You cannot love another more than you love yourself.

A man decides he is in love with a woman and wants to build a future together.   Wanting to demonstrate this, he showers her with gifts and wants to spend every waking moment outside of work with her.   He makes her wishes ultra-important and always makes sure to do whatever it is she wants, putting aside his own desires.   He has decided love is to be expressed through sacrifice.   To pay the extra bills, he keeps at a job he doesn't like much, and gives up dreams he has of alternate careers.  While this feels very flattering at first, after some time the woman feels this sacrifice like a weight on her shoulders.   He has given up large aspects of himself, which cannot help but create both a void in him that he hopes to fill via the woman and unspoken expectations that influence all interactions in the relationship.   After a time this accumulates into frustrations and arguments.   He has disconnected aspects of himself and assumed this is an action based in love.   In essence, he has tried to find Love through not loving himself, and then discovers the expression of this lack of unity from the voice of his partner.

Sit across from a partner and breathe calmly and deeply together as you look into each other's eyes.   Imagine yourself in a vast plain of grass and forests drenched in comforting sunlight, with all the space around you that you can possibly imagine.  Now bring every aspect of yourself to this place.      This includes all of your desires, your dreams, your frustrations, and even your defenses.   Let them take up all the room they could ever need without any expectation of change.  Your partner can do the same in their own mind.  Breathe deeply for a minute until this feels like a completely natural self-perpetuating state.

Now bring your partner into this place, which includes inviting all aspects of them into your space.  Invite their desires, their dreams, their frustrations, and yes, even their defenses.  Give them as much space as they could ever need.  Now allow both of you to interact in this space without trying to do anything.   Let your desires interact with theirs without conflict.  Even your defenses can interact.   Give it time and space.

With complete permission there is an encompassing transformation that occurs naturally, without effort.  There is no sacrifice, only expansion that comes from allowing a greater world you're your own.   Because their desires are as important as your own, the interaction helps you understand your own desires more clearly, and even grow towards grander dreams.   Oneness helps you move towards clarity with your own identity, rather than making you give it up.

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If we look deeply at the mechanism of suppressing emotions, it's  easy to see why. Who we are, which includes emotions, is actually extremely flexible – we can do almost anything we want to ourselves. We can develop ourselves to be almost anything desired, but we can also push emotions,  memories, and thoughts away from sight and try to squish them into  nothingness.   Our training in this culture involving doing such  things almost from day one.   However – and this is the root of almost all "problems" – we cannot truly disconnect ourselves from  ourselves.  There is no way to cut off and discard any disliked portion of ourselves.  There is truly no escape from who we are. We can try to surgically  disconnect a painful emotion, and we get a reasonable facsimile of this  disconnection.  But it will not be a true disconnect. Any emotion we've  tried to shove away is always there, waiting to come back, and in fact pulling  on us in every moment.

For the visually minded, I liken this  process to a great white elastic band.   We can stuff part of ourselves in a box, bury it, and walk away, but  we'll have that "pull" from it. It will exert pressure on us in every single moment, bringing attention to it.   The farther we push it away, the more pull there will be.  This is why the elastic band image helps. This pull isn't a harsh "you must deal with it"  one, but rather a force of nature that simply wants us to be in wholeness,  bringing us back to our greater Self.   This elastic can be influenced by others, too – if someone else walks  through the area of the denied connection, what occurs is the elastic force snapping  back, similar to a real elastic band.   This is another description of what "triggering" is.

Now in almost everyone there is not just  one such pocket of emotion buried and abandoned, but multitudes.  Each one exerts this pull back.  Try to imagine how that would feel with real  elastic bands.  Because of the constant  pull in many conflicting directions, there's very little freedom to move in any  direction.  A little movement can be made, but even small can movements pull against hidden emotion which will then pull back, producing an  emotional reaction in response.  This can generates fear of any emotional movement at all. Most people are  quite literally trapped in a static place by buried emotions.  In such a place, life is filled with  emotional minefields and geysers waiting to erupt.  Words must be watched and controlled in every moment. Walls and wired fences mark off areas where unwanted emotions lie fallow.

Now imagine on top of this picture that you are  close with someone else, who also has a huge amount of buried emotions.  It would be very easy to get a reaction in that person  if you tried to move through any of their "elastic bands".  So in  most relationships, there is a general, unspoken agreement for both parties to act in  such a way that no one will be triggered.   The initial rush of being "in love" at the beginning is usually the time  such  agreements are formed.  It's quite  natural, of course; being triggered is not enjoyable to anyone, and it is  normal to demonstrate you're not going to trigger pain to someone you love.  However, this restricts motion even further. After some  time, there's often a realization of how emotionally static such a posture  is.  This is when relationship questioning happens.  It can either lead to greater freedom if both  sides are open to questioning or to the end of a relationship if one person  blames the other for opening up emotional cans of worms.  There was an unspoken agreement, after all!

