by Jinya, age 36, UK
On a recent visit to a friend’s house, as I was saying goodbye to them, all the kids continued to play as they said bye – except the 5 year-old girl, who I have known since birth. She walked up to me for the first time of her own accord and gave me the most beautiful, tender, meltingly gorgeous hug… ever. I melted and almost cried. This little girl had always been quite shy and although she would talk to me, she had never openly expressed any kind of affection. What was so different on this day?
What was different was that I saw her and I wasn’t afraid to let in her love. In a beautiful moment, she felt that I saw her and the hug was a physical confirmation of what had already occurred energetically. Love would never impose itself on another because that just isn’t what love does. It waits. And waits. And waits. And when you’re ready, touches you with such powerful tenderness that it leaves a grown man crying… well, almost. I saw her that day because on that day I had given myself permission to be more of the love inside me, and what I could see and feel in the little girl was a simple equality. We met.
Early next morning, as I was reflecting on the tenderness that was shown to me, I felt the truth in the fact that the same love that is waiting for permission to be expressed is already right here in my heart, in my eyes, and everything from my fingertips to my voice. I wept a few tears when I felt this.
I’ve been trying to get to this love like an unreachable peak with constantly moving goal posts – and all this time I was the one tricking myself and moving the goal posts! It seemed unreachable because that is where I put it, not wanting to reach it, out of pure denial. I had kept my sensitivity hidden away so that I could numb my awareness of how much it hurts to live in the world that is often very rough and uncaring.
By doing this, I hurt myself in every moment. In turn, life became a struggle to get back the power I gave away by hiding my love. However, the ‘power’ I regained was corrupted and untrue because it was based on holding the world to ransom and holding my love back even more. Sounds crazy. We are hurt so we hold our love back then we hold our love back even more – which can only hurt us.
Maybe it comes down to trying to regain some semblance of control in some sinister form. If I hurt myself before the world does then at least I will not be a victim of it, but of my own self-made harm. That is the illusion I bought into, because I chose to be a victim the moment I chose to hide my love and blame the world for not letting me be the love that I am.
I feel that what I just shared is quite common amongst us, but especially amongst men. Boys are taught to be tough and told that being strong is about not feeling… and definitely not crying. It is drummed into us that feeling is something only girls do and that it is a sign of weakness. Male and female may have different body parts but the heart is always the same. Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet. If the things we feel and the level we feel them at are equal at birth, the education we receive in shutting down our feelings is a form of protection that keeps us imprisoned within, but also separate to ourselves. I remember feeling when I was a boy that I had to change myself in order to be noticed or to have a friend, and that compounded the emotion that it was almost not worth existing in my skin – basically I was already giving up.
That little girl wasn’t afraid and didn’t hold back her huge love; what she sparked in me with an open hearted innocence was the beauty that is universally found in us all. I have realised since that I have that beauty too, and not only is it worth being in my skin, but I am also worth celebrating just for being me.
When we come to know a truth, we can never un-know it. Sure we can deny it, bury it and try to forget that we ever felt it, but where is that getting us? It’s making life about coping through it with whatever gets us through the day, be it a thought, belief, activity or something we consume that will stimulate and numb our natural sensitivity.
Even if we do deny it, love has the patience of time. It might send out reminders now and again, but it is forever without expectation. It knows that we will come back to it one day, when we give ourselves the permission to feel and to allow ourselves to be the love that we already are and have always been.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
‘It is drummed into us that feeling is something only girls do and that it is a sign of weakness. Male and female may have different body parts but the heart is always the same’ – how true is this. Even as a girl growing up, I felt I had to harden and not show my emotions and I see this more and more in women, let alone in men. It’s unacceptable as we are all tender, sensitive, and we all possess love. It matters not the sex we are, we are from the one source, and that is God.
Life has been manipulated, and bastardised over the years, and in that humanity have been the victims of this game. When one day we all realise, this facade we are living in and with will not do, we will want nothing but the truth, and live from there onwards. That day will one day occur…
‘… love has the patience of time’, because it resides out of it. Love is much grander and deeper, so then it has the power of holding everything and allowing it to surrender to the same quality, at its own pace.
True love is untarnished, doesn’t judge, it allows space, allows another to be, doesn’t separate. Love allows Love to be.
Jinya, thank you for some absolute pearls you have shared in this blog – and it is so true that the love remains unsullied and untainted within and no matter what happens and how long we deny its existence it awaits us eternally.
Encountering the truth is undeniable: “When we come to know a truth, we can never un-know it. Sure we can deny it, bury it and try to forget that we ever felt it…” but the truth forever remains as the truth.
