Hello

Love is a profoundly powerful experience.  Really loving or feeling loved opens a person’s heart to forgiveness, and also to unending strength.  Sometimes that strength is the strength to let go with love.

Feeling loved has the qualities of acceptance and feeling seen.  Really loving has the qualities of seeing with acceptance and understanding.

Most people spend their lives looking for love and or acceptance.  The best way to feel love is to love another.

A book by Eric Fromm called The Art of Loving, is one of my guiding sources for how to love as well as the book The Road Less Travelled by Scott Peck.   These books provide a view of love that is an offering for a paradigm shift from the traditional concepts of loving and seeing.  It’s about how to see the other, to experience and offer love more fully with acceptance and compassion.

The opportunity to really love is present in every relationship.

It is a way of being and interacting in the world.  This is the shift in paradigm.  It is a choice of how to respond in the moment toward both positive as well as negative interactions with others.

When I get triggered by another’s negative interaction with me I feel anger or sadness or some other drop in energy.  If I respond from that angry place I find that a wall or boundary is created that interferes with conflict resolution.  If I come from that reactive paradigm then I am not open to how to resolve the conflict.  I am in an argument or defending position of my position.  This only creates a defensive reaction from the other person which leads to a standstill – no resolution.

If I choose to respond with a connecting energy then I begin to feel my energy rise and fill me positively.  That is a function of love.  It allows for the space to be expanded so that both paradigms can be evaluated and a place of understanding and acceptance can be created – this then allows for an opportunity to experience a paradigm shift and connection between and among individuals.

Here I am not talking about romantic love, but rather Universal Source love; that which is required to overcome deep and powerful wounds, or habit reaction patterns, or historical injuries.

What I am referring to as Universal love is spiritual in nature, the love described in Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist traditions.  It is a position of being in the world; a style of lovingkindness which incorporates forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion as basic components of being or interaction.

The Buddhist tradition talks about a concept of Right relationship, or Right action – not right as in right versus wrong but right as in correct – a correctness in balance of spirit, mind and body, in sync with the situation, the environment, and within one’s being. 

Opening to love in a way that is consistent with right relationship allows for evaluation from a neutral compassionate, accepting place so that the BEST aspects of all involved are incorporated into the relationship and solution, view.

Ways to know that you are in sync, or not in sync, include an inner scan of your emotional and physical sensations.  Increasing your awareness of your own inner senses helps to give you information about how you are responding or reacting in the world or in a given situation. 

Notice if you have a drop in energy, a negative attitude, a loss of hope or a feeling of fear/anger – these indicate you are reacting and not coming from an understanding compassionate perspective.  Often in these situations you will notice that you are breathing shallowly or holding your breath. 

If you notice a feeling of warmth or heightened sense of understanding, an attitude of gratitude, feeling a smile on the inside of your being then you are open to a compassionate, lovingkindness perspective.

Focusing on your breath, breathing in, and breathing out and bringing your attention to your breath can allow for you to get into balance so that you can be open to love, compassion and be able to view the situation from a more balanced perspective.

Love opens our hearts, and breath opens our space for love. 

See you tomorrow.

Beth