He fielded the emotional crises of the other family members. He slowed himself down and tried to keep his awareness linked to his father’s breath. So he practiced paying close attention to his father. He asked himself, “How would I act if I did feel love for my father?” Then he acted on the intuition that arose for him.Įlliot realized that when we really love someone, we’re attentive to even the smallest minutiae of that person’s existence. So Elliot did the only thing he could think of to close the gap. But their history together had formed such a habit of disconnection that he felt nothing at all. The problem was that Elliot couldn’t dig out a single nugget of love for his father. “I kept thinking, ‘Now he’ll finally get who I really am! We’ll bond, and I’ll be able to feel love for him at last!'” “I knew we’d been given our big chance to open up to each other,” Elliot said. Yet when the father became seriously ill, the only person he wanted around him was his son. The questions his experience raised are essential ones, questions we all deal with as we probe that most fundamental and yet elusive of all human feelings: love.Įlliot and his father had been polite strangers for nearly 20 years. As he told me the story of his father’s death, I felt a deep sense of recognition.

We were in the middle of a workshop I teach called “Exploring the Heart.” Elliot had recently lost his father, and so I asked him, “Are you talking about something specific?” “My question is, Why is it that so many times, I can’t feel it?”

“I know love is there,” my old friend Elliot said. But we can understand its many levels and connect more easily to its source. What is Love? As much as we might like to, we can’t force love to happen. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!

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