Tea with Linda - LOYALTY

Tea with Linda - LOYALTY

Linda Kavelin Popov, Co-Founder of TVP, March 2024.

Our very identity is revealed in our loyalties. To what ideals, dreams and relationships are we loyal? Are we aware that one of the most important loyalties is to oneself? There is a profound teachable moment in discerning whether a person, idea or habit is worthy of our loyalty, which must be balanced by truthfulness and wisdom. Some individuals, out of misplaced loyalty, repeat the abuse cycle continually, remaining in abusive relationships, unable to set boundaries around justice because their own worthiness was so fragile. They feel compelled to “hang in there” no matter what. We need to understand the crucial role of balancing virtues - one foot in one virtue, the other in a balancing virtue, in order to stand on our own holy ground.

Many of my friends, now in their seventies and eighties, have been married for decades. Elderhood brings a multitude of changes, including the loss of strengths we used to be able to count on. Simple tasks are no longer within our range of strength. Memory often fails. We can’t hear each other like we used to. An aging marriage requires an abundance of tolerance, kindness, patience, and fortitude as roles change, and one who was taken care of is now the caregiver, as physical abilities wane and there is a new vulnerability and need for help from others. What keeps us content in this changing relationship is loyalty. It is a decision, like any other virtue. It calls on us to minimize resistance and irritation, knowing our days on this earth are few. When we look back on these last years, what do we want to see? Fussy spats and criticisms or flexibility, resilience, acceptance, and tenderness? It matters. It is a turning point in our spiritual life. With loyalty as our guiding star, we can accept the things we cannot change with surrender and grace.

Calling on the Five Strategies as a tool for discernment, stepping back to view one’s life through that holistic lens, is a practice to be undertaken whenever unease stirs within us that something is off, that it’s time to set a fresh course.

Above all, we need to be loyal to the truth, including honoring our own spirit, our own worth. As life brings waves of change, we need to reassess our strength and growth virtues, seek to receive our lessons deeply, reset our boundaries based on justice, and companion ourselves as we do others. What is loyalty calling us to change? It is never too late to choose our most important loyalties, including the invitation to ride radical trust into a new adventure, even within an aging relationship.

One loyalty I’d like to celebrate is that of the Facilitator Bulletin Team (Andrea Stanberg (Editor), Kathleen Woodward, Shawn Watson, Donna Wheatcroft and Shandelle Evasiuk) for this beautiful and unifying newsletter. Countless hours of dedicated service, excellence and creativity have been generously given to this valued publication. Thank you, Bulletin team, for your steadfast loyalty connecting all of us in our global virtues network.