“That little girl wasn’t afraid and didn’t hold back her huge love; what she sparked in me with an open hearted innocence was the beauty that is universally found in us all. I have realised since that I have that beauty too, and not only is it worth being in my skin, but I am also worth celebrating just for being me.” – the love and tenderness expressed so naturally by children is a great reminder of what we all hold within and are totally capable of expressing too.
This is a beautiful sharing of love being expressed.
Yes, children are very beautiful in how they naturally live, the transparency, honesty, innocence, and not holding back, we have much to learn from them.
We do hurt ourselves by keeping ourselves protected, ‘I had kept my sensitivity hidden away so that I could numb my awareness of how much it hurts to live in the world that is often very rough and uncaring.’
What a gorgeous confirmation that as soon as we become willing to let love in it is reflected back to us in the most beautiful way.
Eliminating words like good from our dictionary as we always have a justification when thing feel good but when we have Truth that is aligned to being energetically responsible then we can understand that there is nothing to justify because of “our natural sensitivity.”
Waiting forever, with no expectation, but knowing that we will come back – it sounds like a biggest riddle, but love just is and I for one have not really made this a truth that I live for myself yet, I can feel how we have been testing and fighting this, dancing around this, as if that is something alien to us, something we have to reach out and attain, but what if we are that, already.
The patience of love waiting for us to allow ourselves to just be – so simple and yet we choose to bring in complication.
There is so much being communicated in life. If we allow ourselves to be with what occurs in our day and reflect on it all, and to truly feel, much is communicated and can be learnt from.
As our movements, especially how we walk, share a lot about how committed to life we are.
Only space is able to teach us the irrelevance of making time the measure of things in life.
“However, the ‘power’ I regained was corrupted and untrue because it was based on holding the world to ransom and holding my love back even more.” There is so much true power in children, they can simply be their tender, innocent and pure selves, they offer us the reflection that this is who we are too. In the reflection of living the fullness of their essence we can see what ways we have developed to manage being in the world that are not true for us, and realise we can return to living from that same purity. So many people have given up on that as they believe such purity is just a part of childhood.
We communicate so much with our bodies without any words needed.
“…. when I was a boy that I had to change myself in order to be noticed or to have a friend….” Goodness, that strikes such a chord of familiarity that I have not acknowledged before, though feels so familiar and true.
open hearted innocence for the moment get my vote every time – no pictures, past or future… just presence to what is there to be felt right now.
“That is the illusion I bought into, because I chose to be a victim the moment I chose to hide my love and blame the world for not letting me be the love that I am.” – I too have played this game Jinya, and now realise that the whole world was missing out on me being me, but I had let the harshness of the world justify my retreat from it, as if to say “Well if you can’t be loving and understanding with me, then you don’t deserve to see the real me.” This approach hurts everyone, and I love what you said about how patient Love is Jinya. It’s just there waiting for us to accept.
This is such a beautiful and true blog, thank you Jinya, very supportive and healing to read. I sat up and took notice of your words on how we are reaching for love yet it’s us that keeps changing the goal posts for how to get to it. I know for me the conditions I place on love are very self harming as the person I first deprive of my love is myself.
The way that the little girl inspired you to feel and deepen your own love is a reminder to us all that our openness and willingness to let people in and be seen can inspire others and that there is love to be felt by all.
‘Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet.’ Knowing that all men are tender and sensitive underneath the hard exterior they may project has changed my view on life and enabled me to see all men in a very different way. We can look beyond what people project onto the world and feel the beautiful essence that is consistently there in all of us.
Wow Jinya, this is beautiful. A joy to read. There is such beauty in your words and in your heart.
Our bodies engage in a silent conversation. What happens afterwards is just a confirmation of what was conversed.
Love waits – or it could be that it is just us returning and recognising the passage of time in hindsight, for love just is beyond time.
Recently I received a hug from a little man of 11 after we hadn’t seen each other for a while. The look of joy on his face when he saw me and the openly joyous way that he hugged me brought tears to my eyes – and actually made me stop and realise how little joy we can allow ourselves to feel in our day to day lives but also how easy and divine it is to feel when we are open to it.
Thank you Jinya for sharing this tender moment that clearly made a huge impact on you, as the tenderness you felt comes through in your writing.
“Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet.” Thank you Jinya for sharing the feeling of a boy/man connecting to the love within.
I am not surprised that a tender hug from a child almost brought you to tears, because they feel everything, which opens us up to feel the love that we are.
It is completely sinister that we have categorised and corrupted the word ‘beautiful’ to only be used to describe the quality of a woman. And worse that is considered a weakness for men to embrace his beauty. We need to reclaim this as a society as the beauty of who we are is a reflection of the innate power we live when in connection to our essence within, in which we are all love, equally so.
