Have you ever thought about what it means to Be Love?  If you were to Be Love right now, in this moment, what would you notice? What would come into your awareness?

- A sense of intimacy and closeness with everything within and all around you
- A feeling of unity, of oneness, with all parts of yourself and the world that appears in your view
- A recognition that looks out into the world and says “I am that” to everything seen and unseen
- A kind of openness, a transparency with everything and everyone in your life
- A bubbling up of energy in your Heart Center
- A sense of being at-one with the whole Universe, an expansiveness

These are just a few points. To Be Love goes so far beyond how you show up to the people in your life – it includes everything else. It includes all the forms that Consciousness takes on in the waking world.

“In the world of duality, everything is a relationship. In the world of oneness, everything is love.” -Sri Ram Kaa

Be intimately present with everything – see every moment as the greatest love you’ve ever had and let yourself just belong to whatever moment you find yourself in. NOW is the greatest thing that has ever happened! NOW is the greatest Love that has ever come into your experience.

“Reality has nothing to do with appearances, with your narrow way of seeing. Reality is love expressed, pure perfect love, unbrushed by space and time.” -Richard Bach

If you could see that Love was the sole Reality permeating everything and everyone in your sight, what would you experience in this moment? What could you experience in this moment?

Be Here Now.
Be Love Now.

www.infinite-life.com
twitter.com/kidestinlove

The notion of fighting for True Love and the whole idea of “life getting in the way of true love” seem like one of our limiting beliefs to me. To my eyes, it’s only the belief that you have to fight for love or that love is a struggle or that it is chaotic, that creates the sense and experience of it being that very way. What if we started thinking and believing that life unconditionally supports our endless experience of true love? What if our mantra became “today and every day life wants me to experience my true love”? What if we started residing in a state of mind that said “this moment is my true love made manifest”? What if we created a reality that demonstrated that life and true love are one and the same thing? What if we dropped the belief that made life an antagonist of love? How could life ever get in the way of the only thing that it is?

Life is love. Life is true love. Life itself, the whole of it, is the only true and lasting love there is. Life never interferes with Love, only our own limiting beliefs that say such things and distort Love do. Where did we come up with all these beliefs? This whole expanse of creativity we call “living” is only Love manifesting itself. How does Love interfere with itself? Love is really all there ever is, whether we see it and receive it, or completely misinterpret it with our endless stream of limiting stories.

The more I unfold the more it seems to me like every single moment wants to show me one thing, and one thing only – that Love is all there is, that every single detail in this moment is Love, and that I am completely One with all of it. Every single thing I see and don’t see, every single person that appears and doesn’t appear in my reality is True Love and is a fully integrated aspect of myself!

The instant I unify myself with whoever or whatever, when I recognize that everything and everyone is an aspect of myself and is in essence my own true love, my mind has zero complaints to generate about anything that arises in my world. My mind stops fighting with the world and embraces and unifies itself into oneness. When I’m holding this view, nothing feels like a struggle. Nothing feels like effort, work, or a fight. It ALL flows to me and through me in amazing ways. No resistance. Just effortless flow. When I slip into the thought that says “all of this is my true love,” even if I don’t understand what it’s trying to tell me, then the world before me transforms into an experience of that. If I look at a situation or a person and think “this is a cooperating aspect of my own being, this itself is my true love”, every single moment, even the one’s where the moment appears to defy my version of how things “ought” to be or what I had planned for them to be, turns out to be an immense blessing orchestrated by That Love that has a broader view of everything that is me and my life.

Life and true love in my eyes are completely one and the same. There is no competition between the two. Life never interferes with True Love. It can’t! Only our made-up limiting stories do! So let’s drop them! Let’s drop the stories, the beliefs and practiced thoughts that say that there are things that can interfere with True Love! Let’s make love effortless. Let’s make love graceful. Lets reveal love to be fluid, endless, and easy to live in and as. Let’s make true love be all that there is in every moment of our lives. Let’s!

Be in love with the whole of life. Celebrate that you’re here now in this creativity called living. Celebrate each moment and each being of love that comes into your sight. Celebrate each manifestation and know that it’s only there to reveal to you the stories you’ve created and are holding on to. Let not a single appearance make you think that life is against or interfering with the flow of love in your life. Life unconditionally supports you and your experience of immense love. Beliefs that say otherwise, such thoughts that imply that you have to struggle to experience love, that there are things working against you, only create the experience to validate your beliefs. Your beliefs are powerful. Your practiced thoughts are powerful. Choose to see that this moment and every detail that it holds IS love – true and unconditional love. Choose to keep Love as your lens at all times.