These unspoken agreements are actually  pervasive in all aspects of our society.   Social groups often have a number of these.  To see this, try to imagine you showing the  raw spectrum of an intense emotion without filtering (and without blaming others) to a  group you're part of.  If you feel that  this would cause a lot of alienation, or you simply cannot even imagine it,  that is a sign of unspoken agreements.   In such cases, someone not acting in accord with these agreements are  the vast majority of the time thought of as "the problem".  To someone in a prison, those outside of it  can indeed be a problem!  Unfortunately,  the label of "the problem" sticks far too often to anyone with even a little self-doubt, encouraging further denial of  emotions. And thus the cycle continues

The road less travelled, of course, is  simply to not push away any emotion that occurs.  This applies to both emotions within and  emotions in others.  Without the network  of opposing forces described above, an incredible amount of freedom begins to  take root.  There are no longer any  self-created chains rooting you to a particular emotional landscape.  At first this is terrifying, but as the  infinite amount of choices now available are gotten used to, the dance of  freedom truly begins.

Of course, it takes a good deal of time to reincorporate denied  aspects of ourselves back into the fold.   Try to imagine trying to rush this process and having many of these  elastic forces snap back all at once!   It takes gentleness and patience. Nevertheless, each part of Self allowed back into a space of wholeness  always adds to your sense of freedom, and brings a greater strength for any  further challenges.  This is the path of  wholeness. When the freedom and joy of this is seen, then there is no need to even try for disconnections from Self. For we are complete, just as we are.

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More material to be in the book "Loving Awareness".

In the self-help community, there is much emphasis on how you need to change your beliefs to change your life.  "Change your thoughts, change your life!" is a maxim of Wayne Dyer.   Beliefs are how we interpret the world - every one of our experiences is filtered through our beliefs.  This is why ten different people coming from different backgrounds can have fundamental differences of interpretation of the same event - the jury system in the courts gives regular examples of this!  So changing beliefs can indeed have a powerful impact on lives.  However, most people think of a belief simply as a pattern of thoughts, and it is far more than this.  So what are beliefs, if we look deeply at them?

In the western cultural framework, we tend to think everything is intellectual.  We're a society that usually values intellect above all.  So when we talk about "mind" we generally refer only to thoughts and leave the emotions and the body divorced from the equation.  Not so in many oriental traditions.  The word "mind" in those cultures encompasses all of the mental, emotional, and physical parts of ourselves.  From these perspectives, we are a fully integrated system, with every part of ourselves affecting any other.  When there is recognition of this, there is more possibility of transformative changes occurring within ourselves.  Thinking it is only our thoughts that affect us and denying the real effect the body and the emotions have upon our thoughts and each other can easily lead to mind games, with no changes resulting, and thinking that all that it is needed is more effort in doing the same thing that hasn't worked in the past. 

Now, on this expanded field of who we are, beliefs exists everywhere in who we are, even outside thoughts.  In a real way, they are analogous to habits – a pattern that repeats in how we process information .  I liken them to rivers across the continent that is the Self.  Over time, trenches and canals appear that are the result of the water flowing in a certain pattern.  There is then a tendency to continue on the same course (whether in thoughts, body movements, or emotions), but any of them can be changed with consistent effort.  If dams have been constructed, blocking the flow, there will be alternate ways things flows.  Many of these can cause more harm than good, of course, but our bodies are quite adaptable - within reason.  There's actually a lot of similarities between the "flows" of our emotions, thoughts, and body processes.  For instance, an emotional memory might cause someone to feel anger and disappointment when someone doesn't look them in the eye.  This "gut reaction" occurs without thought.  Similarly, a sound of a traffic accident might cause adrenaline in someone and they'd jump up to run outside, without thought or much emotion. 

Because we're a complete system, it's all interrelated.  For example, a man may have fixed thoughts about how a woman "should behave" in a relationship.  These thoughts may be a protective layer around a core pain in the body relating to abuse by a mother-figure in childhood; in this abuse there would be both emotional pain and body memories.  Now, trying to change the thought patterns of this man will likely run up against a brick wall because it's only addressing thoughts.  This wall of course, is perfect – the thoughts are self-protective, and there is definitely pain that needs protecting, for it isn't appropriate to bring up just anywhere or with anyone.  This isn't to say changing thoughts is pointless; it creates ripples which may create a domino effect in other parts of the system.  But thoughts aren't the master control of it all, especially when there's not much consciousness in them.  We're a great tapestry of interweaving energies we call thoughts, emotions, and matter, and we become more adaptable and powerful when we work with this whole, rather than a smaller part of ourselves.