This is so deeply touching, what you have shared speaks to the very core of all of our beings, to be the love we are and to be loved. We know and miss who we truly are and we lock it away after being rejected etc, most likely as kids, and that is the reason why I felt this was hard to read at times, as beautiful as it is, what you have shared is a reality we all know and feel – love in its absence and it’s presence. The hug you described and the communication of love between you was very real, my body knew exactly what was described. This is what we dearly want to live with ourselves and each other. Thank you Jinya, this is a beautiful experience you have shared.
The little girl has reflected the depth of love and openness in you, and the reminder that when we are open like a child, this love can be expressed anywhere and with everyone no matter how they choose, as love never differentiates it is one and the same to all. And to revisit this place of purity there is a very beautiful impulse within us to let this love in and out equally.
So nice to revisit this blog, as it feels I have been sitting beside an open fire, enjoying and receiving the warmth and love and the invitation to give myself permission to receive and deepen my love.
True, we hide our sensitivity, our love, and withdraw from life thinking it will be safe and we won’t get hurt here, what an illusion, ‘I had kept my sensitivity hidden away so that I could numb my awareness of how much it hurts to live in the world that is often very rough and uncaring.’ Now, I am choosing to come and stay back with my love, delicateness and sensitivity.
The more we honour our depth of sensitivity that is in us all, the more we give permission for others to do the same, a beautiful sharing Jinya.
How beautiful Jinya – when we really want to find love we will. We just have to be sure when we are looking we are responsibly looking for real love and know the responsibility that comes with it.
I love what you said about love just waits and waits and waits. Often in a waiting process doubts will enter for me–have I done enough? is a common one, but then to just observe and realise that this thought is not from love and then to simply surrender.
I’m really moved by this beautiful story Jinya. When we realise that it is us that chooses how much love we will let in the world becomes a different place.
It is taking our time to feel our tenderness and not denying it that makes us grow, appreciating that what we hold is what is needed. We are amazing people we only need to break the barrier we threw up ourselves, showing who we truly are. And truly being comfortable in our own skin.
Beautiful blog Jinya, touching on a very important topic, us not letting the love in or out is holding ourselves and others so short of the beauty that is there to be lived. It is crazy that we use this tactic of hurting ourselves to not be hurt by others, only to not be seen as who we truly are, beautiful tender human beings.
The power of any of us reclaiming our love and its expression – letting others in and our own love out – is what will change such deeply imbedded social constructs and conditionalities as to how men and women, boys are girls, are ‘allowed’ to be.
In this, the personal reclaiming of every boy and girl, man and woman, is essential – that new and true markers be set, that honour the depth of sensitivity and loving beauty that resides within us all, and what is actually ok and non-abusive in the way that we inter-relate with each other.
Embrace every hug Jinya, and let us all into the joy of your heart… 🙂
What a beautiful sharing this is – from the personal to the societal…
You’ve nailed so much that is off in our societies Jinya, in this one statement alone: “Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet.” This must be called out, explored, discussed and the harm realised over and over until it is done, and we actually give boys and men the permission to be all that they are – equally sensitive, equally beautiful, equally loving and equally sacred and divine, to the qualities held by any woman.
I agree Victoria. The more I open my eyes to the amazing sensitivity men innately are the more horrific the current state of the world seems. Men are not made to be violent or go to war, they are born tender and deserve to be able to hold on to this always.
Hear, hear. Well said Leonne. Especially in that, I would say that most women yet have a long way to go in truly embracing this truth, and what it means for us – the expectations and demands we place upon men, and whether we are actually comfortable ourselves with a man who does surrender to the depth of his sensitivity… For when he does, our own walls and fortresses to our own inner qualities are exposed instantly, and in full.
As you have shared Jinya the beauty of love is that when we let in in – fully, and allow it equally to come out that is an expression which is beautiful for all involved, and how about this in the family home, in the workplace, on the bus, at the supermarket…
‘We are hurt so we hold our love back then we hold our love back even more – which can only hurt us.’ This is pretty much the state of the world – holding back what we so desperately want and know – Love.
The very thing we crave the most is what we protect ourselves from and deny ourselves: The true love of the Soul.
To allow ourselves to let Love in is such an exquisite feeling. It’s no wonder it can move us to tears.
Love indeed has this extraordinary quality of patience, because love, is eternal, all pervading, and omni- interconnected.
