Why is it that love, the most powerful emotion that can heal our traumas and the traumas of others, that can bridge the gap of political or ideological dissension and inspire us to connect, support, uplift and encourage each other in such deep and meaningful ways be so difficult for so many to offer each other consistently? Mother Teresa spent almost her entire life serving the poor and those who were left in the margins of society. She was most famously quoted as saying: “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” I think she figured out the shortest route to a life worth living. She could spend it loving others as much as she could.
For me love has a different kind of meaning than just liking someone or something a lot. Love is a returning to my most natural state of ease and freedom. It is me after I have stripped away what I think is most important in that moment. And it is me after I have allowed my fears, my worries and my own sense of self-importance to drift away, even if for just a moment. In this free space of self, I can feel what I really came here to this life experience to feel about myself. I feel the warm freedom that love offers and the infinite connection to my life that it shows me. Love exposes the deepest sense of gratitude for my life that I can know.
In these moments, love takes all my worries and burns them away leaving the ashes of compassion behind to warm me. Love is the energy that I am made of. Love is more than just within me, love is the me that I always yearn for. Love is the me that is the truth. Love is the me that can fly without wings. And love is the me that I see in everything and everyone. Love is the feeling of me.
Love is the only way I know how to embrace me fully. The who that is me, is the you that is you too. I am complete and so are you. I am whole and so are you. We are never broken. The pain we feel is just the self denial of love. I am love. I am joy. I am so very good.
