: &#8220;Hi. You are here. Are you willing to be here?&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Understand, of course, that there&#8217;s no pressure on this one; that our honest answer might be &#8220;Uh, umm&#8230;&#8221; That&#8217;s a completely reasonable answer, as a start.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s a painful note: I was reading in the news about how, in Virginia, a teacher got shot by her six-year-old student. It really brought me back to my willingness, because of all the things that my will cannot command, and cannot prevent. And so, there was this question of showing up here, and being willing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d just asked me at that moment, &#8220;Am I willing to be here?&#8221; I kind of was wobbling; I just wasn&#8217;t actually able to muster it. Then I asked, &#8220;Am I willing to be here as the Love, in a loose constellation network with other people who are willing to be here as the Love?&#8221; &#8230;and it was kind of like ice thawing on the inside. I felt my willingness coming in.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.kb-image_493df0-7f .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-image kb-image_493df0-7f\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-2.jpg\" class=\"kb-advanced-image-link\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"280\" src=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"kb-img wp-image-52375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-2.jpg 300w, https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Image-2-100x93.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>This was, for me, a backdoor way of realizing: Nothing really functions in loss of heart. Willingness, for instance, doesn&#8217;t really function in loss of heart. Love really needs to be brought back into the picture\u2014the real love, the heart love, the big love, the deep love, the abiding love, the ongoing I-really-mean-it love, so that the willingness has something to be in service to.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-theme-palette-1-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-theme-palette-1-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Would you like to learn more about Whole Heart Connection? Join me at my upcoming <a href=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/shop\/live-classes\/whole-heart-connection-intro-january-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Whole Heart Connection Intro<\/a> live workshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To join the discussion, find us&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/contact\/perennial-medicine-listserv-signup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">on my Perennial Medicine discussion listserv (all are welcome)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The health of the will is a very big topic for this time of year. Stephen Cowan reminds me that the character for &#8220;will&#8221; could be translated as will, but it could more helpfully be translated as willingness.&nbsp; How&#8217;s your willingness? Let&#8217;s start with deceptively simple matters like, &#8220;Hi, you&#8217;re here. Are you willing to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":948,"featured_media":52376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"hide","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[264,266,6670,6671],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":262,"label":"Me-First School of Global Healing Blog"}],"post_tag":[{"value":264,"label":"Whole Heart Connection"},{"value":266,"label":"East Asian Medicine"},{"value":6670,"label":"Water"},{"value":6671,"label":"winter"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Love-and-Willingness-Blog-Featured-Image-1024x536.jpg",1024,536,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Thea Elijah","author_link":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/author\/thea\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":262,"name":"Me-First School of Global Healing Blog","slug":"me-first-school-blog","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":262,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":95,"filter":"raw","term_order":"13","cat_ID":262,"category_count":95,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Me-First School of Global Healing Blog","category_nicename":"me-first-school-blog","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":264,"name":"Whole Heart Connection","slug":"whole-heart-connection","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":264,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":19,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"},{"term_id":266,"name":"East Asian Medicine","slug":"east-asian-medicine","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":266,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":53,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"},{"term_id":6670,"name":"Water","slug":"water","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6670,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":13,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"},{"term_id":6671,"name":"winter","slug":"winter","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6671,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":13,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/948"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51877"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52377,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51877\/revisions\/52377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perennialmedicine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}