Love...On Purpose

"As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: 'What do I really need right now to be happy?' What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way." - Sharon Salzberg

So, what do you really need right now to be happy?

This is very insightful as it speaks to reflecting on all of the feelings and experiences of the journey called life. In this journey called life, there will be many different kinds of feelings and experiences – love, joy, elation, excitement, as well as sadness, dismay and even anger and resentment.

We are called to live lives of joy, peace and love. Think about what you are feeling right now. If you are not feeling joy, peace or love, then ask yourself why not. Then set about the work of changing that so you are living a life of love, peace and joy.

Living in love, peace and joy does not mean you will not experience things that cause you to feel sad or angry. What it does mean is that you can still have joy, love and peace in your heart in spite of those not so pleasant events that happen in life. Whatever happens, you must never lose your joy or your peace. And above all, never lose your willingness to love on purpose.

Season of Nonviolence - Day 34

Welcome to Day 34 of the Season of Nonviolence – 64 Days of peaceful wisdom honoring the lives and nonviolent principles of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez.

Nonviolence begins with learning how to be less violent and more compassionate towards ourselves. We learn by building the courage to speak and act with respect, honor and reverence for our own being.

Eleanor Roosevelt has urged, "You must do the things that you think you cannot do." Practicing these 64 Ways will challenge you to do things that you think you cannot do.

Day 34: LOVE

Gandhi wrote, “Nonviolence is based on the assumption that human nature ... unfailingly responds to the advances of love.”  

 All the great texts encourage us to "love your enemy."  The ancients understood that this is where the creative energy comes from.  An enemy does not have to be life-threatening or violent; an enemy can just be a thought that gets us to look at something in a different way.   Consider the power of befriending someone you previously thought was an "enemy".  In a conflict, rather than putting your energy toward winning, see what channeling that energy toward a loving, nonviolent solution can accomplish.

Today:  I will focus on what I can find to love in the person I like the least. As I meet people during the day, I will reflect on how love can enhance the relationship. 

Love Purposefully!

During one of my Artist Dates, I had a lovely epiphany. I want to live more in love than in fear. Brilliant, huh? Well, yeah okay, what I mean is… I want to operate my entire life, including my coaching practice, in the love realm. The more speaking engagements I do, the more workshops I conduct, the more students I teach, the more clients I coach, the same issue always comes up: what blocks your living a life of passion and purpose? FEAR.

In my leadership coaching, I teach leaders how to love those they lead. However, this should not be confined to just those in traditional leadership positions, but to anyone who is in the position to influence someone. Guess what? That’s everyone, including you! When we can focus on loving, I believe there will be no room to focus on what we fear. And as I mentioned before, fears will always be a part of our stories, but they should not be to paralyze us, but to bring us to a new awareness. Fear means that something exciting is about to happen.

So are you wondering how do I teach people how to love? So glad you asked! Four simple words: Love as a verb! We need to wrap our brains around loving as something we make a conscious choice to do. Love is not about how we feel; we need to act our way into the feeling. When we behave lovingly, the feelings will come. Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the Church Fathers, said: “Love is the effective willing of the good of the other.” Fancy, yes? Simply put, we choose to behave toward the other for their good. We want only the best for the other, acknowledging the other as other.

We can sometimes get in the habit of lumping groups of people together and classifying or labeling them; those people, that group. Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote, "When you label me, you negate me." We must see each person as an individually-made expression of the Divine. This is part of our purpose, to recognize that we are uniquely made expressions of the Divine and live that to the fullest. When we live this, fear has no hold on us; we only operate in love.

Lovely epiphany? I think so. I look forward to your epiphanies and your comments on my epiphany. Take yourself on an Artist Date and dream. You never know what the Universe has in store for you.

Live purposely in love,

Love On Purpose

"As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: 'What do I really need right now to be happy?' What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way." - Sharon Salzberg

So, what do you really need right now to be happy?

This is very insightful as it speaks to reflecting on all of the feelings and experiences of the journey called life. In this journey called life, there will be many different kinds of feelings and experiences – love, joy, elation, excitement, as well as sadness, dismay and even anger and resentment.

We are called to live lives of joy, peace and love. Think about what you are feeling right now. If you are not feeling joy, peace or love, then ask yourself why not. Then set about the work of changing that so you are living a life of love, peace and joy.

Living in love, peace and joy does not mean you will not experience things that cause you to feel sad or angry. What it does mean is that you can still have joy, love and peace in your heart in spite of those not so pleasant events that happen in life. Whatever happens, you must never lose your joy or your peace. And above all, never lose your willingness to love on purpose.

Love... And Do Whatever You Want

“You will never be commonplace if you are vigilant in love.” ~ Elizabeth of the Trinity

What would your life look like if you just love? I don’t mean the warm fuzzy feelings; I mean love as a verb. 

To love is to be patient, to be kind, to be tolerant of others, and to not hold wrongs against anyone.

What would your life look like if you lived this kind of love every day?

Think about it. Now, think about it some more until you can get comfortable with the idea.

Are you getting comfortable?

So, just for today, go out and love – as a verb!

