Love

Love is an experience isn't it?

As with almost anything that we "feel," there is an experience occurring in parallel. The experience is something individual to each of us. As part of an ongoing session I run weekly, the month of August is all about investigating love and all of its nuances. Love as an experience was an interesting one for me to investigate and understand because the concept of love itself has always been what I would almost deem as confusing.

I am someone that loves to ask questions. One question is a favourite of mine and that is. "What is love?” and my follow up to that is “How do you know?” It’s a question I could never fully answer but I realized it was because I was never paying attention. Observing with purpose and intention reveals your story and it can be quite nuanced and rich. After much observation, I realized the stillness and simplicity of love and how it brings joy to our inner person is something that fascinated me. The stillness we experience as we practice mindfulness in a quiet place, as we practice self-love and as we extend our love to others - do you believe it extends to our true understanding and connection with love?

I found this quote by Alan Watts to perfectly embody how we might view love in a more grounded manner:

“The only Zen you’ll find on the mountain is the Zen you bring up there with you.”

Now you may or may not agree, but I believe it has a very important message regarding perspective. The love you have within is what will allow you to feel love at all. Pay attention and look within. Be mindful of negative self-talk. Speak with and feel compassion to yourself. It is very challenging and quite impossible to share cookies when your cookie jar in completely empty - not even a crumb. Paying attention to our internal emotional stores is key. It may seem cliché at this point to say be mindful of your internal dialogue and internal feelings. Mindfulness is the only way we are able to delve into some facets of emotion that we may not have considered before such as:

How do you feel when you share love

• How do you feel when you receive love

• How do you feel after you have interacted with someone? What does your energy feel like?

Pay close attention and see what you discover. Remember you are not your thoughts. You have the power to change, adapt and grow.

#mindfulness #mindful #sati #mindfulnessandlove #satuppada #love