They're really saying I love you...

They’re really saying “I love you”…Everyone who has heard this song loves it.  It is a song of wonder and joy.  A song of seeing deeply to the heart of what is happening.  Yes, on one level that person that just reached out and said “Hi” or “What’s up?”  or “How’s it going?” is following a customary greeting practice when we meet someone.  But what Louis Armstrong knew, is that this was only the surface of the interaction.  At the heart of the greeting was “I love you”,  a desire for connection and community; an example of caring and kindness.I can almost hear your smart minds going, “How can s/he know that?” Or maybe it is saying “That is a sweet idea but really? Come on.”   Here is what I know for sure:  we are all a mess of different feelings and motivations and intentions.  We are everything.  None of us purely good or bad.  That’s what makes us so interesting … and impossible to predict!  For me it doesn’t matter if the idea that someone is reaching out to me is accurate or not.  When I choose to see a greeting as a request for contact and connection, my better angels take over, I become someone I admire.  AND the world becomes a little  brighter, softer and filled with wonder!   Just like the song says.So, where can you shift your seeing and hearing just enough to hear "They're really saying "I love you"?  Often it is only those smart minds of ours that cover over our experiences of wonder and joy with the mind's need for predictability and control.  Predictability and control are fine for machines and schedules but they can hurt living things, like relationships.  The choice is ours moment by moment.  This new year, I apprentice myself to wonder and joy.   To turn my dial to the frequency of ..."they're really saying, I love you"  I so hope you will join me.