loving

Love

Posted on by angelillumination

It’s taken me a long time to realise this, but love is not “nice”. Love is strong, dynamic, gut wrenchingly honest and fully present. Niceness doesn’t cut it anymore.

It finally hit home while I was sat watching Netflix all day. I decided to watch a Tony Robbins documentary – “I Am Not Your Guru”. I thoroughly recommend it for a form of entertainment while you learn about yourself at the same time. Anyway, he was trying to help a mother who had been letting her daughter be in control of the whole family, and she said to him that she was trying to bring peace to the family. He grabbed her on the top of the head and shouted, in true Tony Robbins style, that there is no peace in family. This, along with all the quiet reflective time I have taken of late, trying to understand my life lessons, really struck a chord with me.

Many people confuse niceness with kindness. However, if you look deep inside, niceness really implies that you want something from someone. You want to be liked – which is natural – we would all like to be liked. But doesn’t it feel incongruent? You are not being genuine when you are being nice. it is like a manipulation tactic, probably derived from child hood – if you are being “nice” you are following the rules and so your parents will love you and thus you will survive into adulthood.
It is bland. If someone tells me I am “nice” as a compliment, it doesn’t really feel like a compliment.

Kindness, on the other hand, comes from the heart. It is about easing the other persons suffering in a genuine way. This is what love is.

When you love someone, it is dynamic. You are invested in their highest good, and thus you are willing to let them feel uncomfortable for a while and hold them in that space if it means that they will come to a place of understanding and learn about themselves. If it will lead to their highest good, their living from their authentic self.

It means being blatantly honest with the people around you, and expecting them to be honest with you, because you are invested in them. It’s not about you anymore – it’s about both of you in relationship to each other.

If you are both living and loving from your authentic selves – you grow. You model healthy relationships to the world. You model genuineness, empathy, strength, unconditional positive regard. These are the core conditions for growth and healing that Carl Rogers posits – the father of person centred therapy.

To truly love someone, including yourself, you have to be strong. You have to risk not being liked for a while. You have to be honest about where you are at, what you feel about a certain situation, where your boundaries are, so the relationship – either with others or with yourself, can flourish and grow. So that you can be loved for who you genuinely are, and so that you can love the other person for who they genuinely are.

Being “nice” doesn’t even begin to cover this.

Here is to an amazing adventure through life where we all learn to love each other more and live from our authentic selves.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please do get in touch.

Wishing you all love and many blessings,

Lucy Loizou xxx

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Alchemy

Posted on by angelillumination

“The medieval forerunner of chemistry, concerned with the transmutation of matter, in particular with attempts to convert base metals into gold or find a universal elixir:

A seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination”

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/alchemy (2017)

It was nearly a week ago. I had awoken in the morning with a plan for the day. Some writing perhaps, or a trip into town in peace to run some long awaited errands. I ended up in A&E with my youngest son for several hours.

I could have sat there in bitterness and disappointment, and believe me, I was a little disappointed, not to mention tired. I’d taken a magazine with me but had no inclination to read it. In addition, I was obviously concerned about my son.

A few years ago, the experience might have caused me to hate the whole day. To sit there in lamentation – “why me?”, “why doesn’t anything go the way I want it to?” and the classic one – “nothing goes right for me.”

However, in the last two years, while a succession of events in my life changed and morphed, and while there was a lot of letting go, I had begun a new practise. The practise of waking up in the morning and asking the universe how I might serve. How I might see things in a different light.

I spent time researching and reading about fate, free will choices, our purpose here on earth. I have come to the conclusion that our purpose here on Earth is to learn and grow – but also to find peace and to be happy. To learn to feel comfortable in our own skin and to truly be ourselves, following our own values instead of the crowd.

In a world where things constantly change and morph, and where our own free will choices are tempered by events seemingly outside of our control, how could one find this sense of inner peace and comfort?

By changing our perspective. I do honestly believe now, that everything does happen for a reason. Whether it be a moment of peace or accumulated good, or a lesson or a moment of Karma, there is always something to learn or take from the situation.

Sometimes, we may think that our purpose for a particular day is to do one thing – such as a project we have chosen which we believe is part of our life purpose, and it may indeed be, but the Universe gives us a different mission where we might be of more service for that particular day.

Even if we feel we aren’t doing anything by being there, not actively anyway, even of it feels like time is a wasting, you’re very presence in an area can change the energy. Can heal energy, can bring comfort to those in the surrounding area without you or the people surrounding you knowing why.

By some fluke, my son and I were told to sit in the staff hub of the department while we waited to be called for a CT scan. For over an hour. I spent the time in breathing and focusing in on my body and how I felt. I became more aware of my surroundings and overheard certain situations with unnamed patients in the hospitals, heard whispers of the exhaustion of the overworked staff. I focused my energy on switching to love. I imagined the whole area surrounded by a golden sparkly light. And I prayed for peace and healing for everyone.

We are responsible for the energy we put into the world. Do we want to be a presence of peace and love, or discord and anxiety?
The path to peace comes from accepting yourself – every part of yourself, and treating yourself with love. When you are filled with love and strong energy engendered by self care and self awareness, people pick up on it. They suddenly feel better in your presence without you saying or doing anything. Without understanding why they suddenly feel stronger and more at peace.

This is the art of alchemy – turning base metal into gold.

Your thoughts and feelings are welcome – please leave a comment.

And yes, thankfully, my son got the all clear and we went home – devoting the remainder of the day to self care and preparation for our life purpose.

 

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/alchemy; Oxford Dictionaries; 11/1/17

Many blessings, and a happy new year,

Lucy Loizou