So then how to do this work in this quagmire?  The answer - which will be familiar to regular readers - is via allowing.  We're not like machines that break and then require a mechanic to go in and fix. We're constantly healing and balancing simply by being who we are, in every moment of every day.  Most alternative healing recognizes this and tries to support the body's natural strength instead of imposing harsh chemicals, for example.  If everything's out on the table - and everything includes thoughts, emotions, and the body – it's quite a change provoking event in itself.  Anyone who's been a witness to a person being deeply vulnerable cannot help but be affected by the experience.  Once the full wholeness of self is brought forward, there is a space of creation in that present moment that literally enables new worlds to be created.  These are worlds forced on your body by ramming affirmations inwardly; this is a process of mutual creation, and thus, a process of Love.

To put this in action, here's an exercise I wrote:

This exercise is about being big about whatever process is going on in the moment, in ways that encompass the physical, intellectual, and emotional aspects of ourselves.  To be precise about being big, here is my definition:

Being big is about bringing the full totality of who you are to the world.  It has nothing to do with being loud, or pushing others, or speaking inspired thoughts.  You can be big no matter what your experiences in the present moment are.

For instance, someone desperately angry might be very loud and attempt others to change.  They would feel small to others, because they are not showing vulnerability about where this emotion is coming from.  On the other hand, others might be feeling worthless, full of condemning thoughts and not feel like they deserve to take any space around them.  They might be very shy and quiet.  Bringing that forward, in its totality, without any apology or protective face, would be big.  They might tell others they need to express this, then crawl into a corner, crunch themselves into fetal position, and mumble the thoughts they are having.  So long as they bring the full totality of who they are – which includes the knowing that this is only an experience and not defining in any way - they are big.  They are showing they are bigger than their own experience.  This is vastness.

So the exercise is to be big.  Bring whatever it is going on in its totality and express it.  If you need to scream, scream.  If you need to crawl into a fetal position in the deepest corner of your garage, do so.  If you need to hit pillows, do that.  But do it from a space of allowing.  Allow emotions to flow, whether through written words on the page, wordless sounds, or through the voice.  Let it come through your body; place your body in a position that encapsulates your experience.  Let thoughts ramble forth from your mind.  But above all, allow all this from a place of play.  Be a child again.  This is through a choice to let it all come forward, laughing at yourself from the dual perspective of seeing how whole you truly are while allowing all the "imperfections" come forward.  You know that this is not defining you, and yet it is just perfect the way it is.  If you can't inhabit that space, allow whatever you can.  The point isn't to change anything in this moment, but to allow it and give full expression without judgment or control.

The magic of fully allowing is that it transforms.  If you are fully you in one moment, there is no limit to what you can be in the next moment.  It's amazing how someone's experience changes by the end of the exercise, especially if there's someone you trust watching, which is encouraged! 

Beliefs permeate the being on every level.  Transformation can manifest through altering one level or another of perception, and it is possible to alter beliefs within the space of an eye blink, thereby creating irrevocable transformations that reverberate through all levels of the Self.  And it is true also that transformation within the Self will create transformation within a wider space known as a family, a community, a world, or a universe, or all of them - for they are all essentially the same.  For this, then, we can change the phrase into "change your thoughts, change the world". 

All of you have likely heard talk about the universality of  Love.  It's in many places, from the  Bible saying "God is Love" to various newer teachings. For instance, the most famous quote of A  Course in Miracles is :

 
"The opposite of love is fear, but  what is all encompassing can have no opposite."

According to this, the universe itself is composed of  nothing but love.  And yet our  experiences seem to be full of things which do not appear loving.  Others may treat us with disdain and rudeness,  and we ourselves may experience emotions such as pain, anger, despair and grief  that we think are as far from the experience and ecstasy of love as can be.  And yet, if the universe itself is made of  love and we are part of the universe, then logically we ourselves should be  made of nothing but love.  So why do we  experience such intensely negative emotions such as pain, when love is supposed  to be ecstatic? 

It at this point, let's go beyond the labels we have for  these emotions.  Labels keep us fixed  into a relatively small concept, and in fact there are wide differences between  two people for the same experience of an emotion.   If looked at deeply, there is a fullness within every emotion that  most people do not even glimpse.   In  fact, each emotion is not a limited experience - it's an entire spectrum,  much like the light that comes to us from the sun.  And like light, there are even huge swaths  of the spectrum that we cannot even see.   In fact what we know of as pain, for instance, is but a small area of  the spectrum available of this one basic experience, but a small part of the  expansive range open to us. 