“Just as a flower gives out its fragrance to whomsoever approaches or uses it, so love from within us radiates towards everybody and manifests as spontaneous service.” ~ Swami Ramdas

Just Love!

Love all that has been created by God,

both the whole and every grain of sand.

Love every leaf and every ray of light.

Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, 

love every separate fragment.

If you love each separate fragment, 

you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Mask of Fear

“Love is always kind. Fear is always unkind. With fear we are full of obligations, full of expectations, with no respect, avoiding responsibility, and feeling sorry. How can we feel good when we are suffering from so much fear? We feel victimized by everything; we feel angry or sad or jealous or betrayed.

“Anger is nothing but fear with a mask. Sadness is fear with a mask. Jealousy is fear with a mask. With all those emotions that come from fear and create suffering, we can only pretend to be kind. We are not kind because we don’t feel good, we are not happy.”

~ From The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz

My favorite book tells us that love is patient and kind. Because fear is the opposite of love, then fear has to be unkind and impatient. When we are not operating in love, we must be operating in fear. This is the hypnotic trance we are in most of the time. This is what leads to all the suffering.

Just for today, take off your mask of fear and reveal your true self.

The Unlearning of Fear

"Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts." ~ Marianne Williamson

In our Western society, it seems that most of the choices made, whether consciously or unconsciously are out of some sense of fear. What if all of our choices were made out of love? What would that look like for ourselves and for our world?

We tend to live in this nebulous world of fear, doubt, shame, guilt and the like. I say nebulous because in the end, nothing is gained from those emotions – only more of the same. There is no settling, no peace.

We must unlearn fear and the easiest way to unlearn is to re-member and accept love. As stated, love is what we are born with. Love is who we really are. Unfortunately, we have given into this trance of day to day life. Again, this is choice; a conscious choice or an unconscious choice, it is still a choice.

I say choose love. Let us accept love back into our hearts.

Just start with this one moment.

Love yourself.

Got Love?

I saw a billboard that said, “Perfect love casts out fear!” Now, I know that to be Scriptural, so I liked seeing it on a billboard. The mind cannot have two simultaneous thoughts. 

So, when you are thinking loving thoughts, you cannot have thoughts of fear. Fear is not a thing; it is the absence of a thing and that thing is love.

Just for today, think and do love – and you will have no chance to fear.

Season of Nonviolence – Day 34: LOVE

Welcome to Day 34 of the Season of Nonviolence – 64 Days of peaceful wisdom honoring the lives and nonviolent principles of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez.

Nonviolence begins with learning how to be less violent and more compassionate towards ourselves. We learn by building the courage to speak and act with respect, honor and reverence for our own being.

Day 34: LOVE

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Teresa

We are constantly judging those around us. While we may be conscious of not being judgmental with our friends and family, we often continue to judge 'others' based on their ethnicity, physical appearance, or beliefs. How often do we unconsciously condemn the driver who cuts us off in traffic with expletives rather simply responding to the situation? These judgments arise from the fear of harm, just as a more subtle version of that fear motivates our judgments against people we perceive as different from us. Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves is a practice that allows the light of love to overcome these fears.

Gandhi wrote, "Nonviolence is based on the assumption that human nature…. unfailingly responds to the advances of love." 

Today, focus on what you appreciate most about the person you like the least.

Be mindful of where your unconscious fears lie. Notice what triggers your anger and judgment responses. Contemplate or journal about the fears behind these reactions. Resolve to practice love and acceptance when these situations arise.

From A Season of Nonviolence

Love Yourself… On Purpose

"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end." ~ Author Unknown

I have noticed that it is easy for women to say they love someone – a significant other, a child, a pet, a dear friend, and the like. Yet, how hard is it for women to say they love themselves. Because...well, do they? I dare say they do not.

As women, we are our own worst enemies. We beat up on ourselves worse than we would allow anyone else to be beaten up on. And yet, we are constantly looking for love. Now I ask? How do we receive love from another when we have difficulty giving love to ourselves?

In my twenty plus years of working with women’s groups, I can pretty quickly tell when a woman does not love herself. She puts out a vibe that screams quite loudly – at least to my ears. This is the woman I want to be around the least. And guess what? Did you ask ‘what’? Well, no one else wants to be around her either! So there!

Oscar Wilde once said, "To love oneself is the begining of a life-long romance."

So for this lovely Saint Valentine’s weekend, STOP, TAKE A BREATH, and ASK:

“Who am I?”

When you don’t know who you are, it is very difficult to fall in love with yourself. When you can get in touch with who you truly are, a whole new world opens up to you; a world filled with lots of expression of love.

Blessed and lovely Saint Valentine's Day!

Coach Carolyn

You cannot fully love yorself if fear is keeping you stuck and stressed out. Check out my Transcending Fear Online Mentoring Program. Doing this is truly loving yourself.

Love Is As Love Does

“We are not responding to this instant, if we are judging any aspect of it.
The ego looks for what to criticize. This always involves comparing with the past.
But love looks upon the world peacefully and accepts.
The ego searches for short comings and weaknesses.
Love watches for any sign of strength.

