The concept of Love

I facilitate a regular online meditation sessions and recently we commenced a new series “Nurturing Relationships”.

These sessions for me are a wonderful opportunity to reflect on my own experiences, to share what is helping me live a beautiful life and pay forward the empowering teachings of the One World Academy

From my own personal journey and my experience as a One World Academy instructor I have come to see that the practice of awareness is key to the experience of love, compassion and connection. From a place of awareness love emerges and grows and this has certainly been my experience.

When we are aware of ourselves, our thoughts and responses we are able to take responsibility for our state of being in the world, we can choose the contribution we make to our relationships and to our world, we can choose how we want to experience life. This for me is an empowering and beautiful practice, one that has helped me reconnect to love in my close relationships.

Taking responsibility for our inner state of being is one of the most important things we can do to nurture love in our relationships.

Bringing Awareness to Your Concept of Love

What does love mean to you? This is a big question……..but one worth taking some time to reflect upon.

Is love something you want to cultivate in your life?

Is there an absence of love in your life? How long do you feel love has been absent?

Does your idea, your concept of love match your experience of life and relationships?

Have you ever questioned your concept of love?

Being aware of our concept of love helps us to see new possibilities for growth, joy and connection in relationships

The experience of love is one of spaciousness, it is an expansive creative state, it connects, it includes – is this your experience of love? Or perhaps love has felt constrictive, conditional, exclusive, desperate or just not there?

For many of us love has become a concept, a concept based on our past experiences, on our expectations, on our need for validation, on our need to be at peace with ourselves. Love has become an ideal, associated with expectations rather than a lived experience.

We love the idea of love, we idealise love, we make it the goal, the final destination in relationships, we define it and put in a box, we feel it and we expect it to remain the same. When we don’t feel it we fret, we make the other wrong, we doubt the relationship, at times we feel desperate. We want the other to meet our needs or be a certain way. We make conditions; we set traps and want the other to make up for our own insecurities.

Is it really possible for love to be experienced or to grow in such situations?

For me it has been valuable to also ask the question is my experience of love dependent on a situation or how the other behaves or measures up to my expectations? I would have never said that I love conditionally…..…..until I started practicing awareness that is, and I saw for myself, just how conditional love had become for me, that at times I would give it as a reward, other times I would take it away as a punishment. Initially this was hard for me to see about myself, but the more I practiced the more I saw that only in awareness could I see new possibilities in my relationships.

Perhaps you can to relate to this?

The Absence of Love

I posed the question before is there an absence of love in your life? Is it true – is love really absent?

What is really happening when we think that love is absent?

The answer to this emerges when we ask ourselves what makes the difference between the experience of love and the absence of love?

Just yesterday I had cause to reflect on this. I was returning to a place I love, with people I love…..but I was not feeling the same experience of love, I was not awestruck by peace and beauty. I chose to observe myself and I saw that I was embroiled in so many thoughts, I was feeling overwhelmed and conflicted. Seeing this I knew I had a choice to stay stuck in my thoughts on a runaway train going somewhere else or to acknowledge the thoughts but pay attention and stay present where I was. Then voila! the same beauty and peace were there, the feeling of my heart softening and opening was there, it was there all the time…..it was only me that had moved away from it……

This idea was a profound awakening for me at my first Freedom in Living retreat at the One World Academy – I had gone to this retreat wanting to find a way to reconnect to my husband and children, I was feeling disconnected and disillusioned. Over the course of the week it was like a slow but steady stream of pennies dropping, seeing how much love I was surrounded by, how much I had to be grateful for, how many problems there weren’t and I’ll never forget my children’s voices and faces appearing in one of the meditations telling me so clearly – “the love was always there Mummy, you were the one that went away, we want you to come back“.

Is it perhaps possible to see that love is always here – that its just that often we don’t pay attention to it, that often we don’t feel it because we have moved away from it when we become embroiled in our thoughts, that we don’t recognise it because we are clinging onto our concept of love?

Do you recognise and connect to the love that is all around you, here and NOW?

Love and connection just like happiness are internal experiences they have little to do with external situations, they are nurtured in awareness and this is absolutely an ongoing process, not a final destination we reach.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to bring awareness to your concept of love, to grow in awareness and understanding of yourself, so that you can take responsibility for what you bring to your relationships and contribute to our world.

Please share your experiences with us in the comments as we learn and grow together.