To go into more detail, let us now take a look at pain.  To use the analogy of the body, pain serves a  very useful purpose.  It lets us know  when there is something important that we need to focus on.  If we are being stabbed by a sharp needle,  for example, it is good to take immediate action to remove the needle from our  body.  Sometimes the pain is more chronic  and speaks of long-term actions necessary to create a healthier environment in  the complex system that is our body.  So  to put it simply, pain is a good thing.   However, if we think of pain only as an enemy, and therefore do not  listen to it, it is quite possible that the symptoms will grow exponentially  larger until we reach the point where we see nothing but the pain.  It is not pain that is the problem, only our  experience of it and our reaction to it.

The inward experience of emotional pain is similar.  It serves a very useful function - it lets us know what needs to be listened to and transformed. When fully allowed, this can be a truly transcendant experience. In most cases we see, of course, it's misery, but to give a wider picture of what   pain can look like, it is useful to think of it again as a spectrum. Here's a table showing a range:

..>..>

..>..> Blocking A complete void. Overwhelmed with pain; wishing death. Alone; lost in pain, blaming others. Bonding with others through sharing pain. Recognizing pain as an impetus to start caring for self. Fully listening to pain to help transformation. Allowing Transcendence.

All of these  come from the same basic internal energy,  that which we label "pain".   In this one  emotion, there is a universe of difference in the experience.  And yet the experiences are intricately  intertwined; in each moment of meeting pain there can be an instant shift into  another mode of experience.  The only  difference between the states listed above is the degree of allowing we have for the pain - which is the degree we make pain our friend, becoming one with it.  Being completely in the present moment, in an  ever-fulfilling process of allowing, opens us to the entire range.  Resisting the experience will tend to move us  to the more blocking side of the spectrum.  Normally we sway back and forth a fair bit, even for minor pains!   

Both ends of the spectrum are of course connected.  Numerous accounts, such as Eckhart Tolle,  exist of completely giving up in the pain of existing, surrendering to "the  void", and then dramatically shifting to an ecstatic experience of  transcendence. 

How does this then relate to love?  Most people think of love as an  emotion.  If this were so, it would limit  Love.  Love itself is not an  emotion.  Love is the entire spectrum. Think then, that pain is not seperate from it; pain is part of that vast spectrum.  Love is a complete allowing of everything. It includes pain, joy, anger, longing,  connections with others, and all human experience.  Love in some way can be likened to the space  through which light can pass.  It is Love  itself that provides the allowing that enables pain to be the complete blessing that it can be, if it is  surrendered to. If you think to a time where you sat in front of someone you knew loved you, it was at a time when everything in you was welcomed. This included all your emotions, all your thoughts, all your desires; it was all invited and allowed. Why then should loving ourselves be any different?  Or other forms of Love?  Poets certainly have it right when they talk of the sky loving the earth.

This of course in no way minimizes the paralysing agony that pain can be, or is it in any way saying people are "responsible for their pain". It takes experience and wisdom to trust the process of allowing and surrendering to an experience, and most people need much support to do this. That's what friends are for, after all. Still, I hope by looking at pain this has given a glimpse of  possibilities that exist in every moment, inside every emotion. 

1. The first exercise has simply to do with assisting you in transcending the sense of isolation that can exist.  Position yourself where you can feel sunlight on your body, preferably your face.  Closing your eyes, imagine yourself becoming one with the particles of light and energy that rain down upon you and around you.  Feel the Love that comes to you from the enormous source of energy that is available to you at almost any time.  This source of energy has, of course, no expectation whatsoever from you.  It is freely given.  It is yours.  Feel, then, again, the sense of oneness that begins to pervade you as you feel the warmth spread on your skin.  Allow yourself the freedom to expand INTO that source, for you are indeed a part of it.  Your sense of awareness, then, may begin to extend to other facets of nature.  Sense the trees in their perfection.  Inhale the scent of flowers, of the damp earth fresh from rain.  Listen to the sounds of nature all around you.  If you are not in a place where nature can be sensed so closely, you can still feel at one with the walls and the carpeting and the roof around you, for all of these things once came from nature.  Awareness that a thing is as perfect in moving from its original form to another will increase your sense of oneness with everything around you.

