Permission to love

I’ll never forget the first time I realized I could memorize a feeling. I was standing in front of Braco at a live event. As many of you who have read these newsletters know, Braco is a man from Croatia with an immense gift of standing purely and silently in Divine Presence. You look in his eyes and people all over the world have been resonated into spaces where they experience miraculous healing of body, mind, and emotions. In the worst case, your vibe rises, and better things flow into your life. At best, you may have such a shift that it changes you entirely. I’ve had both. He does regular livestreams now for free at https://braco-tv.me, with no registration required. You just go, find a time, quiet your mind, and watch.

Anyway, back to the story. I had quite a profound experience the first time I went. At the time, he was visiting the US frequently, and I got so hooked on the experience of merging into the Oneness that I flew to different cities just to spend time in this energy, and I watched every livestream I possibly could. It shifted me into greater spaces of love than ever before. Once, after one gaze, in which I went so silent and expanded so thoroughly into bliss, I sat there and quietly memorized the feeling. I focused on it, held onto it, and recalled it often. I remembered it so thoroughly I could call it up when I tripped in the woods, and the heat flowed through my body and healed me before any bruises set it. I remembered it so thoroughly that when I surrendered to gaze at others for a while, I could easily tune into that silent love.

I had never thought about memorizing feelings before, but when you think about it, we do it all the time. We can easily call up the painful past and remember every single unpleasant feeling associated with it! We can, sadly, remember our anger when we recall an upsetting incident. Why not learn to remember our love and our joy?

When I lost my beloved soulmate dog over ten years ago, I cried, even though he was right there in spirit. What healed me was making a photo album of all our happy, funny, ridiculous memories and looking at the good times often, consciously conjuring up and appreciating the joy we’d shared in our eternal journey. Same for my grandma, who waved at me on the altar at her funeral! I had been weeping and missing her, and there she was, happy as can be! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I focused on all the laughs we had shared. Miraculously, the grief left, and the humor took its place. Of course, it is a thousand times harder when you lose a spouse or child or someone you’re so close to unexpectedly dies. Nonetheless, with practice, we can recall the good times as easily as the pain. We just have more practice, as a society remembering pain.

Now, I practice reinforcing feelings of love as often as I can. I just spent four days in the loving presence of a living saint a few weeks ago, and in her energy, the loving emanations felt like the angels. I came home and challenged myself to find that feeling on my own. Today, for the first time in ages, I indulged in a long meditation, and time flew by so quickly that an hour passed before I realized it was time to get going. In the silence, recalling feelings of love, I didn’t want to move 🙂

The good news is that we can find love in so many ways. It poured on Easter morning, so I put on my raincoat and walked in the rain. A week prior, I had attended a discussion on healing the water shortage, and my take on it, of course, was that there’s no shortage of water on the planet, just a shortage of vibrational alignment with it flowing where it is needed. There are brilliant minds that can figure out the distribution and cleaning of it. Focusing on solutions will bring the rain and these technologies into consciousness, whereas focusing on the problem petrifies us in the vibration of the problem.

And so I loved the idea of rain. I sat and thought about the deliciousness of a gentle soaking rain, the lovely soothing sound of it, the parched desert soaking up its healing waters, and the joy of the rivulets and streams running once again. I imagined the aliveness of the plants, the greening of the desert, and the slight chill in the air, as well as the smell of rain. Then it rained. I was not alone in my desire for rain. So many have been praying. We could all do this regularly and end droughts if we wished.

We could imagine the glorious mountains at the headwaters of our planet’s rivers covered with majestic blinding snow, melting and refilling rivers and reservoirs. We could focus on the brilliant young people and the incredible scientists and engineers who have already solved so many of the world’s challenges. With our love, we could call the solutions into being, and we, too, would benefit from our love. I stayed up till 4am last night because I was catching up on the computer, and the sounds of the rain coupled with the coziness of a good pair of socks and a cup of tea was so delightful I forgot to go to bed until morning.

Whatever you focus on with real unconditional love will multiply in your life. I love my lemon tree so much she supplies whole families for the year. My kale plant, now three feet tall, just gave me another fridge-full of greens. My parsley supplied me with enough to make a HUGE heaping salad of tabboleh which is a Middle Eastern parsley salad with lemon juice and olive oil (great for the liver that loves bitter greens, and great for your skin too) and a batch of sweet potatoes that sprouted in the pantry last year were so loved in the soil, once planted that they gave me two whole cookie trays full of sweet potatoes.