Chris, I love the word ‘Omni-interconnected’ that you have used here to describe Love 😃
I have come to know that the “open hearted innocence” of a child has the power to bring even the so called toughest man to his knees as the reflection of love coming towards him cannot be denied or ignored. To be able to stay connected to the innocence is not easy in this world we live in, but we are never without it, it just waits patiently for us to once again connect to it and to begin to live it without restraint.
I love that the innocence of a child can remind us of the power of dropping our protection and connecting to the beauty of what lies within so that we can then offer another the same blessing. Gorgeous.
‘Male and female may have different body parts but the heart is always the same’ and hence we are equal. Beautifully said Jinya.
A gorgeous confirmation of just being you. Children we know and don’t know have always gravitated to my husband, they love talking or playing with him, and I can see why because he does not impose he leaves them be and doesn’t need them to do anything for him. Kids love that, nothing is worse then being pushed into talking, doing or even hugging someone that your whole body is saying no to.
When love meets love, God is felt for the All that he is and that we are too. These moments are always there waiting for us to pause long enough in the dizzy momentum we live in so that in this stillness we feel the beauty of our true self. Returning to the warmth of this embrace is truly exquisite for in it we get to feel that great arms of universal love that we are forever held by and that have never ever let go of us, even though we may well have let go of them. This is beautifully expressed Jinya, I always enjoy reading your observations and revelations, thankyou.
“Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet” . . . I love this line Jinya as it says it all. We as a society ask men to be other than the sensitive being they naturally are from an early age. It is little wonder that suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 and 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease.
Love is so powerful and so simple, it does not need someone grown up or learned to deliver it any child can do it.
The power of one tender hug and when we are willing to see the whole world opens up for us.
And all too often we completely underestimate that power and its ripple effect on both ourselves and others.
This is so beautifully true “Love would never impose itself on another because that just isn’t what love does. It waits. And waits. And waits. And when you’re ready, touches you with such powerful tenderness that it leaves a grown man crying… well, almost.”
So beautiful to read Jinya, your sharing the love of this little girl and the love also that lives within yourself, and for that matter all of us.
I love the experience you had with the little girl Jinya. It shows so powerfully that hiding away the love that is inherently within us, not only impacts on ourself, but also deprives the world of this beautiful gift that the little girl offered you. Whatever people’s response is and even should they reject it because of their own protection issues they are dealing with, the heart feels it and remembers.
“We are hurt so we hold our love back then we hold our love back even more – which can only hurt us.” Jinya what you have shared is gold as it showed very clearly that we are the ones who could change the world or our life-style by loving ourselves first as if we allow to love ourselves nothing can really harm us hence no holding back is necessary.
“That is the illusion I bought into, because I chose to be a victim the moment I chose to hide my love and blame the world for not letting me be the love that I am.” – so easy to blame ‘the world’ (God, friends, family (!), bosses, colleagues, essential: OTHERS) so we do not have and responsibility in Life. But hey, the responsibility does never go away. And it does not just wait for us to take it, it reflects its requirement in every moment, with every illness, accident, problem, disturbance. This is the power of love from God: the love we are and the responsibility we carry does not go away. We are ’empowered’ and it is our choice how we use this power.
Love is within always … surrendering all ideals and beliefs and just being is the connection our love is waiting for innocence and pure, but as you have so beautifully expressed Jinya … so deeply felt.
There’s no need to reach for love, to try to have love, to seek love, simply because love is always with us. The one thing we can do though is to hide from love when it is presented to us, but even though we choose to hide, it doesn’t go anywhere but waits patiently until we make the choice to stop hurting ourselves and instead to open our hearts and our arms and truly feel it.
Jinya, this sentence holds much for all of us to ponder upon. “If I hurt myself before the world does then at least I will not be a victim of it, but of my own self-made harm.” How super ridiculous are we to live in this way, holding back our love from ourselves, just incase it is not accepted by another, hence then the hurt of jealously, being brushed of, anger to try and shut us down, so many ways that our light can affect others. Yet as you say, why should how another responds affect us because Love simply waits, and waits and waits until we are ready to accept it. Beautiful blog.
You have described true love perfectly “Love would never impose itself on another because that just isn’t what love does. It waits. And waits. And waits. And when you’re ready, touches you with such powerful tenderness that it leaves a grown man crying… well, almost.” Absolutely Divine.
Thank you Jinya for sharing so exquisitely your experience of pure joy. Deeply moving and brings up so much to appreciate.
“When we come to know a truth, we can never un-know it.” Wise words Jinya. Yes we can try to deny it, as you say, but truth is always there – waiting for us to return.
“It seemed unreachable because that is where I put it, not wanting to reach it, out of pure denial. I had kept my sensitivity hidden away so that I could numb my awareness of how much it hurts to live in the world that is often very rough and uncaring.” This is so true in my life and an all too familiar place to hide.
