I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s most important lately.
I keep returning to the ideas of love and connection and presence and wholeness. They are things I want to write about, except that I haven’t quite figured out how to do it.
Then, I stumbled across a link to a post about the one year anniversary of Single Dad Laughing‘s amazing “I’m Christian, Unless You’re Gay.” The post stunned me, in a good way, when I first read it.
And it still does.
Despite the title, it’s not really about Christians and Gays, that’s just an obvious example of the bias and hate that seeps into our lives under the guise of what we think is right or wanting the best for others. It’s really about love and acceptance and kindness and compassion.
In one of his follow-up posts, he challenged readers share their bold message of love.
I instantly thought of a newsletter I wrote over three years ago, “What If There Was Just One Answer?”
The one answer of course, was love.
I remember when I sent it out, it felt bold and brave and a little crazy to me. Like I might alienate my readers.
Reading it now, it feels tame and to only scratch the surface of my deeper point.
WHAT IF THERE WAS JUST ONE ANSWER?
There is…wait…Love is the answer. Stop your sniggering. Yes, yes, it’s a bit of a hippy notion, picture John Lennon singing the line in his round glasses in the early ’70s. People (me too!) can get snarky and cynical about it. I think partly because it’s not the easiest thing to live by.
And yet, I really believe it’s true. Imagine what your life would be like if you did everything from love. If you made your choices, big and small, from love.
HOW DO YOU ANSWER THE QUESTIONS IN YOUR LIFE?
Think about how you make choices now. I’m going to guess it’s some combination of obligation and guilt, and maybe some other stuff mixed in for flavor. But obligation and guilt are the biggies.
Take a second right now, and run through your day so far. When you got up this morning, did you choose the time because that’s when you’d love to start your day, or it feels best when you have that amount of time in the morning? Or because that’s when you HAD to get up.
And what about breakfast? Did you eat what you ate because you love the way it fuels your body and how it tastes, or because you really wanted it even though you end up feeling physically crappy and maybe even guilty afterwards?
I used to eat cereal for breakfast. That’s what I grew up eating, and I never thought much about it. I never really loved it, it was more of a habit. But, I realized I would always end up feeling famished in just a few hours. You know that hollow-bellied, light-headed, I have to eat something now feeling.
After some experimenting I realized that I felt a million times better if I ate more protein for breakfast. Now, I’ll have some yogurt with homemade, nut-laden granola. It tastes so good to me in the morning, and I feel pleasantly sated until lunchtime.
What would it be like for you if you started your morning with love?
YOU WON’T TURN INTO A HEDONISTIC NE’ER-DO-WELL
This is where it can get confusing and most people give up. What happens is, they start to think that to do something from love, means they get to do whatever the hell they want.
But that’s more of an infatuation, a school kid’s crush. The love I’m talking about is a love of kindness and compassion. An acceptance of what is, a willingness to really see things and make little (or big) changes that really support you at the deepest level.
Research has shown that even school children when allowed to eat whatever they wanted, binged on crap for a bit, then ate a pretty healthy well-rounded diet. Now this isn’t just about food. The same thing happens with other things too.
So back to the example of your morning. There may be things you can’t change, such as when you need to be at work. So, what if you accepted this? A simple, “Even though I don’t prefer this, I accept that it’s necessary for this job at this time.” (Special secret alert: You don’t have to accept it for forever, just for now. Just until you’re able to make a different choice.)
WHERE CAN YOU ANSWER WITH LOVE DURING YOUR DAY?
Now imagine what time is the best time for you to get up given the acceptance of certain things. Set your alarm with love for yourself, allowing you plenty of time to get ready and take care of yourself in the morning.
How different does that feel? Can you begin to imagine the power infusing a little love into your choices can be?
Be patient. Sometimes if you haven’t been listening to yourself when you make choices, it can be a little hard to hear and understand the communication. The more you do it, the easier it will get.
See what I mean?
I still believe everything I wrote then. Still believe it will make a difference in your life. That practicing love in these kinds of circumstances will completely change your experience. That this may be an accessible way for you to make choices from a place of love.
And yet…
There’s so much more to the message.
There are so many more places and people in our world that we could see through the eyes of love. That we could flood with compassion.
I know that feeling good, feeling safe and capable, makes it so much easier to think, to perceive, to act through a filter of love.
My compassion has grown for others over the years. And there’s plenty more growing to do. Many more ways to live love.
I’m up for discovering them. For continuing to grow and learn and shift my perspective — to be the person I want to be in the world.
What about you? What’s your bold message of love?
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