Musings on Love...

Love is patient...love is kind...it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...but rejoices with the truth!

(1 Corinthians 13:1)

I thought it would be fitting to write about the most powerful energy in the universe since we are in the one month of the year it is commercially ' promoted '/celebrated! I read this quote online that says 'Love & happiness are the most conscious choices most of us have to make throughout our lives." Isn't this so true? In the weeks since my last post, I've become very much aware of the importance of using this 'love energy' in creating more joyful results.

Love is Patient...

I think patience is a virtue that we can all personally improve on. I've come to understand that adding the compassion ingredient into most situations automatically result in more patience, more kindness, less anxiety and more peaceful outcomes. Compassion is Love...it's empathy, understanding, care, warmth, mercy, tenderness, fellow feeling, concern...It encompasses everything we should all bring into every life experience. I know this is not easy to do all the time, but I truly believe that if we are intentional about practicing this, life for everyone on the planet would be lighter, brighter and free.

Patience & Kids

Patience with kids is often quite a hair pulling, vein busting exercise in resilience and determination :) I have to say, I am not always successful in this very important pursuit. Two boys at their ages (8 & 10) are very often (ALWAYS) loud, fighting (physically & vocally), building very large forts (utilizing every inch of the sofa, i.e. entire living room, making giant mud pies that are often tracked into the house, literally scaling the fence outside or bouncing off the walls inside OR sometimes could be found very quietly and sneakily overstaying their tablet screen times!

Having grown up in a household with the female presence outnumbering the male, the intense and loud dynamics of my male dominated home can be overwhelming at times but is something I appreciate and love!

Impeccable Words...

I believe so strongly that our words matter! One of my favorite books is 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz. I am pretty sure I will take a deep dive into the gold that is this book in a future post...but for now I want to highlight the importance of the first agreement, which is to 'Be Impeccable with your Word!' According to Don Miguel, words are 'tools of magic'. And just like a double edged sword, your words can create the most beautiful life or can destroy everything around you...he also describes the human mind like a fertile field where seeds are continually planted...and of course...words are those seeds!

Words & Kids

These words give us power...power to express, to communicate, to think and to create life itself. We have the power to choose what words we use...what words we communicate to ourselves and what words we use to communicate with others. The right words used to communicate with other adults in our lives, help to shape and build relationships. Words chosen to communicate to children literally shape the rest of their lives! Words shape children's lives!! This is so scarily real, so absolutely true...it places such an 'Awesome' (as in extremely impressive or DAUNTING) responsibility on parents/guardians/teachers. We are responsible for shaping their little minds...shaping the belief systems they will carry with them through life!

Dr. Bruce Lipton, a brilliant developmental biologist and best-selling author, teaches that what you learn from birth to around seven years old becomes our programmed belief system of which 95% we express for the rest of our life! These beliefs are formed from direct and indirect childhood experiences....and guess what, most of these experiences involve those little 'tools of magic' called words! He says that 70% of these downloaded perceptions/beliefs we end up with are 'disempowering and self-sabotaging'.

This 'fertile field' that Don Miguel talks about very accurately describes the mind of a child...between the ages of birth to 7 or 12 (I've read studies with both ages cited), kids are not able to reject any belief/idea/thought that comes into their minds...they can only accept...we have often heard that babies' brains are like sponges...they soak up everything around them...this is great for the development of a child, since they can grow and learn very quickly...the downside to their powerful receptors, however, is their automatic acceptance of the negative, unloving seeds that are sometimes unintentionally planted :(

Love is Kind

Any good parent worries about their effectiveness as parents...their ability to rear these little offspring to be resilient, confident, loving, joyful humans. It's the most important job in the world...(just that little statement spikes my heart rate!) I know that life can get crazy...stress at work, stress at home, never ending list of things to get done...but what I have learnt is that if we pause for a second and intentionally bring love into our communication...it WILL make the world of difference!

They broke something very sentimental, they tracked mud onto the sofa, they threw a tantrum in public, they did the one thing you've told them 50 times already not to do, they hit their brother, they lied, they got into a fight at school... OR they bravely danced on stage, they studied all on their own, they made you a card just because, they tried to wash the dishes, they tidied their room without you asking - whatever your child does - respond to it from a place of LOVE...of compassion, understanding, PATIENCE...because the next words that leave your mouth will implant into their little fertile minds and live there for literally the rest of their lives (or until they can develop the awareness that they can choose what they believe...what they think - I am just now coming to this awareness because of the learning environment I am lucky to be immersed in...for a lot of people, this awareness never happens :()

A child's future, who grows up believing that they are stupid and will never amount to anything, looks very different than the one who grows up believing that they have the potential within themselves to become whatever they want.

Love Words for Yourself Too

Bringing this love energy into my interactions with others is something I try hard to be intentional about...bringing this energy into experiences with Myself however is way more challenging! I am on a self-discovery and self-healing mission. A major ingredient in this mission's success is to Love Myself...to be kind and compassionate with my wins and downfalls along the way. Forgiving myself for the rollercoasters...for the last twenty years of not 'truly living' has been instrumental in my ability to keep moving forward in a more positive mindset. I feel like I have made great strides forward, and the couple times I have regressed, it hasn't been a plummet to the depths of the ocean floor, but a quick dive just under the surface. This is progress and I believe there is hope for me yet...soon I will be free...to fly leaps above the surface in the cloudless blue sky...

Don't wait until February next year to think about that thing called love! Live in and through its incredible energy every day of this life...

The brilliant 'Joker' dropped this powerful line on the world a couple weeks ago...a quote from his brother...Let it sink in...

Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow...

Pave your path with LOVE...