Children can reflect such innocence and joy for us. The great joy is to allow it to rekindle our own, no matter what age we are, when we are in the presence of this awesome gift.
I love whet you say about the patience of love Jinya, that it will always be there for us to connect to and that “It knows that we will come back to it one day”. The unconditionality to me is the core of love as it has no rules and obeys fully to our right to free will, which means to me that we consciously have to choose for this love and that it will never impose itself to us in any way shape or form.
Jinya, beautiful to read your story. I can so relate to being that little girl full of love and waiting and waiting and waiting to be seen and express it. It was always there, but only met by another and allowed to be expressed fully with my grandmother in a glimpse of an interaction. This one time experience has held me for my life time. The truth of who I am is now returning, after years of not being met, I eventually stopped even seeing myself clearly.
Paul and Anne your combined blogs are an inspiration for me. As l read about your experiences it helps me understand my own and to feel what it is like to work together as a team.
When I see or hear parents telling their boys to toughen up it always makes me feel a little frustrated. As I know they have bought into a way of seeing their son that is not truly who he is. Boys are just as sensitive as girls and expressing tenderly is innate within them. Why we feel the wish to drive that out of them is it seems highly unintelligent. Particularly if you put it in the context of where that hardness leads to, violence, unease in the body, and a protection and shutting down of the ability to express and be open. Qualities that we need more of from men, not less.
‘ I had kept my sensitivity hidden away so that I could numb my awareness of how much it hurts to live in the world that is often very rough and uncaring’. This is my experience too Jinya, but what I discovered was that in dulling my light, I just hurt myself and others as I held back my love therefore love could not flow in or out.
I love how you share that the hug between you was just a confirmation of the connection that had occurred already and the love that was shared. So often we expect from a hug or a kiss something that is not there and fool ourselves that because these things are exchanged that this means love is present whilst it is absent even in the kiss and the hug.
A beautiful expression of a man opening up to the tenderness that he is with the loving touch of a little girl who met him with open-hearted love. The love of the inner-heart is there within us all just waiting for us to embrace it.
And showing us that the beholding love of God that is found deep in our inner-heart is without age nor imposition but simply emanates the light divine we are each born from and are here to shine in full on this plane of life so that all receive the reflection that speaks the truth of who we truly are.
Jinya this is super gorgeous, it really brings home the responsibility to me of totally openly and fully expressing how much we love people, the response in another can be massive and so profound.
Letting love in is essential , yes it sounds clichéd but just reflecting upon what this actually means can be the catalyst for a personal reconfiguration that restores harmonious relationships within and without.
Having spent most of my life resisting love, resisting responsibility, which brought much complication to my life, I now allow myself to receive love and support from others and you are spot on Chris, as this has been a catalyst for a huge shift in myself as I share so much more of me, and the more I share the love that I am, every area of my life has changed/improved including all my relationships.
It is a great thing to feel the love that we have inside and start to see how we held it back for such a long time, but luckily when we choose to reconnect it is still there. And brings a tenderness to us men that is unmeasurable.
“Male and female may have different body parts but the heart is always the same. Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet”. How wonderful that this young child could feel that you had let down your barriers and were open to letting her in and she felt safe to trust and beautifully respond with a loving hug. Thank-you for sharing your tender loving beingness Jinya.
When someone truly knows and loves themselves, being hugged by that person is a lifechanging experience, it is like being held by God.
Beautiful Cjames, it definitely is. It is a great gift of love, that reminds us of being equal to gods love.
Yes a hug can be profound. “What was different was that I saw her and I wasn’t afraid to let in her love. In a beautiful moment, she felt that I saw her and the hug was a physical confirmation of what had already occurred energetically.” Our daily interactions with children are miracles waiting to happen,especially when we are not afraid or too closed off to letting their love in.
Children certainly do show us the way back to love. The fact that the encounter you had with this child Jinya came about because the child could feel your willingness to drop the defences and be open is such a great demonstration that we are all deeply loving and lovable. It is us that change as we grow older but children remind us that we were originally capable of feeling, showing and knowing love in all its simplicity and glory and we can always return to our original way of being.
Thank you Jinya, so beautiful to feel the love that you are and that we all are, your sharing brought tears to my eyes.
It amazes me the constructs we can put over our eyes to justified and figure out the world, in the goal of not being hurt.
Everyone is a professional fictional writer.
Beautifully said Jinya, I was very touched by what you shared in this blog. Your blog is a gorgeous reminder that when we let go of our hurts we get to experience more true and loving connections with everyone around us.
