Love
Love can take many forms and we can find love in almost anything. It's not hard to get yourself to do something you love. We'll make major sacrifices for those we love.
The form in how love shows us may look different than we think... but that doesn't mean it isn't there.
Because peace, love, and joy are omnipresent, it's up to us to recognize them in every moment.
Our capacity to receive love is only limited by our ability to give love. Our capacity to receive money is only limited by our capacity to give value. Ask yourself how you can add more value to a relationship and love will be returned in all of it's various forms.
Success in work comes to those who love what they do. And we can all love what we do if we put love into our work.
Choose Love
The essence of selfless love? I choose Love.
Helping others is a way to show love, just make sure you're not doing it for praise.
If helping leaves you feeling upset because no one noticed, then it's your ego driving you, not love.
True love doesn't have hidden motives, it just wants to do good.
Surprisingly, being selfless can be a good thing for yourself too. It brings peace, happiness, and connects you with the divine. But remember, you can't always serve others all the time.
When you see the rose, let it remind you that your purpose to love and be loved. Love everything - yourself and everyone else. Let love lift you up when you're feeling down. And don't forget to enjoy life's simple pleasures. Don't be scared of heartbreak.
Serving others is love in action, as long as it is not tainted by the ego's desire for recognition. If your service leaves you feeling unappreciated and resentful, then ego, not love, is your motivating force.
Love has no ulterior motives, and no agenda other than to do God's work.
Paradoxically, acting selflessly is ultimately a selfish path. It is a gateway to peace, fulfillment, and attunement with the divine current. Devoting every moment to serving others is neither advisable nor possible.
Each day, draw a card. There are lessons in each. Today I drew 'Rose' which is a reminder to love. Love all of life. All of it. Yourself, everyone else. To plug into the life giving force of love - love will lift you up when you are down. It is also a reminder to stop and smell the roses. Don't let life pass you by. Don't be afraid of getting your heart broken.
Unconditional Love
Always enough and never a problem. That's how I define unconditional love.
Maybe I’ve spent too much time seeking acceptance from those I love. In many ways, I think it has dictated most of everything I've ever done. The flaw in my thinking was this: those who truly love me, love me unconditionally. It was a mistake to think that I needed to ’show up’ in a particular way to gain their approval. True love is unconditional and will never demand approval.
Those who love us unconditionally are the ones we love unconditionally. It means I don’t judge you, or set conditions upon which you must meet, or comply to ‘my terms.’ It means never saying (out loud or to oneself) "if you love me, you’ll _____."
Unconditional love accepts us as we are, it's sole purpose to help you to see the truth, that you need not be anyone other than who you are for me to love you unconditionally. All I ever want is your authentic self to show up.
It begins with a willingness to love ourselves unconditionally. When we do, then we open the door to others loving us unconditionally.
I've been married nearly 27 years. I’m a firm believer that it has to do in large part to the shared unconditional love we have for each other. Can you really have a lasting marriage without it?
But now I'm beginning to see that this concept can extend beyond marriage. You can greet the world unconditionally. You can love everyone in it unconditionally. When you do, the love returns to you, and in that, lies the greatest joy of all.
If you can drop all conditions (typically rooted in approval or judgment), then you can find the path to unconditional love. But you must start with unconditional love for yourself. And that may be the hardest task of all. For if you can’t love yourself unconditionally, you can’t love others unconditionally either.
Authentic Love
And then it hit me. When you truly love someone, you love who they are, and who they are contains all their imperfections. It's our flaws that make us unique, and our uniqueness is what gives others something to love at all.
But if you can't love everything about your flawed self, how can you ever truly love another, scars & all? You can't love anyone, until you love yourself.
When you look in the mirror and begin to notice all your imperfections, remember that those who truly love you, love you for who you are, imperfections included. Attempting to change who you are for someone else is usually unsustainable, until that change becomes an evolution of your true self. Which makes it changing for others dangerous.
If you are willing to change who you are for another, loving authentically is about loving who you are, ALL of who you are, both the good and bad. To love authentically is to love unconditionally.
As we lose the ones we love, we may even discover it's the flaws we miss most of all, so why let them upset you today?
There's no need to force a change of who you are, because who you are is in a constant state of change already. It's when we stop trying to force these changes that we discover the true self. Lasting self development unfolds naturally.
It's your quirks, flaws, and imperfections that make you unique. And who we love is uniquely you. In fact, your effort to be someone else is actually one of the flaws we love about you :).
Unless you are being authentically who you are, true love cannot exist. The moments I truly feel true love for another is when I see a glimpse of their untethered soul.
When we focus on our own shortcomings, when we attempt to overcome that which we truly are, we fail to live authentically. If those around you insist you become someone you're not in order to gain their acceptance, then you will always struggle to find true love. On the flip side, if your expectations of the ones you love reflect anything other than who they already are, you are missing the opportunity for true love.
The longer I live, the more I see that we will always find things in ourselves and others we want to change. But true change occurs naturally, in it's own time. As much as we wish anything was different than it is, it's not. The older you get, the more you accept yourself and others for who they are, as you realize all those years of trying to force change didn't make a difference.
It's through acceptance that a seed of authentic love is planted. The more we accept ourselves and others for who we are, the more that seed of love grows.
While it's easy to see the imperfection in ourselves and others, the perfect life contains all the imperfections that make us who we are. A perfect being is the cumulation of all it's imperfections, which make us uniquely perfect.
True love is a matter of seeing past the human imperfections, into the soul of another and seeing the potential they often fail to see themselves.
True love is the catalyst to bring out the better self that lies within each of us.
Your soulmates love you for who you are, not who you've been, or who you'll become... but who you are now - flaws included. You will encounter many soul friends throughout your existence when you live with a wide open heart. When you do, cherish and nourish them as you would a best friend, son, or daughter.
To look into the soul of another is to see past their imperfections. To see the true potential of who they will become is to accept who they already are.
Recognizing potential is the first step in realizing it.
To see the potential in yourself, begin by accepting all your imperfections first. Our efforts to change who we are only delay our true potential. The gift of time is that that we begin to overcome who we think they are to become who we truly are. The sooner you accept yourself and others for who they are, the sooner your true potential will be unleashed. Change is friction to the way things are.
Here's why this works.
For most of our life, most of us have been putting our focus on fixing our imperfections. From a young age, all our conditioning has been to fix what's wrong with us. But as you begin to accept who you are, you will recognize the perfection in all of it. Instead of working against yourself, you'll begin to ride the current and see how all those little quirks make you who you are, and the more you embrace who you are, the sooner you'll realize your true potential.
Our efforts to fix who we are (and our attempts to fix others) is like swimming upstream. It takes far more energy and we don't get very far.
The more you see your imperfections as a part of who you are (but not necessarily a part of who you need to be), you will begin to uncover your true self, which you can bring into the world. Those who love your true self will remain. Those who don't are no longer you concern.
The opinions of others are no longer your concern.
The only thing wrong is believing any of it's wrong. What's wrong with you is always right for you, from the perspective it makes you who you are, the uniqueness that is you. Never forget uniquely you is exactly what we love about you.
This writing arose from an unedited, unscripted, uniquely flawed, perfectly imperfect self, to demonstrate authentic love itself. Share the love!
~ Brian
Love & Fear
Oneness is Love, and the illusion of separateness is Fear.
