Loving Smart

Zane, my five-year-old son, started Kindergarten in August this year. At his school, they teach Multiple Intelligences in every grade. In Kindergarten, they call the different types of intelligences “smarts,” so kids can be number smart and music smart and people smart and self smart. There are about eight “official” kinds of “smarts.”

In September, I was walking past Zane’s room after I had put him to bed and I heard a noise in his room, so I stopped outside his door and listened to him talking to himself in the dark. He was counting by tens from 10 to 100. When he got to 100, he said to himself, all proud and pleased, “Wow. I’m number smart!”

In December, a few nights before I flew to LA for class, I was putting Zane to bed. We had already read a book and we were lying together in his “Go, Diego, Go!” toddler bed with the lights out, just hanging out together for a few minutes. I said, “Zane, are you still number smart?” Immediately he answered, “Yes!” So, I asked, “What other kinds of smart are you?” He thought about it a moment and said, “I’m writing smart.” “Yep,“ I said. “And I’m coloring smart.” “Mmmm hmmm. Are you any other kind of smart?” He thought for another moment and said, “I’m loving smart. That’s the first one I learned.” I was silent for a moment, taking that one in. Then I asked, “Where did you learn that one?” “From loving you,” was his immediate, nonchalant reply.

Wow. I was a little stunned. I loved this on so many levels. First, he knew he was “loving” smart. That’s awesome. I don’t think I’m loving smart! Second, he learned it by doing it, through his experience of loving. Nobody "taught" him how to do it. He just did it. Third, he learned it on his own. For free. As a kid. I was spending a lot of money as an adult to re-learn the same thing at USM! Finally, he learned it by loving me, his mom. What a beautiful and natural thing to do.

Immediately, part of me rebelled against the last realization. What had I done to deserve this pure, innocent love? I wasn’t worthy of this huge honor! And, boom, there was my curriculum for the weekend.

When I went to lunch with two beautiful friends on Saturday, the bartender couldn’t stop staring at them. In fact, it looked like he was watching a tennis match the way his head kept moving from the face of one to face of the other. I don’t fit in here, with these beautiful women.

On Sunday, my teacher Mary reminded us that our outer relationships are mirrors of our inner relationships. That afternoon, I was in a trio with one of the most beautiful women in our class. Which put me right back into feeling like I don’t fit in when I’m with beautiful women. As is the USM way, I looked at my inner relationships to see where I wasn’t loving myself, where I wasn’t seeing my own beauty. After I recognized and released the judgments I had made against myself, I had a new insight: how I look is not my beauty. Who I am is my beauty. My essence is my beauty. I realized that I had only been conditionally loving myself. When I let go of my need to look a certain way in order to deserve love it somehow became easy to love myself just the way I am right now.

I thought about Zane all through the weekend. He learned about loving through his experience of loving. This weekend, I learned that I am loving smart, too. Like Zane, I’m learning that by loving me.