“Grief…never ends…but it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith…It is the price of love”
I saw this quote the other day on Facebook and shared it with some people who I know are battling with grief because of the loss of someone they love so dearly. One friend replied saying that her theory about love was now proven – it sucked to love! She’s a cynic but deep down I know she loves just as much as the rest of us want to.
Interestingly, last year I spent a lot of time exploring the emotion “love” especially as I kept getting messages, both physically, spiritually and mentally, that I needed to explore this emotion more and discover what it really means for me.
Love is a HUGE emotion – it’s everything as far as I am concerned. However, we tend to take it for granted and we also tend to forget the most important thing about love, that is loving ourselves. Which brings me to another point – it seems so selfish to love ourselves but if we take the ego aspect out of it, all we are doing is honouring our SELF by being true to our SELF. The big bonus of loving our SELF is that we are then able to truly love others with no manipulation, shame, guilt, anger, resentment, judgement. This is what I call pure LOVE.
I have always had faith in love. However, before embarking on my spiritual journey, I understood love as being something that comes from the external world in the way of kisses, hugs, romantic Valentine Days (agonising as they were!) and being told everyday “I love you” by whoever was my partner at the time. In one way, love is this but one of my biggest lessons was starting to realise that all the love I needed was already inside of me, at my Source. This was a big eye-opener for me and by no means have I managed to capture that essence called LOVE completely but I think I am beginning to understand it a little more every day.
So, how did I go about exploring this emotion on a deeper level? Meditation is always my first port of call when I want to explore something deeper and many of my evenings were focused on asking for guidance as I took on this journey. I also surrounded myself with the colour green, got myself a beautiful malachite stone which I use to meditate with when I want to focus specifically on LOVE. I go to my heart chakra and imagine all this glorious green whirling around inside of me, expanding across my body, spreading all the love it could.
I read Louise Hay’s beautiful book “You Can Heal Your Life” and every now and then would practice looking in my eyes in the mirror (this is one of the hardest things to do by the way!) and tell my reflection that “I love you”.
I watch people that I admire and who seem to be able to portray love by simply by being themselves. I watch them and attempt to adopt traits they possess which show how loving and compassionate they are. I constantly say “I love you, I love you” in my mind when I am confronted with a difficult person. I also make sure I tell myself the same when I find myself feeling insecure, threatened or ashamed.
I share my love through my life coaching and spiritual teachings. It’s important to every person I meet and work with to know that they are unique and special in every way. I surround myself with people who are so free with their love, in a healthy and compassionate way. By basking in their rays of love, I feel safe to love back. I try to emphasise with others by putting myself in their shoes. I also create healthy boundaries for myself by not letting destructive people into my life.
I surround myself with beautiful things (and people who have such huge, beautiful souls). This one is a "biggie" for me - just sitting with my German Shepherd, who is LOVE in itself, I feel his love so deeply which stirs all the love that sits within my being and soul.
For me, LOVE in a nutshell, is compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, harmony, connection, trust, faith, - it’s all encompassing, it is what it is.
Guess what? It’s February, the month of love so how about starting a journey with yourself and start exploring what LOVE means for you. And, for those of you who are still learning to love yourselves – give it a go, it is worth it. After all, this crazy thing called love is LIFE.