Life is for Loving

[Kelly Isola]

I was watching TV the other evening and found myself bombarded with an overload of sappy commercials, from romantic getaways to Match.com to weight loss gimmicks to look better for your "lover." I think they were all designed to put the person watching in the mood of romance and love. All the hoopla of these kinds of ads naturally leads my thinking to greeting cards, presents, flowers, love poems and romantic dinners. Because these are the things that are REALLY love and romance, aren’t they? That’s what Hallmark says anyway. Well frankly, as someone navigating the waters of romance singly for some time now, perhaps I have become a little jaded, but I must confess that I wonder if these tokens are objects of love instead of the activity of loving.

We are conditioned to view life through an exterior lens, meaning “it’s out there somewhere.” We think that whatever we seek is outside of ourselves. Many of us believe we came into this world with little. We grew up, went to schools and universities and moved out into the world to get filled by education, money, relationships and of course love. That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? We seek people out to love us, particularly that “special someone.” For years I had been brainwashed by greeting cards, romantic movies and books and eventually came to believe that love would come naturally. I erroneously believed that if I found the right person to love or the right person to love me my life would be complete.

And yet we know that love is not out there. On an innate level we know that within each of us is that desire to be love, to express the Infinite Power of love that flows through us. We know that love is not a commodity, a thing to be bartered, borrowed, given or taken away, but rather it is that process that moves through us in our attitudes, our words and our actions.

So today I invite you into the activity of loving. I intend to “fall in love” with loving. I am renewing my commitment to this. I do this by taking the principles of divine love, rolling up my sleeves and creating a laboratory of loving. I learned to walk by walking, I learned to write by writing, and I have learned to love by loving. I practice being vulnerable, seeing with the eyes of God, accepting you as you are, telling the truth about myself, expressing forgiveness between us and by being “in love” with everyone.

In the words of Eric Butterworth, “God has work for me to do that no one else can do but me. I am in love with God, and God is in love with me. In this oneness of love, I let His process flow through me, guiding me, directing me, fulfilling me, prospering me.”

No matter how many times I may look to the outer world for love, or how far I may stray from the principles of loving, everyday I need to just get on with the business of life, because life is for loving.

Blessings, and know that as you read this I have fallen in love with you!

[Dale Worley]

I LOVE the Eric Butterworth quote: "I am in love with God, and God is in love with me". I AM in love with God, and I am in love with God in each person that I meet. Getting to do retreat work a lot, it is an awesome experience to be part of a room full of people learning to fall in love with each other. It's in the everyday activities that I tend to fall out of love tho! When my ego starts driving, instead of my Christ, then I'm sunk. But when I am able to stay in the present moment, and see each and every person I meet as if I am seeing them for the first time, without any 'story' attached, then every encounter can be like a sip of spiritual wine and I am drunk on the power of Love!

Thanks for the post, Kelly.

IN LOVE
dale

[Kelly Isola]

MWA! right back atchya babe!

[Claudell County]

Kelly, I really reasonate with what you wrote. I'd like to share from my experience. When i first decided to learn "love," I became an immediate magnet for anything I had previously judged in my subconscious, "unlovable." For a while I was puzzled with the results, but then I began to look for a different way to "be" love. I learned to pray for the other and project love from my heart to theirs - like the Care Bear's beam of light. The hardest thing to do was to keep away from my psychological analysis and my natural desire to protect myself. When I "sent" my higher self, on the beam of light, to speak with the higher self of the other person and to open a space for love, circumstances changed - over and over. It just happened yesterday. Pretty cool. It takes intention, courage, and the willingness to be humble. Thanks for your article.

[Jon Kidwell]

Kelly,
What wonderful insights. Falling in love with onesself might sound foreign to some people. But, Jesus commands us to 'love our neighbor AS ourself', He didn't say MORE than OURSELVES. I red the other day, and I don't know where, that EGO stands for (Edging Out God). And when you think about it, we generally hear two voices inside our heads.... one is the still small voice of God and the other is the loud, self-serving, and oftentimes obnoxious voice of EGO.