When we resolve to see that True Love is all there is right now as every detail of this moment, oh the magic that overtakes the heart, the eyes, the soul of everything we are.

www.infinite-life.com
twitter.com/kidestinlove

Is your love of power undermining the power of your love?

I heard a lecture this weekend by author Diana Butler Bass who is a scholar specializing in American religion and culture.  She talked about how the Christian church has often been so caught up in the love of power that it forgot about the power of love.  Whether is was the crusades in the 12th century or current concerns about the religious right or creeping secularism, a militant response seeks to gain power and control over others.  The power of love to change the world and transform lives is lost in the process.

I couldn’t help but think about power dynamics in relationships.  Many times, especially early in marriage we struggle for power and control.  Not that it is always intentional or conscious; rather it springs from our internal sensitivities.  We have ingrained ideas about how things are supposed to work in relationships and feel defensive when our partner challenges those ideas.  We find ourselves fighting over things like how we handle money or every day issues like who cleans the litter box.  The issues themselves often are trivial but they are connected to strong feelings and deeper agendas.  Our responses are often militant in that we insist on our own way at the expense of the other’s sense of well being.

Breaking power struggles is possible, even easy, when we shift focus from the love of power to the power of love.  In love we can learn to honor our self and our partner by speaking the truth about what we are really thinking and feeling.  For example, “it’s important to me that we save more money because I’m afraid that if we don’t we’ll end up struggling in retirement just like my parents did”.  This at least puts real information on the table and opens the door to talking about each person’s hopes, dreams, fears, and way of thinking.  Love does not insist on its own way but seeks to find solutions that work for the best of all, which cannot happen if you make it about who has power

When you find yourself in the grips of a power struggle consider these questions:

•    What am I really feeling right now?
•    Why is this issue so important to me?
•    Why is it so important to my partner?
•    In the big picture, what’s really important?
•    What do I need to learn from this situation?
•    How can I make this about love rather than power?

After all that you may be tired so go ahead and take a power nap.  You deserve it!

Get instant access to the map that shows you how to get from where you are to where you want to be in your marriage. Complimentary video at  Dynamic Marriage Map

10 ways to give

1. Give a sincere compliment – to someone who challenges you

2. Offer a hug to a friend

3. Smile at a stranger

4. Really listen

5. Respond compassionately

6. Offer to help

7. Accept someone as they are

8. Surprise someone with a thoughtful gift for no reason

9. Make someone laugh

10. Send a thank you note

10 ways to receive

1. Play with a pet

2. Walk barefoot in nature

3. Accept a compliment

4. Ask for help

5. Take time out to relax

6. Enjoy a meal made from fresh, locally grown organic ingredients

7. Say no when you’re tired

8. Try doing something differently

9. Go for what you want

10. Forgive your imperfections and mistakes

©2010 Lauralyn Harter

www.heavenhealingarts.com

Many loving, caring people find themselves drawn to a person who needs love desperately but is so scared of love that they engage in a push/pull situation that wreaks havoc on the mind, and heart. One minute, the person shares how much they admire and want you (pulling you toward them), and the next they are pulling away, physically or emotionally (pushing you away). When you decide you’ve had enough and pull away, they come back with a hook that pulls you back in.

When something doesn’t feel good in a relationship, it may be a sign of toxicity. And if left ignored, that toxicity can eat away at you, weakening your vitality and distracting you from moving forward and getting what you really want. No mind games can be played when you know where the heart stands.

What I’ve seen in my own life and in my healing practice: a major reason for toxicity in a relationship is when people don’t communicate from the heart. This leads to not being honest with yourself, or the ability to be honest with someone else. It also opens the door for defenses like denial to shut out love. People communicate from ego defenses all of the time. When words don’t come from a compassionate heart, there will be mind games because that’s how the mind works. It’s like a circus in there. We play games with ourselves. The mind can create confusion and illusions. It pulls files from the past and throws them into the present, often unconsciously. When people say hurtful, insensitive things, it isn’t coming from their heart. It’s coming from a fearful mind that has experienced pain and now is scared to death to trust again. When people have difficulty committing, they have been hurt by someone who either promised to love them (a partner) or was expected to love them (a parent). They allowed themselves to believe, to trust, and to be vulnerable at some point. They gave love straight from the heart. And they paid a painful price for it, as their mind registered it. So the logical conclusion, according to the mind, is to be very wary, very skeptical, very distrusting and above all guard the heart to avoid that pain at all costs.