How beautiful Jinya, to feel the love and tenderness expressed between you and this little child When we open up to express our love, love meets us back and we feel the love that resides in each and everyone.
Thank you Jinya for sharing your beautiful experience of opening up your heart and being confirmed in this with such a tender, acknowledging hug. It is so crazy that we shut down to protect ourselves and in the process hurt ourselves and everyone we interact with.
Beautiful shared Jinya. To me it made me reflect on the fact that we are all equally sensitive and tender beings, whether we are a women or a men. What makes our society to try to ignore this fact, why do we allow girls and women to be sensitive and tender, but we tell boys and men to be hard and tough? What is behind this when we observe this from a bigger picture and why do we create this separation in men as they are naturally equally sensitive and tender as well? To me these are the questions that have to be asked as becoming aware of this fact is key in reestablishing the true equalness between men and women.
This is beautiful to read and to to feel the tenderness and delicateness of the hug from a 5 year old and to know that deep within that is us too, it’s amazing and thank you for sharing Jinya.
“Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet.” this is so true in the way that as men me loose that innocence and tenderness when we were young and morph into something we innately is not us to fit in to what the world tells us is compatible to be a man.
‘Male and female may have different body parts but the heart is always the same’ – the sooner we accept and appreciate this fact the sooner we will claim true equality and celebrate how our gender differences actually complement each other.
Lucky for us that ‘love has the patience of time’ but how crazy that we delay being the love we already are in the misguided belief that we’re somehow protecting ourselves from being hurt further by the world, when in fact we’re just merely further hurting ourselves by denying what is our natural state.
‘We are hurt so we hold our love back, then we hold our love back even more – which can only hurt us’. Its seems senseless when you put it like this Jinya as we are literally ‘holding the world to ransom’ when we hold ourselves back. Withholding our love so as not to be hurt simply denies us all of the true richness of our innate love that is expressed from the inside out and not the other way around.
The level of trust and tender expression of love by a child is just plain precious. ‘I’ve been trying to get to this love like an unreachable peak with constantly moving goal posts – and all this time I was the one tricking myself and moving the goal posts!’ We have all being tricked by this illusion for looking for something outside of ourselves that has always been and will always be on the inside – just like children still know but we have forgotten.
Kids are great teachers, and great reflections – they respond to what they feel and are less prone to the lying and deceiving we learn as adults.
So true Simon. Also I can fully appreciate where Jinya, as an adult with loving integrity, chose to come from, expressed in this paragraph..”I saw her that day because on that day I had given myself permission to be more of the love inside me, and what I could see and feel in the little girl was a simple equality. We met.”
Its like the story of the wind and the sun competing to get a man to open up. The hard, tough world just blows and blows and we hunker down and protect ourselves even tighter. But then a 5 year old girls walks up and you just melt with the tenderness. I love that.
“Even if we do deny it, love has the patience of time. It might send out reminders now and again, but it is forever without expectation. It knows that we will come back to it one day, when we give ourselves the permission to feel and to allow ourselves to be the love that we already are and have always been.”
This blog is always lovely to come back to and the last paragraph just right to go to sleep with. I’ve been struggeling lately to surrender to this knowingness deep within and running away from the Love that burns so bright within. It’s time to re-turn and surrender deeply. Thank you Jinya for lighting the way forth for all of us.
to be held in love, and to know that that love is unwavering and not limited, redefines the word love itself, and this is an experience that is possible not some fairytale.
“Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet” – I just love this. We’ve come very far away from this simplicity of just being and being met for who we truly are, and having it confirmed. Thank you, Jinya, I really love the way you express yourself with so much tenderness and no reservation.
Jinya, it is beautiful to read a man’s account of coming back to his tenderness and love – inspiring for men and women alike.
Thank you Jinya. For a man to be truly open, loving and tender is too rare in this world, no wonder men struggle emotionally and get by being hard and shut down but this is surely not the way as is very evident in this world today. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story of stepping back into the man you were born to be.
I agree Katechorley, men deny their true essence of the beauty and delicateness when we were children and we suffer the consequences of that as adults by abusing and dishonouring our bodies, but is only a a matter of a choice to reconnect to that love and tenderness that is innately within us.
Thank you Jinya for sharing your tenderness and love in this blog – it was beautiful to read.
Lovely to revisit this blog this morning. I know so well about being hurt and then holding my love back, actually I got to feel it was more like: you’re not getting my love, as this world does not deserve it – same thing, holding the world to ransom….of course I only hurt myself. Thankfully, I am done with hurting myself and loving myself instead, and the deeper I love myself the more love I have to share with others….and love just keeps feeding me back….
