LOVE

"Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment or unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts. Love is the essential existential fact. It is our ultimate reality and our purpose on Earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us."

- from A Return To Love by Marianne Willliamson

Love for yourself or others is an absence of fear and a surrender to what is. Many of us live in fear. The fear of losing, dying, failing, or hurting. We think "what will happen if?" We scare ourselves into the closet and never realize our true potential because we refuse to step into the light. In the light is where we will find the truth that lies beneath the lies. It is where we will find the key that unlocks the doors to our greatest potential.

Many of us continue to live in this state of perpetual fear because the pain is too great. The weight of our burdens and pain keep us paralyzed....unwilling to move forward. The thought of stepping into a territory that we are unfamiliar with seems daunting and unsure.

We would rather clench onto the thoughts of our past than move into a place of freedom.Why? Maybe because although it's painful it's a feeling we know all too well. The frustration, anger, resentment, chaos and drama is something that we have grown to accept as our life. We have even gone as far as to believe that it is who we are. It is what we were destined to be.

What a lie that is. It is something we have learned to be true because it has been our reality for so long. The grief and pain has been what has filled our minds day in and day out. We don't know how to live without it. Just one feeling of joy triggers a feeling of awkwardness. "What is this?" "Will it last?" "Is something bad going to happen?" "This can't last very long."

I remember being in a place of constant fear and worry. I worried over everything in my life. I was always wondering when the next tragedy was going to take place. I would wake up in the middle of the night just to make sure my daughter was still breathing. I remember being so afraid that I would lose her that I didn't want to let her go. Literally! I would lay in bed and place my hand on her heart just to make sure she was still alive. It was a horrible feeling of panic that took over me and didn't let me live.

The very essence of who I was was trapped beneath layers and layers of lies. I believed that my life would always be tragic. I allowed the things I went through in my life to steal my joy. I let the pain keep me trapped behind the bars of fear and uncertainty.

Crazy how I could love and worship God but yet I didn't trust Him. Maybe it was because many of the people I had loved and worshiped (idolized, esteemed) before left me and hurt me. I based my whole life on the actions of others. I established my relationship with God amongst those same principle. I thought "God is just going to hurt me to teach me something". "If I do something wrong He is going to punish me". I had a tarnished perception of God. I had a tarnished perception about life and myself as well. I let the circumstances in my life define me.

As A Return to Love states so beautifully "Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned...". Learning to detach ourselves from the labels that life has given us helps us heal from the pain and step into our true being. I feel that we have placed meaning to the things in our lives. We have allowed them to have a voice. We have allowed them to control us. We have allowed them to define us by what we perceived them to be. We have became victims and lost our power to them. We have given them meaning yet lost our own meaning within us.

The only truth and meaning that matters is that LOVE exists and is the very essence of who we are. The things you go through don't take away from who or what you are. They don't limit you. We are afraid when we feel threatened by life. We forget who we are and we think that what we go through has power over us. We think it can take away from who we are because we don't understand our true worth.

As we begin to awaken to the truth beneath the lies we will begin to move away from the darkness and into God's marvelous light. Every deception and fear will be illuminated by God's truth and undying love for you. You will begin to see yourself as you truly are and embrace whatever life has for you. You will understand that the pain only came to reveal the truth. It only came to point you in the direction of endless joy and possibilities. The pain was just a catalyst to help you step out of fear and into love.