Dearly Beloved . . .

Stop. Wait for it. Did you feel it?

I apologize for the interruption. You were just invited into a feeling of unconditional and tender positive regard (borrowing language from the psychologist Carl Rogers), an acknowledgment of your preciousness. Dearly Beloved, did you just blow through the experience of being addressed as your purest and most innate goodness in the habituated way we’ve all been taught to read, anticipating the next word, then the next, then the next until we get to the end of the sentence to make meaning of a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, then the entire book? Or, did you stop to ponder the salutation “Dearly Beloved”? Let’s try it again.

Dearly Beloved . . .

This time, did you try the words on for size? Did you embrace being called by the tender vulnerableness deep inside yourself? Or, after trying these words on, did you reject the sweetness of yourself based on past harms you may have committed or a sense that you are flawed at your core? Please pause and take a moment to reflect and then return to the words “dearly” and “beloved.” Allow the feelings to sink in. As you do, whether you know Prince’s music or not, you will get the sense of how his unconditional positive regard for others was felt and why his fans loved him with a mad passion, even if they knew they were doing wrong.

Dearly Beloved. As I reflect on these words, even if only saying them aloud to myself, I feel tender and vulnerable, supple and fragile like a baby. As I stay with the feeling, I also feel protective, even though no external threat is present. What am I protecting myself from? That aspect of consciousness that works toward convincing me that I am not dear or a beloved is called the “internal saboteur” in a psychological theory called Object Relations Theory. W. R. D. Fairbairn coined the term, which also means “the anti-libidinal ego” or “the harsh inner critic.” In short, multiple egos form under infant stress. Depending on how intensely the stress impacts ego formation, an internal and unconscious world is created whereby feelings of love are attacked by the internal saboteur. The internal saboteur attacks the energy of love. I’ll get into more detail about this intrapsychic dynamic in chapter two. It suffices to say for now that it’s not always easy to respond positively to being called beloved nor is it easy to feel this way about others without conditions. For many, their insecurities arise when they are actively relating to those who have shamed or abused them. I resonate with Prince’s equivalent of the internal saboteur that he called “Spooky Electric.” In “Positivity,” he wrote that Spooky Electric is that part of ourselves that is so doubtful about ourselves, it hurts to the core, can overtake our confidence and self-worth, and confuse us about our higher nature. He also used the term Spooky Electric to describe evil and Satan.

Even if we harbor thoughts about our innate goodness, feel discouraged, and become a victim, we are still beloved, in part, because we can choose to positively orient our hearts and minds. “This thing called life,” as Prince put it, is exhausting and sometimes excruciating, so to have a talented musician call his fans “Dearly Beloved” is like a salve, wrapped in a beat and melody that can serve (momentarily and especially if the music is hypnotic) to help us remember we are worthy of being seen, heard, understood, respected, loved, healed from past injuries, and protected from future harm. For Prince, that meant to live in paradise forever, on earth.

This is an excerpt from Dearly Beloved chapter 1: Dearly Beloved, I Want to Be Your Lover.