I am indebted to my daughter Alexandra Lindsey Platt and to my son
Christian Laurence Platt and to my son Joshua Nelson Platt who
inspired this conversation.
I've been a big believer in hands on love. It's a bit like
hands on management. You're not simply running the show.
You're not simply calling the shots from afar yet not down and dirty
yourself, not in the thick of things. You're right there in the process
itself, experiencing it along with everyone else, hands on.
That's an apt description for both hands on management as well as for
hands on love.
Hands on love has another component I've always revered, one that's
exactly what's implied in the phrase "hands on
love": touching, feeling, which in turn implies being physically close
enough to touch and feel.
In some instances, the notion of hands on management ie
micro-management, is eschewed in favor of delegation and
hands off management. This could also be said with regard
to hands on love and hands off love. But the
intention of this essay isn't to vote for one or for the other. It's
simply to make the distinction. Besides which, hands off
management and hands off love aren't really exactly
analogous. They're interimly similar. Yet ultimately they're not even
really in the same order of things.
Werner
revealing who he really is, revealed to me the possibility of hands
off love. It's more than that, actually. In my life, before I
got to know who Werner really is, there simply wasn't any
possibility for hands off love at all. I couldn't have
imagined hands off love as a real, thrilling, living possibility even
if my life had depended on being able to bring it forth like a
possibility.
For all intents and purposes, "hands off love", like "smart bomb" and
"military intelligence", was an oxymoron, a complete and utter
contradiction in terms. When I personally expressed love, I
wanted to and assumed it would mean hands on love quite
literally, as soon and as often as possible.
There's
nothing wrong
with hands on love. It's a good place to start. It's where
we all start - from a very, very early age. But the
broader truth, at least for me, became patently clear only later.
Werner
by demonstration teased out a distinction I now call
hands off love as an experience which
comes from a bigger place than hands on love, even as it nurtures hands
on love. It's this bigger place from where I intend to bring forth
mastery from now on. It's this bigger place, hands off love, which
expands over, which precedes yet which includes hands on love.
If hands on love is wanting and having, then hands off love is
letting be.
If hands on love is holding, then hands off love is setting
free.
If hands on love is finding love in another, then hands off love is
experiencing Self as love.
If hands on love is getting complete through love, then hands off
love is being complete with love.
