Ah love, sweet love. We love falling in it, but how do we live in it?
Love is what matters to us most deeply. We all want to love and to be loved. We yearn to connect to one another. We want to make love, give love, and receive love. And when we feel its absence, all else seems kind of flat.
Love means acceptance, which means integration, and so living in love implies that nothing can be broken because it thrives in full connection and the present moment.
Love is the feeling of the divine presence within us. Love is agape, pure heart love, a steady intention for another’s highest good; love is a choice based on what we do and howwe do it, birthed out of selflessness and kindness.
How we know that we are moving into alignment to that love, is that we begin to feel emotions within that love spectrum; we begin to feel tenderness, joy, warmth, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, compassion and a peaceful feeling waves over and within us opening our heart wider than ever. And we feel more connected to another and our self.
When we fall out of alignment, we feel disconnected, and it is disconnection that is the root of all problems in our world, individually and collectively. When we feel disconnected from our self, we can’t really love nor connect to another. Often times, a person may even think they have fallen out of love with their partner, but it is only because they feel disconnected from their self that they feel that way, and they just need some meaningful alone time to reconnect to themselves.
On a collective level, when many people are disconnected from self, society will reflect little-to-no empathy, which may end up manifesting as harmful and bullying behaviours. How the collective feels on an inner level is a reflection of society. When society supports and protects the kind, compassionate and vulnerable people, society will advance. When society abuses and mistreats the kind, compassionate and vulnerable people, society will fall and humanity will begin to perish.
When we are disconnected from our true self, we fail to recognize the divinity in ourselves – and also, the divinity in another person. This means: we will be hurting people without any sense of awareness or feeling, because this disconnection leads us to being more emotionally numb and separated from our soul’s truth and heart’s integrity. Disconnection from self also leads to inability to live authentically; and so people will also attack those who are true to themselves because this triggers their false sense of living.
Our connection to humanness and our ability to connect are also deteriorating and/or being destroyed. Hate campaigns, projections, fear mongering, bullying, societal pressures, distractions such as electronics and social media, financial worries and the multi-level consistent exposure to stress, draw our our energy and attention away from living in love.
People have also forgotten how to speak and share authentically with another. And how can we love anything when we don’t truly see it nor connect to it? Anything in life is special only if we spend more time with it, like the rose in The Little Prince and our childhood toy. We need to slow down and connect, consciously and intentionally. As Ernest Hemingway once said, “You may talk. And I may listen. And miracles might happen.”It’s beautiful to explore and re-explore someone. Like art. Like the mysticism that we are, unveiling our layers one by one, negating the boundaries of mind and skin.
We live in a virtual reality robbed of real touch and true connections; everything moves fast and even vulnerability has been commodified. And we’ve been given a great power in our hands, called the phone. It is so smart that within a second people can ghost someone they’ve been talking to for months, they can delete and erase and block, they can pause or ignore until they are slightly interested once again, they can talk selfishly without looking into someone’s eyes nor considering how their words and actions affect another, they can hurt people without seeing their tears, they can share without meaning and on and on and on. This leads to a stable state of ambiguity which creates more separation. It also leads to uncertainty, anxiety, fears, paralyzing self-doubt, unworthiness issues, and overall unhappiness. Ghosting, icing, breadcrumping and all other sociopathic behaviours that modern society has adopted as “normal” are actually the manifestations of the decline of empathy in our world; they are the promotion of one’s own selfishness disregarding the consequences on another person. With digital communication, there is the forgetfulness that a human being is on the other end of the message and we fail to see how our words and actions affect them. This also means no boundaries, no limits and no personal accountability. We also live in a world that is very linear and material, and highly intensified of mind energy. The heart is what balances the mind, and so it is important to live from our heart.
When we go into our heart and we start living in love, we begin to generate such high loving energy that nothing will be able to sway us away. When we begin to act out of love, we begin uniting soul, heart and body; we begin to saturate our entire system completely into higher energy and we create loving emotions. As we learn to hold them and stay within them, creating a larger vessel of love each time, we begin to omit and generate love outward.