May the light of awareness shine in our lives and allow us to see the love that is all around us, here and NOW.

Namaste,

Bianca

P.S. If you are ready to embrace yourself and nurture your relationships with awareness please consider joining us for the Nurturing Relationships online series

The gift of nothing

Recently I found a delightful and thought provoking children’s book at the library, it was entitled “The Gift of Nothing” by Patrick McDonnell.

It was particularly apt given that we are moving into the festive season – a season here in Australia that seems to be characterised by rushing, shopping, buying, rushing, shopping, and did I mention buying? It is a season I struggle with from that perspective. For me the festive season is an opportunity to reconnect with family and friends whom we often don’t see regularly throughout the year, it is a time of extra holidays and it’s a time of interesting weather patterns.

The “Gift of Nothing” poses the question – what do you buy someone who has everything? The answer is simple, you give them nothing!

What to buy someone who has everything is a common question many of us have asked (the reality is most of us have everything but often don’t realise it). But how many of us are comfortable with the idea of a gift of “nothing”.

People often say there is nothing on TV, there is nothing to do, there is nothing to buy when we are surrounded by so many somethings. So what does it mean to give nothing? Where do you find nothing? In the book we are led to the reminder that if you calm the mind, if you look within instead of seeking elsewhere it is there you will find nothing…..and everything.

Nothing really? You might ask. “But I have to give something” – what if it’s a birthday? what if it’s Christmas? what if the person doesn’t feel loved if I give them nothing? what if they don’t like me anymore because I have given nothing? what will my children think, they will be so disappointed? And these are all questions worth pondering.

Often it comes back to our expectations and the expectations that we create for others. The experience of disappointment occurs when expectations are not met. Perhaps we can create new reference points around the idea of giving.

What does it mean to give to another? Do we give out of a sense of obligation? Do we give just because it’s that time of the year again? Do we buy for the sake of buying because that’s what’s expected? Can we give without buying, and without disappointing?

I challenge you to see that a gift of no thing may perhaps be everything. What difference would it make to your festive season if your focus was on connection, sharing joy and happiness, cultivating peace and calm instead of deliberating over what gift to buy for who, spending a lot of money on poor quality products that have huge social and environmental impacts and spending hour upon hour in crowded impersonal shopping malls?

I know that many people enjoy these experiences, I know that many people find ethical local businesses to support when buying gifts. But the question I keep coming back to is do we need more stuff in the world? Do we need to show our love and care for others by buying a gift? Are we trying to fill a void for them or perhaps for ourselves?

In Australia conscious consumers are being inspired by the No Waste Festive season – a campaign to reduce consumption and waste. The Story of Stuff Project is also being instrumental in encouraging people to see beyond the mass consumption that is associated with the Christmas, New Year festive season. I encourage you to look at these great initiatives but the real purpose of this article is to help you to see the true gift you can give to another when you give no thing.

Here are some of my favourite ways to give the gift of no thing:

Kind words – gratitude is a great gift that we can give, it not only touches the heart of another but it opens our own heart and eyes to the richness of life.

A hand to hold – think of how beautiful, how reassuring it is to have someone hold your hand.

The gift of nurturing touch – sharing a hand, foot, head or shoulder massage is an ideal way to communicate love, acceptance and care to others.

A smile and a willingness to listen without judgement – for many this gift is just what they need.

The gift of time shared in a world where most people are “short on time” ……a willingness to slow down, to stop even and give your full attention to another is a priceless gift. Assist with a project, read to another, share a meal – the options are endless

Sitting together with another or many others in silence, pondering this beautiful gift of life and this amazing planet that sustains us and knowing that we are each complete in that moment, perfect as we are, appreciating nothing and everything together.

And perhaps the greatest gift you can give is your calm and peaceful presence, your happiness and joy. When you bring attention to your interactions with others and the world around you you see a myriad of choices and you realise that a beautiful world really does begin with you.

So give the gift of no thing this festive season – pay attention to the people you are with, express your gratitude to those near and far, feel the connection between you as you hold hands or embrace another – and trust me you will be giving everything.

And what about the story, how did it end? “The Gift of Nothing” finishes with an empty box being opened, “there’s nothing here” says Earl……”Yes” says Mooch, “Nothing……… but you and me” and together they sat and enjoyed nothing and everything together…..

What do you think? Can you see the potential in giving the gift of nothing?