Such a tender moment Jinya proving that holding the world to ransom waiting for it to love us before we love it back will never work. When we are that love first we magically pull more of the same our way.
Very beautiful post Jinya, so true and love the way you equalise both genders in regards our ability towards feeling and sensitivity – essential qualities that help keep us connected to who we are and with this an awareness of what’s going on as we live life. As I reflect on your words here: “I had kept my sensitivity hidden away so that I could numb my awareness of how much it hurts to live in the world that is often very rough and uncaring”. When we are shown the beauty of love as in your example with the child’s embrace, it shows the power to dissolve the hardness of life.. and in this the great bounty that is there waiting for us.
Thank you Jinya for expressing so beautifully the love that we all are, a true reflection. It brings tears to my eyes feeling this love.
So gorgeous, so true. Thank you Jinya for expressing – love – you. Powerfully felt.
Thank you Jinya, for sharing your Beautiful moment of re-awakening. I agree with your comment regarding truth – once we know a truth, we can never un-know it. We are all ‘Love’ and the simple reminder through this beautiful open hug from a 5yr old ignites that inner ‘Truth’ again.
Jinya thank you so much to remind us that men are equally sensitiv and that they are feeling as much as women. We are all the same Love and as you wrote so wisely “It (love) knows that we will come back to it one day, when we give ourselves the permission to feel and to allow ourselves to be the love that we already are and have always been.” – how wunderbar is that!!!
Absolutely beautiful Jinya. The true and graceful power I could feel as you re-claimed your connection to your tenderness is so inspiring. ‘I felt the truth in the fact that the same love that is waiting for permission to be expressed is already right here in my heart, in my eyes, and everything from my fingertips to my voice.’ Thank you for reflecting that the being the love and tenderness that we are is our natural way to be.
Most of us are seeking love but we are looking everywhere except where it dwells, inside of us, for we are love.
Thank you Jinya for showing us the reflexion of the love that you are in this beautiful tender blog.
Well, this blog is like a power-bomb! I felt quite challenged by all you expressed about love, but in a good way, you gave my “express-love” muscle quite a work out! When love makes so much sense why on earth are we holding it back? We hold love back as a form of false protection, thereby condemning ourselves to a life of empty misery when it is we ourselves who are craving love. Crazy, it such an illusion that the love we need is outside of ourselves. Thankyou for writing so powerfully and truthfully Jinya.
‘you gave my “express-love” muscle quite a work out!’ Love the idea of it being a muscle Melinda which gets stronger the more we use it…
It’s inspiring how much you allowed yourself to appreciate this young girl sharing her love with you. It’s one thing to say “well that was beautiful” and move on, but you have shared the absolute beauty of this and by the fact that you cried just shows the depth you were appreciating this love. Amazing for a man to do as well regardless of the way men are brought up to be tough.
Just gorgeous to read Jinya. I too chose to be a victim of my own self made harm holding the world to ransom for the pain caused yet not realising I was imprisoning myself and keeping my own love at bay… ridiculous yes, thank goodness love is as you so beautifully said, ever so patient, always there, sending out loving reminders, forever waiting for us to embrace it.
Beautiful Jinya!! Your magnificent blog makes clear that there are no real barriers to melt in love with another human being because this is what we truly are —even if the other person is 5 years old.
Love is always there. Jinya, what a beautiful writing, thank you.
“Early next morning, as I was reflecting on the tenderness that was shown to me, I felt the truth in the fact that the same love that is waiting for permission to be expressed is already right here in my heart, in my eyes, and everything from my fingertips to my voice. I wept a few tears when I felt this.” – I wept a few tears also when I read your blog Jinya, thank you.
Jinya this was exquisite – I could feel the tenderness of us all reflected in what you shared. The words that struck me were “We are hurt so we hold our love back then we hold our love back even more – which can only hurt us.” – it is madness, yet this has been the way I too have lived my life, many of us do. I can feel the potential of how not closing down to life, being all of who we are as offered in your writing, is such a different way – more open, loving and true. To see as you say that we can bring that love to every single thing we do, and to see it as a true expression of the love that we are. Wow, now that’s beautiful!
The sensitivity in your writing here Jinya is lovely to feel.
Beautiful Jinya. I go into my son’s classroom to help out and often a child for no apparent reason will come up to me and tenderly wrap their arms around me for a hug. It’s totally gorgeous. Reading what you’ve shared here has offered me a new level of appreciation in what that is confirming. For that sort of hug, is totally priceless and in it there is much to appreciate.
Jinya you are so tender and beautiful – I love the way you express this.