When we allow feelings of love we are building the core energy of our spirit and life force. This conscious building of energy becomes our conduit for deeper wisdom and understanding. When we hold love in its various expressions such as gratitude, kindness, joy, acceptance, appreciation, harmony, tenderness, compassion, empathy, trust and peace – we are essentially holding light which is transformational, and even transmutational. We can build this sacred space within us where we can contain love, which is done through self love.
Living in love is a consciousness of the high heart, which is the heart energy in a higher octave; it connects us to Divine love, truth, compassion and forgiveness. The high heart, like the sacred heart, holds within it everything unconditionally; it is the embodiment of heaven on earth; it is both of human flesh and divinity, forever burning passionately for, of, and with love; it may have bled, it may have cried, it may have suffered, it may have sweat, and it embraced all weaknesses and frailty while continuing to beat with love; it is the containment of oneness; it is the evidence that no matter how many thorns were in it, no matter how much it bled, it continued to beat behind the breasts and to shine brighter than ever – it is ever lasting, because love is ever lasting. Then, now, always.
When the high heart is activated, the entire energy body changes and our consciousness changes. This is why I also spend so much time talking and teaching about developing the heart energy on my website through the Art of Love because this is the key for our future, and our present times; this is what uplifts the human experience and causes society to advance. Through the high heart we begin to speak and understand the inner language of love; of emotion, intuition, harmony, beauty, tenderness, compassion, forgiveness, openness, and all expressions and different movements of love, which become embodied through actions rather than just flowing in the skies. We have to be able to not only fall in love, which is a sweet emotion indeed, but we also need to be able to build love, contain love, and omit love.
When we create a vessel of pure emotion in our body, and we connect to love, and we live in love, we then begin to align to and connect to higher consciousness. When we embody love, our connection to heart lives, our connection to spirit lives, and our soul is strengthened.
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To live in love, we need to lean into love and this starts from within. Self-love can look differently through each expression of our body of consciousness, though ultimately it is about self-acceptance, self-compassion, feeling and honouring our feelings, and integration of self.
Caring and loving for ourselves spiritually is more introspective and it is about settling into the core of who we truly are. It feels like trusting in our deep knowing and the cycles of the land despite not seeing clearly. It feels like being connected to our deeper wisdom within especially when we find ourselves lost in the dark wood or the in-between spaces. It is about seeing our life in a multi-dimensional capacity and strengthening our faith in higher spirit, learning to fall into the arms of trust and faith. Meditation is a great way to care for our spiritual body.
Physical self care and love may look like a walk in nature, eating healthily, sleeping well, beautifying our physical space, being grateful for our body no matter what it looks like, and learning to listen to our body. It is about seeing our body as an extension of our soul. It is also about our space and about setting clear boundaries with people, whether physically, emotionally or energetically.
Mental self care and love is about our voice. It is when we feel we are living authentically and we are in our truth regardless of what others think or say, and how many people will leave our lives because we decided to speak out and stay true to ourselves. It is about our dreams and hopes, and self-love is when we go after them and take action towards realizing them no matter how small the steps may be. It is about transforming negative self talk and nurturing a healthy internal dialogue, embracing our creativity.
Emotional self care and love is when we can trust our intuition, nurture our emotions, feel into our feelings, build our self-respect and self-acceptance, and are settled into a relationship of peace within – rather than being swayed by the external world. It is also about honouring our desires and sensual self, and being more creative, joyful and embodied.
Self-love is ultimately about self-acceptance, just likelove is about acceptance. The ability to experience love always always starts from within. Because we need to have the capacity within us to hold and allow another the safe space where they can be their true self; and from that shared space, we’ll conect more deeply and truly.
On a very basic level, when we integrate ourselves and come into our wholeness, we will also have more compassion towards ourselves, so self-love will look like: “Today I messed up but it’s okay, I realize that. Today I feel like crap but that’s okay. I am not where I wanted to be in life but that’s okay. My project failed but that’s okay.” Also, self-love is about recognizing our authenticity and recognizing when we haven’t been authentic that day but instead of being harsh, self-critical or ashamed, just recognizing it and trying to do better tomorrow.
