Be the love that stays

Hi everybody,
Thank you for your patience. I’ve been delaying this article—taking time to pause and really sit with what’s on my heart. These days, life can feel so mechanical. I find myself glued to a structure and expectation that lives far outside my body. Sometimes, I give in to the weight of that pressure. My fragile identity tries to control the winds of the world. I wish I could tell that version of Nathan what a waste of energy that is. I wish I could peer back from where I stand now and tell him it’s going to be okay. That the inspiration will return. That life is an ebb and flow of creativity. That wisdom must be lived. That he’s acting compulsively—and only hurting himself.

Swimming upstream truly only hurts us. I feel so much compassion for him. And I choose not to make him wrong, but instead to understand. Understand that he’s been programmed by a system of capitalism that taught him his value was in the size of the applause. Taught him that if he won competitions, he’d receive attention and care. I hold him so tightly because I know it’s all he’s known. And I also know that he’s learning so much more.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve approached these articles in a robotic way—searching for a topic that would wow you, that would make you hit the heart button and give me that rush of dopamine. But now, two weeks later, after a lot of life has passed, I sit here in the mush of it. With the shadow and the light. No ChatGPT. No voice-memoed journal entries I plan to turn into content. None of that. Just a boy in his room, heartbroken and heart on fire. Sleep-deprived, with chronic health symptoms. Typing away at his computer at midnight.

Should I be sleeping? Yes. Is that the “responsible” thing to do, by conventional adult standards? Also yes. But am I in a place where all of those reference points are starting to fail me? Yes again. The reference points of good and bad have become limitations to love. We “other” each other, ourselves, our behaviors. We lock the “bad” up in prisons and remove them from the world. We lack care. I lack care.

There are two articles I want to write, and I’m not sure where this one will end up. Perhaps it’s neither. Or more likely, it's a strange interwoven web of the two—and so much more. That phrase keeps ringing true: so much more. We’ve become so reductionistic. I know, I keep ranting about binaries—but it’s real. We label our behaviors as good or bad, worthy or unworthy. Then we punish and discipline the bad parts, trying to mold them into the good. Fundamentally blocking, negating, and ignoring these parts of ourselves.

Some of us—maybe in certain incarnations—have the strength or, better yet, the privilege to become “good,” to fit into society’s roles, to hold it all together in this crumbling world. But those who don’t have that privilege are deemed bad and cast out to fend for themselves.

I’m making the commitment not to label behaviors as bad, but to seek to understand them. Because if I truly understand them—and from a Buddhist perspective, that means understanding across lifetimes—I won’t see them as bad. I’ll see them as what they are: responses to an unkind world. Coping mechanisms for difficulty. Ignorance of the nature of the way things are. But those poisons, as they’re called in Buddhism, are not bad. They’re not wrong. They’re not reasons for punishment. They are not definitions of our character. They are not permanent identities we’re stained with. They are passing circumstances—circumstances that, for reasons far beyond our comprehension, have landed us here.

So then what? What do we do with that? Nothing? Do we just let murderers get away with murder? Is that what you’re saying, Nathan? Maybe this is naïve. Maybe it’s delusional. Maybe I should just go to sleep. But I’m still writing—because I’ve seen something I need to share.

I’ve seen that what heals is not punishment, discipline, shame, or guilt—not the things we’ve been taught to feel for our sins. I’ve seen what heals. And maybe, since it’s Easter, I’ll say this: perhaps what restored Jesus was love. Love heals. Love heals all wounds. Love reverses all karma. Love calms down even the most rabid, out-of-control, scary behaviors that exist in all of us. Love, acceptance, care—that is what we need more of.

For too long, I tried to fix myself. For too long, I tried to fix others. Tried to weed out the parts of myself—or someone else—that I didn’t like. I’ve criticized and conformed, belittled and berated my imperfections. For too long, I’ve stood by and watched as we mindlessly labeled each other as good or bad, worthy or unworthy. I can’t participate in that kind of unkindness anymore.

I will love you and your patterns. I will seek to understand, not to judge. Because behind every pattern, behind every behavior, is a scared little boy, girl, or they/them who just wants to be loved. So it’s time they receive that love. I will give it to them. I will no longer participate in the stingy, love-starved game of only loving someone if they are “good” or “worthy.”

You are worthy of love now. Despite any rhyme or reason, you are worthy of love now. I refuse to see your patterns as bad. I refuse to see our shadows as bad. I refuse to see any human being as someone who needs to be fixed. You do not need to be fixed. You need to be understood. You need to be loved.

Please hear me. If you’re like me—if you’ve had a hard time accepting yourself, if you’ve grown up in the Judeo-Christian hangover of guilt and shame, if you’ve been led to believe that life is a black-and-white binary and you exist on one side or the other—I’m here to tell you: that is absolute garbage. It’s produced a sick society. A love-starved society. A society that doesn’t recognize Truth. That has been cut off from the Great Mother. That worships capitalism and believes unconditionality is a myth. That creates work slaves instead of whole people.

Be the love that stays—for yourself, or for someone in your life who is struggling. Who is hurting. Who doesn’t need to be fixed, but just needs someone to stay and love them in it, through it, with all the shit. You’re not enabling. You’re reminding them—and yourself—that it’s okay. That they are okay. And that there’s nothing you or they could ever do that would make them unlovable.

Be the love that stays. The love that stays through the “toxicity.” The “childishness.” The “reactivity.” Be the love that rebels against the new-age harm. The love that transcends all that bullshit. The love that reaches into the deepest, darkest places and—rather than labeling them as bad or making them wrong—gives them the understanding and validation they need to finally let the stories go.

To let things go, we must understand.
Love lets things go.
Love heals everything.

Im so excited to share with you the launch of my first in-person class in Los Angeles!

Temple Dance, 4/28/25 7-8:30 PM at The London Hotel, West Hollywood

Step into a charged atmosphere—dark, electric, and sacred—where the beat is holy, sweat is prayer, and your body becomes the altar. Led by Sah & Nathan, this revolutionary ritual fuses movement, breath, and ceremony to break the spell of apathy and awaken your raw, unfiltered power.

Every move is a spell. Every beat, a rebirth. This is dance as devotion. This is where your myth begins again.

Spots are limited—register here: TEMPLE DANCE