Love Is All You Need: Unhooking From the Unhelpful

I've been reluctant to try my brain at blog writing after all this time, concerned that I would either not have sufficient material for an appropriately arced post, or that I'd wax so overwhelmingly rhapsodic that bottling the end would be beyond my middle-aged motherhood capabilities.

Yet tonight, tonight... tonight (as the iconic Phil Collins once rhythmically uttered)... I'm just fatigued enough to be both delirious and succinct.

Thus, to cut to the chase of this first Shepherd Institute blog, I gently invite you to focus on the photo above. Look at the image. Really see it.

That's the feeling of possibility, uncertainty, and self-reliance, and courage. And moving forward.

Forward.

Out of stuckness. Out of sameness. Out of fear, and defensiveness, emotional violence, and distress.

This is our time. We can evolve our lives. We can say to ourselves...

"I am worthy and deserving of love and respect."

And then hold ourselves to that standard. A standard of calling love and respect into our lives not by being demanding of others, or critically evaluating how others get their needs met and other violent styles of communication.

No.

Rather...

Observing what you notice in your environment, and express what you feel and need, then check in with others.

And ask what is going in within the other person. Ask,

"I would like to know what's going on within you."

And listen. Listen beyond the words and the logical to the feelings and the empathic.

How might another person be feeling right now? Can you think, feel, and imagine to his/her/their experience?

Try. Empathy creates emotional attachment... closeness... forgiveness... courage...

Love.

And that's what so many of us feel yet, are pulled in many directions by responsibilities, advice, and our own expectations. That's where so many of us are right now. Plucked out of what we had come to accept as reality and plopped on the side of a snow-saturated mountain, feet stuck in the familiar, beckoned on by the idea that we could look at our lives, our families, our problems in new ways, and therefore engineer new, creative solutions.

And as we stand on that mountain side, while the view is unique and beckoning (so much we didn't expect at this stage of life), we may feel quite alone in our experience, and we must call on our courage to move forward with "guts and guile," as an old broad of the silver screen once verbally spat in the face of adversity.

Yes, there is so much we may find ourselves facing alone - whether physically, emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise - and yet, we are equipped to take the next step. Whether it's trudging to carve the next footprint along an uncut trail, or to blindly fling ourselves off a precipice, knowing that our current path of safety can take us no further.

Yet whatever our impending move, whatever treacherousness we are faced with and seek to overcome, we are ready. We have everything we need to succeed.... today, tomorrow, and the next.

Why?

Because we have love... and love never ends,

love never dies,

love always endures, and

love always, always overcomes.

So, no matter what you are facing... no matter the stress, the violence, the fear, the negativity, the dysfunction, the destructiveness... and wherever you are in your heart as you take this journey of freedom away from captivity to freedom with me, all we need to bring to sustain us and best the challenges ahead...

so simple, yet so endlessly powerful...

Love. Connect with your heart in times of anxiety and access the truth of your love,

your powerful heart.

With love, you... we are connected seamlessly to the light. To unconditional, unstoppable love. And as we stay connected to ourselves, we maintain the channel of love to our higher power. A divine love... beyond the reach of human desicration.

Yes, with love... we. are. unstoppable.

More tomorrow... this is our journey - love, truth, and hope in alignment. Join me for more peace, love, and self-discovery, I am so very grateful to be on this road... unhooking from conflict and finding true soulful freedom and new opportunity at my age and stage with you.

Remember... love.

No matter what we face, truly ...

Love is all you need.

Thank you for reading... come back tomorrow and let's find out where love is moving us now... in the current and with the current. Exciting times. Powerful love. Goodnight.