The Journey 2008 Newsletters Archive

This year's theme is self-love

January 2008, What Is Love?

Self-love is a very important topic to me. I've spent most of my life looking for love, as I believe most people do. As with all children I started looking for it in the eyes of others, which is the look of approval or pride that someone takes in you, usually a parent. In my teenage years I looked for it in boys and that was about those three little words - "I love you". As I got older I looked for it from men; I still wanted to hear those words but thought if I paid close attention I may feel it in their touch. I never found it.

Then something magical happened in my late thirties. A notion hit me - maybe I had spent so much time looking for it without, or outside myself, that I had gone without. That's when I started looking within and inside myself I found more love than I had ever imagined.

I started to recognize what I was feeling in regards to myself and others. I felt many things from other people such as joy, hope, excitement and anxiety to name just a few emotions. I felt these things more intensely when I was consciously being loving to another. From here sprang an inner knowing that resonated deeply with me - love isn't an emotion; it's a choice.

In time I learned that the feelings that we tend to consider as love are a mixture of other emotions that each have their own name, such as the joy, anxiety, excitement and hope that I named earlier. These emotional combinations are so powerful because they come in such intoxicating combinations. It's no wonder that it's so easy to become addicted to love.

I started questioning the choices I made in life. Was I making loving choices towards myself? Was I making loving choices towards others? What do I do when it appears that my choice is between being loving to myself or someone else I care about? The questions were endless and I realized that all these choices could only be made in the moment. There was no thinking about them and I would have to have faith that I could handle these decisions as they would come up.

The greatest realization I had was that I made more choices per day than I had ever thought. Every single thing I did each day was a choice and so were my thoughts. Actually it's not my thoughts that were choices it was what I did with my thoughts that was a choice. Every little thing boiled down to a decision of love or not.

I discovered that in order to make the most loving choices I had to look at trusting my instincts, empowering myself, having faith in myself and The Universe, letting go of outcomes and perfectionism, forgiveness, personal responsibility and how I relate to and perceive the world around me. These are some of the topics I'll be writing about through 2008 as I share my journey and what I've learned on this never ending and ever growing process of self-love.

It's the trip of a lifetime with more twists, turns and excitement than any rollercoaster you've ever been on. It is also the most worthwhile journey any soul can endeavor. Actually it's a large part of why we as souls are here! I hope you'll continue to join me.



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