When the empath is stumped… or what is love? Can seals love?

Seal Finds Toy Version Of Itself, Can’t Stop Hugging It

I have been looking at the pictures of this seal treating the plush version of itself with obvious feelings and every time I shake my head and say… “no, animals can’t love”.

But what if what we see on these pictures is what love is, and not what we have been calling love on the Tree of Knowledge? What if?

I have a stuffed toy, a tiny bean bag tiger, I have been acting the same way as this seal. And the feelings I feel myself, and the feelings I feel from the seal are exactly the same.

So what is love? What is the seal feeling, what am I feeling?

We, humans, have been calling love something that is, maybe, not love.

When I watch humans, their love is about them. It is wanting something. Eat it, possess it, hide it, reach it, change it, show it off…

The only thing that does not fit into that picture is wanting to feel that warmth that one feels when one wants the best for the other, maybe even in spite of themselves. Wanting nothing in return.

I have immense gratitude that the tiger looks at me and seems to listen to what I say with devotion. It awakens a gentleness in me that brings me to tears. A melting of sort.

It doesn’t order me around, it doesn’t want me to change, or shut up. Its passivity awakens the “mother” in me, the nurturing, my life giving, life supporting nature.

I go back to that every time I go to bed… the tiger resides in my bed. And until I am ready, the tiger waits patiently… no complaining, no demands.

It reflects back my love for it. Echo. It’s warming. Thawing. It makes me feel vulnerable.

When I look back at my involvement in “human” love, I see none of it.

I had one experience that was similar: a guy I went out with once… we ran into each other at a New Year’s party a year or two later. He was a sculptor. And he placed his hand on my head… the way you place your hand on a child, or a dog, or something you love. And I felt love. I felt MY love, I think, although for an empath to tell whose feelings they feel take work…

But the gentleness of his hand on my head was love for me. The parent to his own “creation”…

It must be in our genes to care for our offspring, and want it to be its best, nurtured, secure, and loved.

But I bet that is not the feeling people experienced from their parents. I didn’t. I love the tiger more than I loved my parents. I echoed back to them the indifference and occasional disgust I felt from them.

I refused to be owned, refused to be possessed by them… but love would have been nice… now I know.

I tortured my rag doll, beat it, pushed out its eyes… I did not learn to love until decades later. Maybe not until I bought a tiny teddy bear… my cat took it from me and treated it like the seal treats the plush toy… So I bought the tiger, and slept with it on my heart.

That cat knew how to love. Why? Because when I picked it up at the animal shelter, it was just days old, and needed a lot of nurturing. And I did just that. And we built a bond… and he could pass it on to the plush toy.

I had two more cats later on, but they never learned how to love: they skipped the nurturing state, came to my life past that age.

OK, now, what can you do to thaw out your frozen ability to love? To have love be just that: nurturing? Asking nothing in return, not even that the other “reciprocates” our “love” for them.

Human love isn’t. You “love” the other exactly the same way as you “love” chicken wings… That is called appetite. It’s all about you.

This seal at Mombetsu Land, an attraction in Japan’s Hokkaido district, got a plushie that looks like the ‘mini me’ version of the seal.

Clearly, the seal he couldn’t stop hugging it, riding it on the back, and squeezing the toy to its heart. We wonder if the seal thinks the toy is its baby.

More info: Mombetsu (h/t)

This adorable animal at Mombetsu Land, an attraction park in Japan, got a special present from the zoo staff

A plushie that looks just like the ‘mini me’ version of the seal!

The seal couldn’t stop hugging it, riding it on the back, and squeezing the toy to its heart

I have been teaching clients and students to hug themselves. I do it almost every night. I hug the self that did all the things during the day, that has the sore spot on her shoulder, the one that doesn’t know anyone loves her.

I give it love. A few seconds, a few minutes. I observe as her face smooths out, she smiles, and she “purrs”… or whatever humans do when they are contented.

Sleep becomes blissful after that.

Here, I passed on to you one of my secrets. lol.

Author: Sophie Benshitta Maven

True empath, award winning architect, magazine publisher, transformational and spiritual coach and teacher, self declared Avatar

6 thoughts on “When the empath is stumped… or what is love? Can seals love?”

  1. I will make a point of not responding to these posts for the next calendar year. I’ll be back when we spring forward in 2018.

  2. What would love in the (one on one) relational form look if experienced from the Tree of Life level?

  3. I don’t know. I am not in the giving personal advice business… And your Tree of Knowledge imagination

    I like to think of love as a swirling ball of energy that exists between two people. It’s a kind of third entity that two people contribute to. It’s the medium of exchange. It’s the plant, and we take turns being the sunlight and the soil and the rain. The nurturing and the being nurtured exist in a dynamic system. And the love grows and blossoms.

    OK, so that is how you think. Have you thought about starting your own blog? Express your thoughts there?

  4. Does the rule (or notion) that’s it’s 90% mechanics apply here? As a doorman, I care about my people, and I am in a position to love and nurture them to the extent that they let me in. But it also a byproduct of time, permission and intimacy. I can wish them the best, but how can I nurture when I don’t really know them or know what they need?

    Can we look at from the point of view of feelings or sensations? Who wants to spend time with someone that doesn’t bring about a good feeling in them? Is it conceivable that I would spend a lot of time with/on someone whom I feel neutral about, but whom I get to nurture? Well, I might fall in love with them in some way, but then would I still be willing or able to nurture them and expect or want nothing in return?

    When I was teaching I brought a different set of expectations to my realtionships/ interactions than I did to my relationship with my girlfriend. It’s nice, actually, to be able to nurture without so much attachment. Part of my hat is a skill and a practice. To try to give and to find satisfaction in seeing the growth and happiness in another.

    I like to think of love as a swirling ball of energy that exists between two people. It’s a kind of third entity that two people contribute to. It’s the medium of exchange. It’s the plant, and we take turns being the sunlight and the soil and the rain. The nurturing and the being nurtured exist in a dynamic system. And the love grows and blossoms.

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