The Importance of Vitamin L

I have always loved watching mother and baby animals. I loved it so much that many, many years ago whenever I had female cats, I would always allow them to have kittens. I loved to watch how they cuddled and caressed and nursed and loved their babies and how their babies loved them back. I did not give the kittens away until their mothers weaned them. I loved it so much that before it was over, I had to (and did) find homes for over 100 kittens! I know now that being with them and participating in unconditionally loving and mothering them opened my heart and allowed me the temporary fix of being around true maternal love.

All mammals are genetically programmed to require and receive this intense love and care when they are babies. It is such a fundamental requirement that not getting it interferes with normal development. Human babies are no different. We too require it, but, strangely, at least in our culture, we rarely get what we so deeply require. In Inner Bonding, we describe this as having parents who are spiritually connected with a source of love and can bring this love to us unconditionally, loving us for who we are. There is a specific energy of love that is involved here. It is not generic. It is not about God's general love for all creation. It is a very specific and very personal adoration of you just for being you.

In Inner Bonding, the fundamental healing comes from bringing this love to our baby selves and to the older ones as well. This kind of love can almost be seen as an essential vitamin, call it "vitamin L." The loving adult provides enough of this "vitamin" to reverse the vitamin deficiency that we call core shame. Thus, the creation of a loving adult really means the creation of a part of ourselves that can specifically access "vitamin L" and transfer it to the little ones inside who did not get enough of it to thrive. It means creating a reliable conduit. "Vitamin L" is everywhere, but again it is a very specific energy. It is exactly the energy that spiritually connected loving parents, who themselves were filled with it, would have transmitted to us.

I make this point because there may be other spiritual "vitamins" that one can access, including information from our source of guidance. There are experiences of expanded consciousness, of connection with Mother Nature, of bliss, of Reiki energy, of the many dimensions of the divine experience. All are important and valid spiritual nourishment, but they do not heal the wounded child. That is why simply being on a spiritual path often does not even touch the cause of suffering which begins, literally, as a "Vitamin L" deficiency.

I don't want to imply that simply showing up with a supply of "Vitamin L" is all that is needed, because there is certainly a lot more to Inner Bonding than that. But finding this supply is essential. Furthermore, for those of us who have gotten access to a source of unconditional love, this might be a reminder that one of the best things we can do for ourselves and our little ones is to simply take time every day to connect with this source and just download another dose. I don't think you can overdose on this one!