February 2016: Understanding the Dimensions of Love

Love! We use this word and it means so many different things…One dimension of love that has been of interest to me as of late is my ability to be within a state of love without expectations. It is a self-study for me. I am examining what it is like to recognize love within myself, within different situations, and to honor it…to honor the love that Erica is within/feeling as a complete experience. In other words, this love within me is happening, is true, regardless of what is happening outside of myself, within another person, or in the dimensions of a situation.

By learning to recognize love within myself, something very endearing is happening. I am finding this a very sweet, human, vulnerable state within Erica that I in turn am loving! 🙂 In other words, watching myself experience love, without external validation, has turned out to be a very fulfilling experience for me. As though I am watching myself love, and loving that I am loving!

This is not the kind of love that creates a bubble around you of euphoria that you then guard so no one can “kill your buzz” or “burst your bubble.” This is the kind of self-love that is nutritious and makes us all better members of the community, family, and society. This is the kind of love that frees us from the ridiculousness of the mind chatter and egomaniac-ism. This is the kind of love that frees us into the glory of our beauty, of our strength, of our clarity.

I invite you into this possibility. One of the magnificent things about this internal love-journey I am embarking on is that it does not stay contained. Nothing ever stays where you put it! Not thoughts, not feelings, not words, not actions. Once they are born, they are part of the universe. And so by harvesting, by feeling and recognizing love within myself, and then enjoying the internal harvest of it, its nectar and special nutrients, I, in turn, am experiencing ease, patience, radiance, and energy. This month I invite us all into an internal, wild, self-love affair, daring to love ourselves without the bubble.

~Erica