It sees how far each one has come, and not how far he has to go.
How simple it is to love, and exhausting it is always to find fault, for every time we see a fault we think something needs to be done about it.
Love knows that nothing is ever needed but more love.
It is what we all do with our hearts that affects others most deeply.
It is not the movements of our body or the words within our minds that transmit love.
We love from heart to heart.”

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Manifesting Peace Through Love

"Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it...it's just easier if you do." ~ Byron Katie

This is one of my favorite “Katie-isms” and one of the most difficult to wrap the mind around, especially if we live in the ego-mind. I love the idea that everything happens for me, for my benefit, to make me the best that I can be.

Once I got the idea that I didn’t have to like everyone but that I had to love them, life just got lovelier. And remember, love is a verb; which means I can just want the best for them and leave them to their higher power. It is not my job to police the universe. It is mine to love.

Love and do whatever you want,

Coach Carolyn

Women in Transition’s Peace Ritual

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." ~ Albert Schweitzer

I know I always say this, but I will continue to say it. Last evening’s Women in Transition gathering was the best ever! It was a wonderful group of women who came together to share deeply on their memories of September 11, 2001 and the lasting impact it had on their lives. Then we lit candles to those memories, honoring the memories as touchpoints for life. It was a very powerful ritual as the women shared things that were never reflected on before.

After our opening song and sharing, I read out the famous quote from A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This quote sparked a lot of conversation. In the candle lighting ritual, I wanted us to be reminded that we are a reflection of the light shining from those flames. That light burns brightly within each and every one of us. When we give light to someone else, it takes nothing away from our light, only causes it to burn brighter. Lighting another candle does not diminish our own light. Being light not only extinguishes the darkness but also fear. Love and fear cannot co-exist, just as light and darkness cannot co-exist. We have the power to choose love or fear, light or darkness. May we choose wisely.

One of the wonderful lessons that came out of that very awful and tragic day was that it gave us as a nation permission to grieve publicly. One of the things we are taught from the beginning is to suck it up and bear it. This is absolutely bad advice for a human being; for a robot or non-human, maybe. As a human being living a fully authentic life, part of that authenticity is honoring all feelings; realizing that they are just feelings, they are not who you are. Feelings are not facts, as the slogan goes.

At this gathering, we gave ourselves permission not only to grieve and to remember, but to completely honor the process, knowing that we come out stronger with more courage and confidence. Of course, I believe that any woman that walks into a room full of strangers and can bear her heart and soul is already courageous and confident.

One of my takeaways from the evening was that going through any life altering event brands you with the responsibility of journeying with another along the way. If you have had a significant loss, you are now a teacher to guide someone else through that kind of experience. We do not experience grief, loss and pain just for its own sake; there is a reason for its presence in your life. You now become light to someone who is in the darkness of their own grief and pain.

Look for the lessons and the blessings of each experience, especially the painful and traumatic ones. Our tendency is to just ask “Why is this happening to me?” then curl up in bed and pull the covers over our heads. Yes, that is an option. Another option is to question each experience: “Why are you here?” “Why are you here now?” “What do I take from this experience?” Then just sit with the questions. Do not look for the answers; the answers will come when you are ready to receive them.

Women in Transition Groups meet every second Thursday of the month at the Elizabeth Seton Women’s Center. When you are ready for the process and need guidance with your dimly-lit candle, come and join us to help brighten your own light.

Shine your light and live in peace,

Coach Carolyn

Lessons on Love and Fear

During one of my Artist Dates, I had a lovely epiphany. I want to live more in love than in fear. Brilliant, huh? Well, yeah okay, what I mean is… I want to operate my entire life, including my coaching practice, in the love realm. The more speaking engagements I do, the more workshops I conduct, the more students I teach, the more clients I coach, the same issue always comes up: what blocks your living a life of passion and purpose? FEAR.

In my leadership coaching, I teach leaders how to love those they lead. However, this should not be confined to just those in traditional leadership positions, but to anyone who is in the position to influence someone. Guess what? That’s everyone, including you! When we can focus on loving, I believe there will be no room to focus on what we fear. And as I mentioned before, fears will always be a part of our stories, but they should not be to paralyze us, but to bring us to a new awareness. Fear means that something exciting is about to happen.

So are you wondering how do I teach people how to love? So glad you asked! Four simple words: Love as a verb! We need to wrap our brains around loving as something we make a conscious choice to do. Love is not about how we feel; we need to act our way into the feeling. When we behave lovingly, the feelings will come. Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the Church Fathers, said: “Love is the effective willing of the good of the other.” Fancy, yes? Simply put, we choose to behave toward the other for their good. We want only the best for the other, acknowledging the other as other.

We can sometimes get in the habit of lumping groups of people together and classifying or labeling them; those people, that group. Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote, "When you label me, you negate me." (I love the Kierkster, as I affectionately call him) We must see each person as an individually-made expression of the Divine. This is part of our purpose, to recognize that we are uniquely made expressions of the Divine and live that to the fullest. When we live this, fear has no hold on us; we only operate in love.

Lovely epiphany? I think so. I look forward to your epiphanies and your comments on my epiphany. Take yourself on an Artist Date and dream. You never know what the Universe has in store for you.

Live purposely, in love,

Coach Carolyn