“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello spiritual warriors – welcome to a week of love! I know it sounds so woo-woo…all this peace & love stuff BUT isn’t that where it all begins? We can deny it and toughen it up but from the moment we exited the womb (and most likely before), we have been seeking a kind hand to hold us, feed us, protect us, nourish us, and comfort us.

Yet with all this other stuff in our lives, it’s easy to push our present needs for this same love into the background. Fear is the absence of love…and we buy into that emotion much more often than the sweet surrender of love.

Most likely this is linked to our original DNA programming to fight or run when we sense a threat. When we live from that mode of existence, there is no room for love. In fact, when we come from a place of fear, we ask these types of questions, “Am I loveable?” “Do I need to change something about my self so people will love me?” “Does that person love me the way I love them?” We could go on forever in this circular devolution of self worth but when we look to our most genuine self that is whole and pure and perfect and abundant and infinite…we realize there is only love and it is ever expanding and ever available because WE ARE LOVE!

So here are 5 easy steps to bring more love into your life:

1) Spend some time in stillness & silence every day – meditate, get quiet, shift your heart and mind out of conversation and into surrender.
2) Wake up, acknowledge the magnificent love of the universe and remind yourself you are part of it by affirming out loud I am safe. I am loved. I am love.
3) When you feel “less than”, give someone love, send someone love, text a kind word, email a loving sentiment – flowing love to others can get you out of that stinking thinking and into appreciation mode very quickly.
4) Remember the power of your ripple – the love you flow RIGHT NOW will continue to reverberate forever, so start the flow.
5) When you are sad or feeling unloved, open your chest wide, extend your heart, and let the universe swoop in and cradle you in its loving arms

You are so worthy of being loved – so read this poem by Hafiz translated by Daniel Ladinsky:

Saints Bowing In the Mountains

Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear.

For as you talk of God, 
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.

I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.

Speak to me of your mother,
Your cousins and your friends.
Tell me of squirrels and birds you know. 
Awaken your legion of nightingales—
Let them soar wild and free in the sky.

And begin to sing to God. 
Let’s all begin to sing to God!

Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear…

Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!

And share this with everyone you know…email it, forward it, tweet it, post it on Facebook, shout it from the mountains!!! Remember the power of your ripple.

In the meantime, I’ll see you in the gap! Peace. -davidji