Thank you.

Peace,
Jon

[Mary Boren]

Great discussion -- thanks for starting it, Kelly. Wise words, all.

"Many of us believe we come into this world with little." We came knowing everything we would need, but promptly forgot it, didn't we? And the people bombarding the airwaves with those messages of fear have also forgotten. Love is simply a matter of remembering.

EGO = Edging God Out
Ooh, that's a keeper, Jon.

Mary

[David Sapp]

This is a great discussion, thanks to all. Unconditional love can be very difficult to achieve but I believe it is what we are called to do.
Blessings in the Light,
David

[Hopeful]

Hi Kelly and All!

Kelly, this is an important topic, for sure! You have done a great job in writing on this, too! : )

We all know of people living in committed relationships, yet feeling very unloved and very lonely!
Maybe some of us are experiencing this now, or have been there in the past. I'd see this as much more lonely than living alone, or being single! It is my hope that people in unloving relationships can find a way to restore these relationships into fully alive, breathing, loving exchanges, in a healthy manner.

Yet, so many times, a loveless marriage or union is based upon each individual's lack of self-love.

We are all "programmed" from an early age with all of these false definitions of "love" of all types.
Friends, lovers and even strangers all have expectations of, "If you really loved me, you would______." If you'd cared you would have________. That "blank" is filled in with so many different things!: )

Many times, we are being asked to collude with someone's own self-destructive tendencies when one finishes that sentence. Sometimes we are being asked to support all types of fallacies about love, in all types of relationships in our lives!

I fully understand how much more easily we can arrive at a place of "unconditional love" when there is no "story" attached, as is mentioned above!

In working with healing teams and prayer teams, we have often had this discussion with other team members. It is so easy for us to devote time and energy toward healing requests/any requests when we do not know the person's entire "story!" Not all stories would present a stumblingblock to reaching out and to helping/supporting others. Yet, there are some "behind the scenes" stories that might cause us to hesitate, for various reasons. We all have biases, although we may try very hard to not allow our biases to interfere with out intent/efforts to offer unconditional love.

Kelly, oh yes... the media is so full of these messages about love that often have little to do with truly being loving. Not to mention the ridiculous societal "stigma" often associated with being "single!": )
There is nothing wrong with being single! It is much more healthy and sane than being trapped in a lovelss (or a destructive) committed relationship!: )

If we listen...we may often hear ouselves, as well as hearing others, offering up statements to others like, "I did not mean to hurt you!" I really did not mean to hurt him/her. Yet, did I consciously mean to truly love him/her? Instead of focusing on what we did not mean to do, we would enjoy a greater quality of relationship, with self and with others, if we can clearly state our positive intent regarding each relationship... long before we are entering into discussions of regret concerning what we did not mean to do!

There is very real, deep, extremely powerful healing... for everyone... on all levels, when we all are fully committed to consciously loving one another! This power to heal, offered by deep, conscious, unconditional love, cannot be matched in healing power by any other healing attempt.

I have seen many given all kinds of medicine; yet, denied this kind of love in their lives. They do not thrive! Real love is essential to truly thriving in life!

Feeling that depth of love, offering that depth of love, receiving/allowing that depth of love... it is all vitally important! : ) All sentient beings need to deeply "feel the love!" : )

I know, for me, this takes a daily conscious commitment on my part.
I am grateful to Kelly for reminding me of my need, and my deep desire, to keep this intent on a very conscious level, consciously renewing my commitment to this intent moment-by-moment! ; )

With Warm, Hopeful Love,
~j~

[Lisa Hinshaw]

To All Here,

My heart feels like it is getting bigger ...and about to burst! I haven't had a chance to look around a whole lot here but whenever I read your posts, it feels so natural, so me, so like what 'home' feels like; I imagine. Reading here is like relaxing into myself. I think maybe that the constant frown/scowl on my face might be going away and maybe I have a chance to not get so many wrinkles! XXXXXXXXXX's
Love, Lisa