All You Need Is (More Than) Love

Some reflections on The Beatles' song/purported-advice 58 years after. 
Does it hold up? Was it ever true?

Nope.

Well, what then? What is needed, and how do you get it?

I prefer the words of Procol Harum: "For the answer lies in learning, and in teaching we are taught. There's nothing hidden anywhere, it's all there to be sought." 

Transcript

Jerry (00:01)
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. You're listening to Showing Up I was thinking, I love music. I love music and I love the music that I grew up with more than a lot of music in subsequent decades. Probably just like you, you would say the same thing. I'm going to guess. I read an article once in the New York Times by Verlin Klinkenborg, I believe saying that the

Music that you listen to when you were 16 is probably the music you were going to love your entire life well of All the music that I've listened to and loved There's one Beatle song That really annoyed me Did pretty much from the get-go there been a couple of Beatle songs over the years that

annoyed me. Probably the most legendary annoyance I had was with The Long and Winding Road. I was just overdosed on Paul McCartney's sentiment at that point. It seemed like the Beatles were over and he did.

The Long and Winding Road, it just sounded like music for old person's homes to me. I still struggle listening to that song, but that's not the one that really philosophically bugged me. The one that bugged me long before I knew I was going to be a therapist. When I was just a kid trying to figure out relationships at all was all you need is love.

All You Need Is Love was written mainly by John Lennon and it came out in 1967 at the height of the Beatles popularity. And it sold like crazy. I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for it now. This took place also

They did a famous broadcast where they sat around and all sang the chorus, All You Need Is Love, All You Need Is Love. Paul had admitted that he'd taken LSD around then. The Arab-Israeli Six-Day War had happened. Seated in the audience for this recording of All You Need Is Love was Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Keith Mood, Graham Nash. Everyone was there just sitting around.

singing all you need is love and this was after sergeant peppers so it's attributed to both of them but john wrote it and it's worthy of looking at the lyrics because

I can't play it due to copyright stuff. But it basically says there's nothing that you can do that can't be done. You can learn how to play the game. It's easy. All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love. Well, what did John's son Julian say about that? Here's what he said.

Dad was a hypocrite. He could talk about peace and love to the world. He could never show it to his wife and son.

He had a legendary reaction to his father's not being there for his growing up and abandoning his mother and him. And it lasted his whole life. And I believe he was left out of the will that John left and had to sue to get his portion of the money with his brother, Sean.

and says that he has worked on forgiving his father and towards the end of his father's life they got closer. But I want to consider

the message is this much larger than a father-son issue. This was a proclamation to the world at the height of their fame. It was a real message that honestly, all you need is love.

That is so not true. That is such, I mean, what do you call things that are not true? It's such a lie. It's not true that all you need is love. You definitely need love. If you can't find love in yourself for a puppy dog, for a baby, for yourself,

people in your family as much as they may annoy you. If you can't find love, you've got a real hole in your soul. You've got a real problem that's not easily fixed. But if you can find love, I'm here to tell you that's not enough. It's nowhere near enough. And as you live over the decades, you understand

more and more that it's not enough. It's beautiful. It can be a moment to say I love you to someone, but certainly not enough. I tried to challenge myself to write what do you need if it's not just love? There are lots of things you need.

Here's my list. Here's my list of what I think you need. So I can't sing this, but it doesn't lend itself to a simple pop song. All you need is being seen and being valued. Being seen and being valued.

All you need is seeing and valuing another.

All you need is the ability to take risks and to fail. To fail. Leonard Bernstein once said, least have the dignity. I think it was Leonard Bernstein said that at least if you're going to fall off of a ladder, at least have the dignity to fall from a high rung instead of a lower one. In other words, take risks and fail. All you need is the ability.

to learn from your failures. Consider that. All you need is the ability to learn from your failures.

How about this one? All you need is the ability to translate feelings of love into loving actions.

You can feel it, love. So what? Are you showing it to anyone? How are you demonstrating it? Is it effective?

about all you need is the ability to stand up for yourself and assert yourself.

All you need is the ability to wrestle with someone, with integrity. To wrestle with a partner.

All you need is the ability to apologize.

All he needs is the ability to change after the apology.

All you need is the ability to earn a living.

All you need is the ability to be financially independent.

All you need is the ability to extend kindness to people who are different than you.

That's how it occurs to me. That's how it occurs to me. So here's an interesting story about Julian Lennon, the first child of John, the one who called him a hypocrite. Julian's a photographer these days. when he was touring as a musician in Australia, he had met with a group of Aboriginal leaders.

in Australia who asked him to bring attention to their plight.

One of the tribal leaders presented Julian with a white swan feather and he felt goosebumps all over. Quote, dad had said to me that if there was a way of letting me know that he was going to be all right or that we were going to be all right, it would be in the form of a white feather.

One quote.

That was a number of decades ago. And he went on to form something called the White Feather Foundation to help support environmental and humanitarian causes. He said, well, I thought it was really time to step up to the plate.

Love.

expresses itself through the generation through things that are said and unsaid, through gestures that are sometimes missed, missed. I think Steve Goodman, the musician, once said that he wished he had listened and heard whatever his father had been saying when he was sort of consciously turning him off and not trying to pay any attention to him.

We do miss key parts of each other, but we also receive the important stuff. It's there somewhere. It's in the moments we share. It's in the things we write. It's the music and food that we share with our family members. Maybe it's white feathers that appear after we're done.

Anyway, in my own journey, I found out that I had a lot to learn about how to love beyond having a feeling of love or a wanting love with someone, that it actually requires skills. I set out to learn those skills after, after failure. And I

was fortunate enough to have someone to wrestle with as I learned the skills. I've gotten better at the skills and now I teach them. I run essential relational boot camps, relationship skills boot camps. We've got one, I have one coming up on February 1st and 2nd in Northampton, Massachusetts on the college, Smith College campus. So go to my website if you're interested in that.

thesandsoftime.net, thesandsoftime.net. I also run bootcamps with my colleague, Christie Gaysford. We have another one coming up in New York City in late April, but it might seem kind of weird that you could benefit from or need a workshop to look at what these actual skills are, but.

and to practice them and to help other people learn them while they are helping you. But therein, that's where the rubber meets the road, where feelings of love can become actualized into actual behaviors that are seen and valued and returned. So there's a way forward right there for you. Consider whether that would work or not. But the next time you hear the song, all you need is love.

I hope you'll smile and think about my list of what is all you need. It just doesn't make a catchy song.

Until next time, I'll be Showing Up