What is love?
Happy February Everyone! Here we are in the last months of winter and in the month that is typically associated (in the mainstream media anyways) with love.
Love is not a word we are encouraged to use in our professional/participant relationships. There are a lot of good reasons for this boundary – a healthy respect for professional/client relationships is important and romantic love has absolutely no place there.
But if we broaden our definition of love beyond the perceptions and conceptions of romance, we venture into other territory that does have a healthy place in any of our relationships. Love becomes a word and concept we don’t need to be afraid of in human services any longer.
When I look through the words associated with love I see: enthusiasm; devotion; affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests; strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; and the best definition: to thrive in.
We know that love plays out in countless ways big and small and that when we act from a place of love we also thrive. Love is shovelling snow for someone who can’t, making a card for your friend, listening, sharing your food, helping someone with a chore…. Like I said – endless opportunities to spread light in the world. That’s love.
At BOSS we don’t spend a whole lot of time telling each other we love us. But we do spend as much time as humanly possible ACTING like it. We also want to act like we love our community, helping out where possible and building our relationships in a way that everyone can thrive.
Our love for the community is foundational; it’s what we build our dreams on. Within the spirit of love, we have been quietly building some new dreams, programs and opportunities that will continue to bring love and light into spaces that can be transformed to encourage more belonging.
The future remains unclear. There is so much that each and everyone of us are tackling every day – with a lot of unknowns on the horizon. We can’t for a second predict how things are going to transpire. However, if the FUTURE IS LOVE than we can walk boldly forward.
And finally, to all of you who continue to shower every aspect of Branching Out Support Services with love of every kind (ideas, work, participation, donation, engagement on social media, notes of encouragement, dedication to the cause of belonging and social justice…. I could go on) we give deep gratitude. Thank you for loving us – we are safe under your care.
Through it all we grow with love and gratitude.