The Power of Love

It’s only in recent years, that I began to pay attention to the root intention behind my thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviour. 

Throughout the day, I can boil this down to a baseline of either love or fear. 

Why would this even be something to consider?! 

Because love makes us feel good and, in our hearts. 

Fear causes stress, anxiety, pain and disease. 

In fact, it’s very revealing to have this awareness and check in with yourself. 

Not only that, but it is even more powerful to switch from fear to love when we catch ourselves. 

Sometimes we can convince ourselves we are doing something from a point of love, but if we were honest, it could be quite the opposite. Love is such a big and vast energy that it can easily be misinterpreted. 

Take ‘people pleasing’ for example or attachment or co-dependency. These are fear programmes that can so easily dressed up as ‘love’ or coming from a ‘good’ place. 

It’s common for us to justify our actions. 

Many people don’t want to think of themselves as ‘bad’ especially if we have a ‘good girl/boy’ complex.

The need to feel or be perceived as ‘good’ is a complexity that causes even more shame and suppression, but I digress! 

My journey through exploring my own insecurity was really a quest for love, but I had to navigate a sh!tstorm of fear to get there! 

To love yourself or simply to accept yourself, is the key to living wholeheartedly IMHO. 

I would have balked at that last sentence just a few years ago, writing it off as some kind of hippy dippy BS. Yes I really was that ignorant/supressed!

Here is a truth I have discovered on my journey. To love yourself, you must know yourself, intimately and honestly. 

There is a colossal difference between loving yourself through the ego (conditional love) and loving all parts of yourself (unconditional love). 

I have found a phenomenal question to pose throughout the day, which I have taught in many of my workshops, is this….

“Am I coming from a place of love or fear?” 

and then be really honest with the answer. 

This powerful question can change our approach to pretty much anything! It is a wonderful and simple tool for managing self-sabotaging behaviour, changing moods and more. 

I have used the table above in the image, to cover a few elements of the epic topic around love and fear, but I could probably write a book!  

In fact, I am currently writing a course that I will launch soon and deliver via zoom in September. It is called ‘Healing the Heart; Unlocking Abundance.’

Let’s have a look at some examples of the spectrum of love and fear (both powerful energies) that can either take us closer to our heart’s wisdom or further away. 

Trust v Control:

Of course, having control can be empowering in many ways…until it isn’t! 

There are so many nuances within these words but for the purpose of the blog, I will need to go more on the general. 

The need to control everything is often due to a lack of trust. Be that a lack of trust in ourselves, in other people or the universe at large. 

Too much control (I know all about this as a recovering control freak!) causes tension. 

It is a very stressful way to live. We can convince ourselves that it reduces our stress, and in a very temporary way it can, but that is so often an illusion when we consider the long-term. 

Trying to control everything (or even everyone) is a method of feeling ‘safe’ in that if your external environment is pleasing to you, you can feel OK. However, the opposite is also true. 

Trying to control other people is similar (I need you to behave in a certain way, so that I feel better). It is futile and it doesn’t work in the long run. 

Control is quite often linked to perfectionism, with this combination, an individual will frequently argue that they have been proved right!

For example, they have asked someone to do a task and they haven’t done it correctly so they will need to take over to get it right. 

As such, the cycle prevails, and the controlling perfectionist gets busier and busier (which in a way still makes them feel safe, but exhausted) and becomes a victim (of their own success…or behaviour patterns)! Subconscious self-sabotage at its best. 

So frequently we will literally see the evidence of our expectations and our beliefs. 

Therefore, it is so key (and equally challenging) to change the underlying beliefs to influence the outcomes. 

The universe works on our behalf that way, it is ever reflecting back to us lessons to integrate, but sometimes we are so busy being busy that we miss the point. 

Trust (or faith) is an energy of the heart, it helps us to let go. 

It helps us to realise that we are not on our own, it helps us to connect. 

When we are controlling, we are holding on too tight, this is an energy of scarcity which belongs to fear. 

Compassion v Judgement 

I would say this is ongoing work for most of us and could change the world! 

Of course, we all need judgement, we need to be able to judge/assess things and situations to keep ourselves safe etc. What I am referring to here is being judgemental. 

I am also differentiating this from discernment, that is a whole other conversation I am passionate about! 

I have found that the energy of judgement (I use the word energy because we can feel judgement beneath any spoken words) is one of the major contributors to problems in relationship dynamics, particularly with families. 

I have lived it in my personal experiences and seen it through my work countless times. 

We all have a filter, a lens through which we judge. I had the crippling habit of judging myself for every little thing I did! It was an impossible inner dialogue to listen to. 

Cultivating self-compassion has been a life saver for me. 

When we are judgemental about others, what it really reveals is a lack of compassion that we have for those elements within ourselves. They can even be the parts that we don’t relate to because they have been hidden so deeply in the shadow. 

