A Return To Love

[heads-up that this is a more vulnerable piece about my spirituality journey]

beautiful world from my room window

Following up from my last post, I'm writing this to express a return to love. The last post might have seemed like a frustrated one, but I assure you it's not. Even anger is a shade of love. Anger that comes from a place of fear or ego, is very much different from anger that comes from a place of love. How else are we to empathize with those who are mistreated and taken advantage of? Our anger on behalf of them is an intolerance towards violence and injustice, and is an act of compassion in itself. I have to constantly remind myself, whenever such a feeling starts to creep in, any feeling at all which we might mostly consider 'negative', to sit with it, feel it fully, and let it out healthily if I have to, and all the way, because to pent it in would allow it to latch onto us and so we'd be carrying it around for days, and risk letting it consume us.


That being said, this return to love I refer to is the tender side of things. With many things such as those that I wrote about in the last post often filling my mind, and though anger over such things still comes to me often, I'm thankful that I manage to protect my constant inner calm and joy through it all (except for that one week I stayed depressed and cloudy right after election day haha). While some might interpret this as self-centeredness, I wholly believe that if I don't care for myself inside first, I would be too weighed down to contribute to my fullest through any external work I do, no matter how hard I try. So important is the quality of energy in me and of my thoughts; it spreads out into everything I see or do or experience. It's the same thing with love. Fill yourself up with it first unconditionally, because there is SO much love already around and within us just waiting to be realized and tapped into, and probably so many subconscious wounds developed and conditioned onto us from childhood and society that prevent that realization and are asking so badly for healing. And once you fill your own cup, it is truly the most beautiful experience to watch it overflow to everyone and everything around you, completely effortlessly. You see things differently, literally La Vie en Rose, and this can happen daily, continuously, every moment, if only you'd allow it. Love is what we were made of, most of us just get lost at some point growing up in our lives; all we have to do is return to our true selves.

As a side note, if it interests you (because I can be a geek on this stuff), there are several documentaries and books out there providing scientific evidence - cue quantum physics - on how energy and thoughts and consciousness affect the physical realm around us, so feel free to search those up!

Anyhow, I've been hesitating writing this here because of how open it is, but no harm could come from me expressing my heart and truth, about experiences that have meant a lot to me and helped me grow into someone I never previously saw myself becoming. If any of this sharing helps you at all in the slightest, I would feel humbled and honored at the same time. And of course, if ANYONE reading this has a story of their own to share, I would genuinely love to hear it. That's what we do as humans anyway - we live life to tell it and aid one another's growth.

I'm not sure where to start because internally it's been a wild ride over the past year. I guess it started with me randomly starting to follow guided meditations on YouTube late last December as a casual way to relieve exam stress. I found it relaxing and so continued. Then I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (highly recommend) as recommended by my mom and some friends at school. I then started some casual Law of Attraction practices and was astounded to find I could manifest into reality a lot of things I desired through efforts in visualization. I never actively continued these practices though for a couple of reasons, but I did continue with guided meditations and yoga. My family had Buddhism as their religion which generally acknowledges all spiritual beliefs as long as they bring peace and love, so maybe that contributed to my openness in pursuing and learning about these things. Anyway, some months of meditation after, I began to grow increasingly aware of signs and synchronicities that kept happening to me which I believed more and more could only be coming from the universe itself, just because of how incredibly specific and recurring these signs were, and often too good to be true. I went through a couple of odd life situations, but these signs would always occur to remind me again and again that I was supported, protected, and fully blessed by the universe, as long as I followed my intuition, which can never be wrong as long as it comes from a clear place of love. This comfort was immense to me. By now I have a few pages in my journal of a list I keep of synchronicities every time one happens to me - I write it for memory just because sometimes they happen in the most unbelievably amazing ways that I want to remember them forever, but it's also a good way for me to acknowledge my gratitude for them on paper. I guess they could definitely be called miracles too.
Simultaneously I was also working on self-love. A few life events triggered me to wonder if I needed to fix myself more inside. Realizing this doubt, I became hooked on wanting to fix this internal 'flaw', so I tried a number of self-love guided meditations, all of which helped, but eventually one in particular was so powerful that it caused me to break down haha and - this might sound 'woo-woo' to you I understand - opened up to me a chasm within myself I never knew I had. It guided me to forgive myself for many things I used to hate myself for, and so to fill that chasm with love, and nothing but love. The most amazing part of all this I think was that, I had always lived my life thinking I loved myself enough and that I was confident enough etc., but how wrong I was! So much insecurity and even guilt and denial were lying in my subconscious just needing to be healed. And when I allowed myself to forgive and heal, I felt almost reborn, and so whole and complete. It was really something to walk out the house every day after that to start noticing that strangers on the street would be smiling at me, or randomly offering me favors - random things that turned out to be simply the material reflection of all the new love I had found within me and filled myself with. We all have it in us; sometimes a door just needs opening.

And now going back to where I left off in my last post, I do believe that solutions to the world's problems are only effective when there is a mass rising of higher consciousness in play; it is already happening more and more in this generation, even starting to be marketed in social media. When more individuals open themselves to this consciousness and this real possibility of a depth-less love, how can we continue to want to live or lead others (if some become leaders) in ways that bring harm to other people or to nature? Our empathy for one another would be so great, we would see past one another's differences - gone would racism and transphobia and religious frictions be - to realize that we are all one at the core, that to hurt others or to hurt the earth would be to hurt our own selves. So all of humanity would flourish through this in harmony, and even IF not enough of us will, Mother Earth would still ultimately be fine once/if we our species goes extinct - that is my utopian hope.

In case you're interested, I normally draw inspiration and lessons from some amazing influencers (on Instagram and YouTube) like Leeor Alexandra, Aaron Doughty and Hitomi Mochizuki, as well as my dear friends and my parents. In fact I pay ten bucks a month for Hitomi's spiritual content mobile app haha because it is just so worth it and she has taught me so much about how to live life. To share some of my favorite relevant books, I highly recommend The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Love Wins by Rob Bell, Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain (my current favorite!), and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I suppose all are appropriate for everyone regardless of religion or lack thereof. After all, what religion opposes anything that is rooted in love?
Here are some pieces I've saved from online, or that friends have shared with me, that I really resonate and agree with:

To elaborate on this, so true! When was the last time you spoke honestly though you felt scared? The last time you told someone something they did upset you, or the last time you told someone you were interested in them? Speaking your truth is never the easiest and I have mad respect for anyone who does so! Life gets more fulfilling the more authentically we live it.

 

yes even my own conversations inspire me haha. He was telling me I'd get into the course I wanted (which at the time was a really slim chance) if I believed hard enough. You bet I believed. Even if I didn't get what I wanted in the end, that would also have been part of the universe's plan.

The universe only wants to give us the best, though it may not always seem like it on the surface level. Everything's a process for our highest good, if we choose to believe it. We are and will always be exactly where we are meant to be at, at the right time.

If you resonate with any of this, I'd love to know so hit me up through Insta-DMs or anywhere! And to friends and family who have always listened so engagingly and supportively whenever I would ramble in rapture about these things, THANK YOU! You know who you are and I am so grateful. Sending love to everyone reading this.