One of the key elements when it comes to having sacred relationships is nurturing, which is about how we lean into love. When we know how to nurture ourselves and others in a way that is healthy and from a soul-led intent, we start to trust our own abilities and intuition, and we release all fears and trapped emotions that bind us. Then, we begin to recover our divine essence – and when we live from our divine essence, life becomes more vibrant, more alive and more emotionally fulfilling.
All matter and energy vibrates at the highest frequency available, so the best we can do is just stay true to ourselves and naturally everything else around us will begin to shift accordingly. In this way, we will also influence those around us too; this is why when we take care of our wellbeing, we inevitably influence the wellbeing of those around us. Stay in your highest vibration with your minds, emotions, beliefs and actions.
When we build the capacity for more love within us, we allow more love and more life to flow through us and express itself through us. This means that anything that stops us from loving more, will be stripped away from our life. This also means that any time someone or something is limiting our channel of that unconditional love, and is no longer good for us, we will be able to recognize it, and move away more easily with grace. Because when we remember and allow ourselves to be the expression of life that we already are, then we channel love through ourselves and we allow love to guide us and to show us what situations we’d want to keep, nourish and sustain, and what situations are turning off our heart, and we’d need to exit them.
This then becomes a higher form of existential experience – because we allow consciousness to move freely through us and because our decisions no longer depend on what someone tells us, but only on what we know to be true in our heart.
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We live in love through …
… words. We share our voice, we share who we are, we open up. We are mindful of the words we use because words carry vibration. We are mindful of not crossing a boundary through judgment, criticism and unasked opinion. We speak with love and kindness. We lead intentional dialogues. We listen to another, deeply and openly, so that we can understand them; and if we don’t understand something, we ask rather than make assumptions because we all have our own different ways of expressions and words carry worlds within them. We keep our promises so that our words are not merely words but they carry depth, weight and meaning. We connect to one another through our vulnerability, expressed through our honesty, respect and openness. We say I love you, Thank you, I appreciate you. And no matter how many times we’ve said I love you to someone dear to us, we say it again and again because it matters. Say love always despite the love.
… touch. Our tenderness is meant to be shared with those we love; a gentle touch, a tight hug, a long kiss, a supportive hand, a massage to release their burdens, can mean the world of love. Touch is healing, touch is nurturing, touch is how we connect.
… presence and attention. We show up. We give them our attention and our full presence, emotionally, mentally and physically. We see behind their smiling eyes that they might be worried. We are dedicated to re-exploring, re-learning and re-discovering our partner. We give them what they need rather than what we want or think they need. We accept them as who they are rather than wanting to fix or change them. Holding the safe space for someone to be their true self is the best gift of love we can give.
… a smile. These twinkles in our eyes are what connect us, always. A smile warms our hearts and can make a big difference to our day and mood.
… honouring. We honour someone by publicly saying how important they are to us, and how much we treasure them and appreciate them. We honour a person with special gifts, flowers, a cooked dinner, a position, or a role.
… respect and trust. Love is founded on trust and respect. Trust is the ability to rely on someone who will act in our best interest; and we ourselves must be trustworthy and respect those who have trusted us. We show respect by protecting people’s true self expression, privacy and integrity, and we show our trustworthiness by consistency and empathy. Trust takes time to build, is easily broken and almost impossible to ever fully repair.
… encouragement and support. We all need to feel supported. Where there is something we can do, no matter how small we think it is, we must do it. It can be a compliment, words of enouragement, leaving likes and reviews, and saying what we like about someone’s work. We might think such small gestures wouldn’t matter – but I assure you, support and encouragement always matter.
… acknowledgment and recognition. We may acknowledge a person by greeting them, by asking how they feel, and by saying “good morning” and “good night”. We may acknowledge them by recognizing their abilities, creativity, talent, beauty, and achievements. This witnessing changes their reality and empowers them; it makes them feel seen, appreciated and encourages their creative self-expression, which is one of the best love gifts we can give someone. This witnessing also changes our reality because of what we’ve chosen to focus on and appreciate in another; we awaken the love within us when we recognize the beauty and love in another. The observer influences the observed, and also him/herself – this is why it is absolutely crucial to surround ourselves with people who truly support us, encourage us and see the best in us. We show love by witnessing, recognizing and acknowledging people’s brightest being-ness, which in turn unveils more of who we are and we grow into more love.
