I watched a short video clip of a talk by meditation teacher Tara Brach, in which she shared a quote from Norweigen writer Arne Garborg:

To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten.

The concept of love can feel so amorphous. I love the specificity of this; the tangible aspect of something we can do to express love.

And this type of action is so needed, especially in these times.

We Forget Who We Are

In our daily busy-ness, as we rush from one thing to the next, caught in fear about the future and and all the things we cannot control, influenced by the energy of chaos on the streets, in the news, and in our own families, we forget.

We forget that we are here for a purpose, to serve a mission, to respond to a calling. It’s easy — too easy — to get caught up in all we didn’t do, or aren’t doing. What we can do better. How we aren’t “enough” in the myriad of ways we tend to believe that lie.

The messages we see daily reinforce this story to us.

And even when we have practices and rituals to slow down and help us ease our of our trance, it’s still often the case that we are wrapped in the cloak of not-enoughness.

As Brach remarks, we need people who know our heart-song and can sing it back to us. And we need to do that for others.

How to Put This Into Action

If we want to have others sing our heart-song back to us, or to sing another’s heart song to them, we need three things first:

(1) Visibility

Nobody can learn our heart-song unless we let them in. To have someone who can sing your heart-song to you when you forget, you must be willing to be seen.

(2) Presence

To learn another’s heart-song takes attention and focus. The vulnerability to share on a deeper soul level requires space to nurture and nourish a relationship. You won’t learn someone’s heart-song in a “drive-by” how are you? conversation.

(3) Connection

I don’t mean “we’re connected on social media.” I mean the type of connection where you know when something is off with the other person, where you can see they have forgotten their heart-song. Soul connection. Awareness.

To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it back to them when they have forgotten.

Who sings your heartsong to you when you have forgotten? Whose heart-song do you sing?