2. For the second exercise, we encourage you to extend your awareness to the perceptions of others.  All of you have experienced a time when someone moved past your own internal boundaries and created within you a sense of discomfort.  This is especially true of children, and you all have memories of being children when your boundaries were crossed.  Many children react with violence, and some withdraw.  It is this pattern of behaviour that persists later in life.  It is important, then, to maintain an awareness of the boundaries of others when you attempt to connect with them.  The innate desperate we spoke of earlier creates a sense of urgency in this connection.  However, it is important to temper the connection within the confines of the boundaries of whom you are attempting to connect.  This then, leads to the following :

Imagine your self surrounded in a circle of your closest friends, acquaintances, or family members.  You love all of them.  You are aware of their love for you.   Starting with a very small circle, imagine yourself sending an invisible cord from your heart to theirs through which to connect more closely.  If this is done slowly and with gratitude, you will sense at some point a slight barrier between you.  Allow then, the circle to begin to widen.  You notice this creates a momentary sense of the potential of loss.  Be aware that through the cord of connection the circle could widen to an infinite degree without you ever losing connection.  Practice attempting connection, feeling a boundary, and allowing the circle to widen with those of your immediate acquaintance for some time.  You will notice more than likely, shifts will occur within the construct of these relationships.  Notice them and allow them while maintaining the knowledge that the connections can never be severed, no matter how wide the circle grows.  You may wish to continue this exercise and practice it with those with whom you are less acquainted with, for instance, work colleagues.  It is not necessary to maintain an intense connection with those around you, but instead to simply allow a connection to develop and grow naturally between you.  Once allowed to develop naturally, the connection will strengthen of its own accord.

3. The third exercise involves increased awareness of Self.  You have all likely heard that in order to love others, you must first love yourselves.  We would not put it in such stark terms.  However, loving yourself is the SAME as loving others.  There is no difference.  Love is Love.  Visualize yourself, then, high up on a remote, rocky mountaintop.  Your friend the sun gently warming your face.  Your awareness extends to the circle you made in the second exercise, however it is far, far away, and you are simply alone.  You sense the grandeur of your surroundings, yet, at the same time, you are aware of the perfection that exists within the rhythmic being of your own heart.  And it is this sound that now lulls you to sleep at night.  On this mountaintop, you are aware of the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tides of the movement of clouds across the atmosphere of the ever present circling of the seasons as they occur around you.  On this mountaintop, you experience time both very quickly and very slowly at the same time.  Allow then, your awareness to build towards the circle you made, and toward the source of the sun at the same time.  Moving in both directions causes your own inner source, your heart, to grow as well.  You are now aware that your entire existence can reside within the vastness of your own heart.  This gives you a tremendous sense of peace and gratitude for the perfection that is you.

If there's anything that seems to create both longing and repulsion in our society, it's power.  People see it, and are both drawn to it and repulsed by its misuse.  Even if we try to avoid power, we cannot avoid it completely.  Power is a need as much as breathing and connections are.  Without power, we would have no energy, and would only be a husk instead of dynamic beings.

However, the manifestation of power can vary greatly in its degree.  Here's some examples (those of you into Michael will recognize them) :

• Power from obtaining blind unquestioning obedience from others.
• Power from learning how to follow "the rules".
• Power obtained from positions in society.
• Power from being an active member in a community and the support that means.
• Power obtained from knowing yourself.

You can see a progression there.  This comes in to what true power means to me:

You know when you have reached a state of true power when your power cannot be taken away.

If you look at the above list, only the last item cannot be taken away.  Others can refuse to listen and obey you, rules change, positions can disappear, and communities can undergo upheaval.  Jobs can be lost; friends can be offended.  As Buddhism teaches : everything in this world is transient.

However, I'm discovering more and more in my life things which are not transient, but are simply intrinsically part of who I am.  Here are some things that give me power.

 I have the power to not resist.

             Though this sounds paradoxical to power, it goes to the root of all suffering.  We suffer when we resist whatever experience is happening to us in this moment.  Creating division internally by resisting an experience is a form of violence to myself.  The knowledge I can choose to not resist anything gives power.  [Note that this doesn't invalidate or make wrong the choice to resist; sometimes it's very practical and necessary to say "No" or "Not now."]

I am open to support in all form

             Support is absolutely necessary for power and well-being.  No one can experience joy or power in an ivory tower.   A baby is perhaps the best example of this, as I've mentioned before.  They are profoundly open to others support; they attract attention and care through their trust and openness.  It is their openness that attracts rather than any active behavior.

            It is also powerful for me to be clear what "all forms" means.  It means that I simply don't know what form it will take, and I'm fine with not knowing.  It can be from friends.  It can be from guides.  It can be from the earth under my feet.   It can be from the simple sensation of brushing my fingertips against a couch, reminding myself of my aliveness.  Being open to all forms requires flexibility, which brings me to the next item…

By all means, share your own source of power!