You may think there are different types of love. A love for this and a love for that; a way of loving one person and a different way of loving another. You may think that you love your child more than your best friend, or your husband more than the store clerk. But Love is one. It has no degrees and can’t really be separated into different forms.
Can You Love Everyone?
A very helpful approach is to consider that you can love everyone. That doesn’t mean being everyone’s friend, hanging out with someone you dislike, or allowing anyone to treat you badly. It means letting go of the judgments that define other people and keep you feeling separate from them. When you do that, you develop a different outlook on the world and yourself. This will increasingly deliver you into a state of grace and automatically create the experience of self-love, which is also the love of God.
There is no difference in what you truly are and what the love of God is. The same love that is in God is in you and in everyone. And that love is the real deal!
Blaming and Criticism Block Love
Similar to the way you can’t love someone else if you are being critical of them, you can’t experience self-love if you are busy crucifying yourself. I see this problem all the time, with friends, students, and even myself.
People can become very negative toward themselves if things don’t work out the way they want, and they blame themselves for whatever they think they did wrong. The truth is, you can’t really mess up because ultimately everything works together for the higher good.
Whenever you find yourself disappointed or unsure what to do in any relationship or situation, it is helpful to ask these questions:
Is this thought based on valuing myself?
Is this action based on valuing myself?
Is this pattern of behavior based on valuing myself?
You can also ask: If I believe that I am worthy of love, that I am complete and whole with nothing lacking, how does that mean I should think and act?
Practice: Recognizing Love
As you go about your day, anytime you meet or notice anyone, think: We share the same love. Then, when you see the next person, repeat in your thoughts: We share the same love.
Whenever any person comes to mind, repeat this mantra. This new habit will help you let go of the old thinking that distinguishes types of love.
Love flows within you eternally. It’s gentle and trusting; in love you do not feel lesser or better than anyone. Love sees the truth of connection beyond the everyday illusions of our seemingly separated condition.
When you are filled with love, you will attract loving people, loving circumstances, and loving symbols. When you see the world from the perspective of the love within, you will experience being the love of your life because you won’t see love as outside yourself.
Be willing to see love in the mirror, no matter what. Then you will find that other people naturally bring out the Holy Spirit within you, instead of ego.
One Degree of Separation
To recognize that all the love you could ever want is already in you, and has never left you, means undoing the belief in separation. As the decision maker in charge of your life, you can learn to choose love over separation, and that unhooks you from the dream that most people are lost in.
You can shine the light of love within to all your brothers and sisters by declaring: I wish you peace, I wish you gentleness, I wish you clarity, I wish you happiness, I wish you love. As you do, you’ll find that you’re also giving these blessings to yourself.
©2017 by Maria Felipe. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA.
www.newworldlibrary.com or 800-972-6657 ext. 52.
Article Source
Live Your Happy: Get Out of Your Own Way and Find the Love Within
by Maria Felipe.
Maria Felipe’s real-world approach to living based on A Course in Miracles will guide you toward a life released from fear and doubt and filled with joy and power. In nine crystal-clear chapters, Maria shows you how to banish the “cuckoo voice of the ego” and connect with your internal teacher, accessing unlimited love and strength.
Click here for more info and/or to order this book.
About the Author
Rev. Maria Felipe, a Cuban American born in Miami, found success as a model and actress before following a spiritual path that led her to study A Course in Miracles. She became an ordained minister at Pathways of Light and now leads monthly services in both Spanish and English at Unity Church in Burbank, California. Visit her website at MariaFelipe.org