… dance. Turn on the music and dance. Dancing can’t happen in a contracted body posture and as such, it opens a new channel, a new experience, a new energy which cannot be accessed otherwise; we are both completely free and completely in our body. There is simultaneously surrender, freedom and embodiment which connects us deeper to our true self: love. This is how the energy of great lovers connects and deeply bonds. And through our various creative expressions, whether it is dance, music, playing or singing, whichever you are comfortable with, we also show our love to another. Love moves and so we too move showing a different expression of our love and our openness and willingness to connect to another. Connect to your joy, in whatever shape or form, because love carries the vibration of pure joy and through joy we expand and connect more deeply with one another.
… service. With our acts of service and kindness, no matter how big or small, no matter in what shape or form, we feel purposeful and we feel more love. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary; little acts carry big weights. You never know if a simple “you inspire me” was what a person needed to hear that day to feel better. Making tea, cleaning the house, ironing their shirts, tidying up the house, are all ways to connect and show love to one another. And when our intention and work are based on contribution, our entire energy field rises and we develop spiritually also.
Too shy?
Sometimes we are too shy to connect, love, smile, to greet or express our feelings. Expressing ourselves can be scary because it requires vulnerability and there’s always the risk of rejection or not being returned the same gestures. But vulnerability and opening our heart are the only ways to love; they are the first steps required if we want to open the doors of love. And other times we just need some space and that’s okay.
What we must remember though is that we should never ignore people – this is the opposite of love. And when it is done purposefully with the intention to hurt someone – this is a form of emotional abuse.
In the Marine Corps – one of the basic health and wellbeing education training teaches all people to always smile and nod when passing by someone, as ways to prevent suicide and depression. This is because feeling ignored and unseen is incredibly disburbing psychologically and emotionally. It is also why parents should never be emotionally neglectful nor give the silent treatment to children because these create trauma in the child’s psyche, carried over into adulthood.
In some traditions, the greatest gifts of love such as acknowledgment, recognition and appreciation are expressed through songs sung or played for another, so to celebrate their beautiful presence in our life. Sometimes we can just write a beautiful postcard, letter or a text message, or send a song, to express our feelings or show that we are thinking about someone. Such gentle gestures, even if they seem small, can mean the world to someone.
Living in love is like living life like a prayer.
Prayer is a hug or a meal cooked. Prayer is helping someone where we can and asking them “how are you”. Prayer is when we encourage someone or say “good night”. Prayer is a natural state of being, when we are fully present for someone, when we give someone our time and energy, even if all we did was listen to them. It is a vibration, a feeling, a thought, a voice of love and an expression of our silent being. While we pray all the time, it is often unintentional because we are not aware of it.
Prayer is about the present moment. Prayer is sense of openness, surrender, trust and acceptance. Prayer is like love.
So to live life like a prayer means: to live intentionally, to live in love, being fully present. What if we are consciously and intentionally grateful for every person and everything continuously, daily? What if we dedicate ourselves to lovingness, compassion and mercy? This allows us to be more receptive to all the beauty that life already is, as it unfolds before our eyes.
We are all lovers. We are all mystics exploring the layers of our existence and one another. There is always something or someone that we hold precious, that we call our beloved, that is no less than a miracle, and may we show them how much they mean to us.
So love consciously. Love tenderly and love openly. Open your arms and then hug tightly. Love kindly and love passionately. Love gently until you can love with broader caress. Love with devotion. Let your self love. Love self. Love others. And when we love others, we will inevitably love our self also; and when we connect to others, we will inevitably feel more connected to our heart.
With love and peace,
Lubomira
For more of my writings, browse through my Art of Love.
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Cover art by Claude Monet, 1875, via Wikimedia Commons.