The irony is the more sensitive the person, the more love they have to give, but when a sensitive person gets badly hurt, they may withdraw and protect their heart to the extent that they will appear to have nothing to give. This is because the wall they constructed to block love from coming in and going out is depleting their reserves. If they do give, it may be robotic, not coming from the heart but from the mind that says, this is customary to receive the response I want from this person. Often, hurt people will manipulate in relationships, not even realizing they’re doing it. They often try to get what they want, love and acceptance, in a roundabout, complicated way.

If you’ve been hurt, use that experience to understand yourself. Figure out how to learn and grow and create the kind of relationship you want. If you don’t extract the wisdom from the situation, you may remain in a pattern of isolation, never feeling you truly connect to anyone. Or if you are so lucky to ever connect with someone you feel gets you, finding a reason to cut it off when it gets too uncomfortably intimate for you. If in a relationship with a hurt person, often their reasons to not get closer seem silly or random. They may also turn critical and lose interest once they discover you are human, and you have imperfections. They are so afraid that if their own flaws are discovered they will be painfully rejected or humiliated – unlovable.

If you have ever given love and felt it didn’t give back to you, don’t hold onto it. All you do by holding on to it is allow that person/situation to continue to cut you off from experiencing love. Don’t give anyone that power. Love is the greatest source of power there is, you can create miracles with your love. Know that giving love is never wasted. Giving love is a charitable act. If you expect to get something back in return every time you give love, then you are giving with conditions. No one feels good when given love like that.

I’m not recommending you go out and give love freely and then feel all burnt out and resentful because you’re not receiving anything in return. There must be a balance. So think of it this way: you will have relationships where there will be a beautiful exchange of love, and others where you have served as a healer, giving to someone in need of unconditional love. Feel good about giving, you get what love is all about. Discover the gift you’ve received from the situation. Everyone gives us an opportunity to learn and heal a part of ourselves, what gift have you received? How can you use it to better yourself, and be a better person to others? Love always gives back, just not always in the way we may want or expect. But it always gives us opportunity.

©2010 Lauralyn Harter

www.heavenhealingarts.com

You can meditate, be a yogi, experience what it means to feel love from within and yet still feel sad or lonely when not in a relationship. Why is this? Does it mean our spiritual core isn’t strong enough? Do we not love ourselves enough to be completely satisfied just living on self-love alone?

I’ve been exploring this experience and realize the thing about love is you want to share it. In fact, the more you love yourself and realize just how liberating that feeling is, the more you want to experience this kind of healthy love with another human being. Sure, you can give love in a hug, a handshake, even through a kind smile. You can radiate and beam like a love microwave everywhere you go, sending rays to friends, family and at work. But it’s within the little microcosm of intimate relationships where love tests the depths of your capacity to give freely, and where the sharing of this powerful healing emotion can lift you up to new heights.

The traditional marriage requires a “witness” of the vows. Why do we need this? Would a couple’s love for one another not be believed or validated without being watched? Or is it just symbolic for the fact that we all want a witness to see our ability to love and our worthiness to be loved? Do we want a witness – whether a friend at the alter or a significant other – to see just how special our love is? Do we all need to be reminded that love is real, not just a fairy tale, and do we feel it’s only real when it’s witnessed by a fellow human being? Maybe sometimes we can’t even fathom the depths of our own love, and having a witness helps us process it, helps us feel less scared or alone when experiencing those deeper, revealing layers of who we really are, and how we really feel.

Maybe we do need a witness to remind us all how magical and powerful love is.

Or maybe we just all want to be seen. We want to share our experience with another soul, and ground that love with a promise ring, a house or family. We want to be able to plant the seeds of love and watch them grow into more opportunities to experience, share and celebrate love.

Maybe those of us who want this “love garden” feel, with all the beauty and healing of our self-love, that without a partner to share in the experience we’re left with seeds in our hands without soil to plant them.

So what does the self-lover do while waiting for that moment in time when their path crosses their significant other? Keep nurturing, and growing, your own garden. Self-love is a process, not a goal. Loving your imperfections, accepting your limitations, changing what you can and want to, and cultivating mind/body awareness should keep you pretty busy, not just while you’re single, but for the rest of your life. So you mind’s well use the extra time to yourself to enjoy and learn, it will give you even more love reserves to share with your future honey.

©2010 Lauralyn Harter

www.heavenhealingarts.com