I have had many a self-confrontation and realisation about this over the past few years, each time taking me deeper and deeper and bringing up greater levels of compassion.

I would now describe my energy as massively compassionate and non-judgemental, as well as helping me as a person, it is paramount in the work I do. 

Equally I do have to tell you that I absolutely love the humour of a cutting bitchy character on TV, e.g Karen from Will and Grace :D 

No surprise I am a big fan of dark comedy too, because so many parts of life are contrasting aren’t they! 

So how can we recognise when judgement is cropping up? 

It’s prevalent when we compartmentalise as ‘black or white’ or when we only see one side of a situation, rather than contemplating the many shades of grey. 

Judgement is an energy that shuts down and limits, whereas compassion is more expansive. 

The more judgemental we are, the more limited we become and the smaller our world is. 

The more compassion we have, the greater freedom we create for ourselves.  When we decide things are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ that is judgement. It is so restrictive and it’s a tough house to live in. 

What is the purpose of having more compassion? It opens the heart. Judgement closes the heart, it is all in the head. 

The heart is intelligent, it keeps an energetic and emotional record of all our experiences over a lifetime (and beyond, but that is another blog). 

Your heart knows the truth, the heart feels better when it chooses compassion. When we choose to override the heart with the overthinking and analytical mind, it causes us problems and anxiety. 

For example, let’s say we have a situation or memory that involves another person and it makes us feel uncomfortable when it crops up. 

There is likely to be a large portion of judgement involved, either with ourselves or for the other person. 

Mentally, we tend to like to justify our own behaviour and conclude why we were ‘right’ – there’s a big hint! Maybe we have a convincing argument, perhaps we have also found the evidence – aha! 

However, if we either spiral into overthinking and analysis paralysis or for some the preferred method is to bury it, never to be spoken about again (suppression) then we are not at peace. 

Feeling right is not always the same as feeling good. Deep down we know this is true! 

Then there is karma in the truest sense of the word, not in the tongue and cheek version we so often hear. I feel yet another blog coming on, this will keep me busy, I must get some new stationery (any excuse)!    Our heart knows a deeper truth! Our heart automatically knows about compassion and love, but it is often overridden by the head or our wounded ego.    The heart literally feels better when it chooses compassion and love. 

Abundance v Lack 

This is a mindset and heart set. it is one I had to do an immense amount of work on!

I thought on the surface I was focused on abundance and in some ways I was, but in other ways, I could not have been further away from it!

My first giveaway to my lack mentality was that I never had enough time! 

In fact, not only did I feel this way and saw it in my external reality, but I would repeatedly complain about this (to myself and others). 

They were the words that were oh so frequently popping out of my mouth, it was a deep belief of mine. I hadn’t realised the damage I was doing by constantly repeating this to myself like it had become a mantra! A very boring one! 

Regardless of how much time we have, the message we give ourselves about it can cause us to feel stressed or not.

I was constantly stressing myself out with this belief! It was a classic example of a belief becoming a reality. The universe was listening and in truth, I was in control. I created it. 

Part of it belonged to a generational belief that if we are busy and productive, we are worthy. Laziness (or relaxing) was not to be tolerated! 

Part of me subconsciously liked it, because it meant I didn’t have to take any time to look at myself in the mirror and work out who I was (this can be terrifying when you have blocked it for so long)! 

We are adept at using distractions and addictions as avoidance strategies without even realising it. 

What I hadn’t realised was just how deeply the perception of ‘not enough’ ran through me. 

When we have a view that there is not enough of something…common examples being: 

Money Resources Time Support Love Business / clients 

It can be a reflection / mirror to an inner belief around not being enough / not feeling good enough. 

There may be an actual reality we can see such as a low bank balance, the lack of a loving relationship or an empty diary, however, what will be revealing is how it makes us feel or the meaning we assign to it.

Not having enough and not being enough are energies of fear and a lack / scarcity mindset. 

The good news is that awareness is the first and very powerful stage of being able to change this vibration for ourselves for the better. 

A feeling of abundance is an inner game, it is something to be lovingly cultivated. 

When we feel abundant, we can be more generous of spirit, we can be more open hearted, we can trust that there is enough and that we are enough.

When we know we are enough, just for being who we are, that is self-worth. 

Enough Ness is fragile if it is attributed to performance or anything outside of ourselves. 

There is much going on in the world currently that stimulates our fear and it can be a daily challenge to choose love. 

Gratitude is a very effective power source for tapping the energy of love and abundance. 

I believe that love is the vibration our hearts and health thanks us for and it feels so much better in our body than fear and stress does. 

Love and Fear are both incredibly powerful forces. Which will you choose? 

I have come to learn that most people’s blocks to happiness, health and peace lie in healing the heart. 

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‘Healing the Heart; Unlocking Abundance'

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Good Vibes, Amanda G