I have a family member who has teetered near the edge of life these past few years but who loves life so much that they’re receiving guidance and slowly healing. I’ve seen clients who love their passion so much it turned into booming businesses. I’ve seen people who love spirit so much they turned into channels.

One of the most valuable bits of advice I ever received, interestingly enough, was at a Catholic retreat in my young twenties where it was impressed upon us that “love is not just a feeling, but rather a decision.”Over the years, I’ve reaped the rewards of that wisdom a thousandfold. Life doesn’t always hand us things that feel like love. It often takes effort to return to that feeling, to wrestle our minds away from a challenge and towards something we can love. It is doable. It is worthwhile.

I know that loving a stone or the grass beneath your feet when you have a health challenge, a bill, a death, or a breakup seems so insignificant. Nonetheless, it gives us a moment of plugging back into all that we seek. For in truth, everything we want boils down to just one thing. We want to feel love. We went to be loving. We want to be who we truly are. The good news is that we don’t have to wait for life to be perfect or even easy to tap into love. We can start now, at this moment, and then slowly but surely practice the feeling until it becomes easier and easier to find.

Here are a few ways to plug into love so it becomes easier and easier to connect with it, even when life is hard.

1.  Start with something easy to love

We all have people or things around us that are easy to love. I might be a dear friend, a child, a pet, your favorite chair, your favorite food, your favorite blanket, or your favorite place. Pick something that is easy to love and give yourself a few minutes to think about it. In your mind or in a journal, list all the things you love about that person, place, thing, or situation. Imagine being with it, being satisfied by it, feeling good. See if you can love it even more and find even more ways to feel good.

For example, I loved the Mediterranean dinner I had with friends last weekend at a celebration. The flavors of the kebabs were out of this world. The roasted tomatoes were soft and exploded with flavor. The charred onions and peppers had just enough bite to be flavorful without being too pungent. The sweet rice layered with saffron and dried cherries melted in our mouths. And the delight of friends and laughter created treasured memories that will last a lifetime. I hardly ever go out to eat and don’t see my friends often, so the moments were all the more memorable. It was something easy to love for me. So are my socks, and my tea, and my garden, and all of you. And yes, there are tough things going on, but they don’t deprive me of the ability to focus on what I love. Love feels good. Love lifts you above life’s problems. Love gives you solutions, grace, and synchronicities. Love feels like home.

Give yourself permission regularly to tune into the things, people, situations, or memories that are easy to love. Luxuriate in feelings of love, and while you’re doing it, see if you can sit with the feeling and recall it later. This is a wonderful practice that has huge rewards.

2. Go beyond the “Yeah buts”

When you’re down, make lists of things you can feel good about. Small stuff. Anything you can recall that you’ve ever enjoyed. Your mind will start in with the “yeah buts,” and that is normal, but persevere anyway,

“Yeah, I loved those things in the past but now is hard.” “Yeah, I like chocolate and good movies, but that’s irrelevant when I have big pain.” “Yeah, I like my dog, but my boyfriend/girlfriend left me.” “Yeah, buts” kill the joy that is there for the taking. Make your lists of things to love anyway. Focus on things you love anyway. Give yourself permission to feel small stolen moments of love and goodness even when the tough stuff is happening in life. At worst case you’ll feel a moment of relief. At best, you’ll gain momentum toward a better-feeling life.

3. Practice feeling love for no reason

This is a game I play often after the angels introduced it to me years ago. Focus on anything and pretend it is the love of your life. Seek to it with terms of endearment. Sing its praises. Imagine being so in love with it. It feels silly at first, but when you get going, you’ll feel loving and good and silly and happy.

For example, If I chose my coffee mug, I would say to it, “You are so beautiful! I love the image on the front and the smooth feeling of your sturdy handle in my hand. I love your stability as you sit on my table and hold my delicious tea. I love the surprise of the yellow inside of you as I sip. What a lovely color! I love thinking about the artist who created the design and the designer who created your shape. I love thinking about the souls who carefully packed and sent you to me. I love how smooth you feel as I sip…”

I just did that for a fun demonstration, and right now, I’m falling in love with my teacup and life.

We are practicing our tuning with these exercises. We give ourselves permission to tune into the love that is our essential nature. While we seek love in the big things, we can also find it along the way in the smaller things.

As insignificant as an item or moment may be, if it helps us find the flow and vibration of love, it aides us in tapping into the vibration that causes creation. We align with the Source within. And even in loving those small simple things in life, we feel good, find the good now, and attract more later.