This is truly gorgeous and feels amazing to receive. What you’ve expressed Jinya strikes a cord in me on so many different levels – exposing some ill patterns, confirming the truth I’ve come to but often deny myself feeling in full, and empowering me to claim that the innocent openness; the warmth in my heart and the tenderness in my touch is all there in me and pouring out of me if I stop denying it all and just allow myself to be as glorious as I truly am. Thank you for this deep blessing you’ve shared with us.
I love this line. “When we come to know a truth, we can never un-know it” for it is forever there no matter what we try to do with it, waiting quietly, patiently till we’re ready to accept it and make it part of us. Beautiful.
Beautiful tender sharing, Jinya. And I recognize:
‘We are hurt so we hold our love back then we hold our love back even more – which can only hurt us.’ How not effective and painful is that. The only thing that works for me: let love out and receive it in.
A deeply beautiful expression Jinya. It has brought me to tears . I am especially touched by the truth of this – ‘Love would never impose itself on another because that just isn’t what love does. It waits. And waits. And waits. And when you’re ready, touches you with such powerful tenderness …’ Thank you Jinya.
This is so beautiful and tender Jinya. I love what you wrote about how love just waits. I too felt the stillness and grace in this.
Such tenderness, humbleness and depth in your writing Jinya, was truly beautiful to read this morning, and leaves me soaking in a warm bath of stillness and grace.
What a gorgeous blog, what really stuck with me was ”I chose to be a victim the moment I chose to hide my love and blame the world for not letting me be the love that I am.”
It’s not the world stopping us, nor love holding us back. Our only obstacle is, has been and will only ever be ourselves. We are also our own power-full master of our lives that make the choices to be the love that we are.
Yes I agree Leigh, it is us holding back our love as it is always there. There is nothing we need to do – in fact it is the opposite, as soon as we stop doing, stop holding it back it is there.
Thank you, Jinya… it has taken me a while to read and re-read your article… stopped in my tracks and sweetly brought to tears that I still fear shedding. Love waits and waits and waits, always there and always pleased to see us however long we have taken and however long we stay… no judgement… I am inspired.
Thank you Jinya – a tender, touching sharing full of love and truth. A blessing for us all.
This is such a lovely story and as you say, so true for so many of us. It was a very timely reminder to let all that is already there be there… thank you.
This is a deeply moving piece, thank you for sharing!
This is truly beautiful. What an amazing confirmation for you from a 5 year old giving to you what you had given yourself permission to share with others, – your tenderness, gorgeousness and love.
Beautiful Jinya. Thank you.
I like the part that we are the victim of our own self-made harm. That is the illusion I bought into, because I chose to be a victim the moment I chose to hide my love and blame the world for not letting me be the love that I am. I was playing this game too for a long time, but I choose not to do this self harm anymore. Great sharing, thanks Jinya.
Tenderly, openly, beauty-fully written. This is a joy to read, thank you Jinya.
Jinya, I felt the blessing you offered this young girl by presenting the tender open man you are. I have watched my husband also do this and it is power-full for young girls to feel the loving support of men, they feel adored.
Beautiful Toni. I agree. Jinya you are a beautiful, tender and open man. What an amazing reflection you gave this little girl.
Absolutely beautiful… I could feel the tenderness of you, it also reminded me of how I can hold love back if hurt. The line that love is just waiting for permission to be expressed is profound… Thank you.
Hi Jinya, your writing reminded me of how reachable our beauty is when we are open to connecting to it. Sometimes I create unnecessary struggles in my life that create a stress in my body and deny my beauty within. When I open up to the possibility that l can feel lovely within life all of the time, it helps me to unravel the struggle – almost like hugging myself the way you were hugged. It was so beautiful hearing what makes a grown man cry… almost. Thank you.
So beautifully put Jinya, with such grace and tenderness. I love so many of your words but “Telling boys not to feel is like telling water not to be wet”, made me chuckle because it is so true. We can learn so much from the innocence and honesty of a 5 year old, when children feel love they don’t hold back. Thank you Jinya for sharing this with us all.
Your writing has brought tears to my eyes Jinya. The love and tenderness and beauty of the heart is palpable. Thank you for being you.
So beautiful Jinya, brought tears to my eyes, your reflection has allowed me to feel how I have been trying to get this love like an unreachable peak with moving goal posts, when the simple truth is, when we allow ourselves to stop and feel, there is an enormous and amazing love within us and all around us. Why would we ever want to deny this, hide it or hold it back. I am going to bed tonight with the most tender and knowing smile…
…it feels like I’m being held in the most tender and warm hug.
Thank you Jinya for your simple and exquisite sharing of the beauty and love that is you, and all of us equally so.