Last June I had a week that for some reason stood out and sparked something in me that even now I don't quite understand. At the time I'd been working with a therapist for about six months and that had been really fruitful in seeing myself more clearly and being able to better manage the anxiety that had plagued me for the past decade or so. I think about what else was going on in my life around that time and it's difficult to put a finger on specifics. David and I had met with a lovely woman who acts as a guide (shaman) for people's journeys with plant medicines, as that was a path that David had found very helpful and healing and after reading some books (How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan, Supernatural by Graham Hancock, and The Immortality Key by Brian C. Muraresku) I felt like it was something I was ready to engage with. During our first meeting with her, she recommended that I do an energy session with her in preparation, just to kind of dip my toe into "this sort of thing." At the time I was skeptical because I'd not done anything like that, but I leaned into my value of Openness (more on that later) and agreed to it. Because of the books and also having this intention in mind, I think I was in a unique headspace for me.
I had a chance that week to offer some practical service to people in my circle of influence. A family member of a friend was having surgery and I offered to bring them dinner, which ended up being a pretty great feast from a Brazilian steakhouse. I'm not any sort of cook, so it felt nice to give good food that was in my capacity to give. Additionally, an extended family member of David's had some medical stuff come up with one of their children and I was able to pick up their younger child and care for them for a few days, freeing them up to attend to their older child and those medical needs. I had also been able to reach out in support of a friend whose dog had been killed in an accident. All of these moments of connection combined to fill me with just so much love. I didn't feel any sort of "wow, I'm so good because I'm so serviceable," but rather like there was this strong LOVE operating and I was lucky enough to be caught up in it. It was such a beautiful place to be. I felt loved at the same time that I felt like I was looking out from love. The phrase that kept running through my mind was "flow of love, flow of love, flow of love." It resonated on a deep, deep level.
So doing what I tend to do--RESEARCH--I typed it into Google. Nothing particularly notable came up in the top hits, but a little ways down something caught my eye and I followed that link. It was a personal blog sort of article and the author mentioned the book The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. "Oh! That's the book my brother mentioned a while back when we were talking on the phone as having been really eye opening." I got on the library app and it was immediately available as an audiobook, so I started listening that day.
I don't know of a better way to say it other than to say that this book caused a key shift in my worldview. It really opened my mind to the understanding of the energy of emotions and thoughts in a way that I hadn't thought of before. The way he talked about getting stuck in the energy of past emotions/experiences because we were too afraid to actually face them really resonated with me. It reminded me of something I'd discussed with my therapist, which is an analogy of living in a cave looking out at life. In this cave I'm protected from the storms and the unpleasant weather. But I'm also not experiencing the sunshine and the fresh air and the beauty of the world. You can't live walled off only from negative emotions/thoughts/feelings/experiences. The walls keep EVERYTHING out, positive and negative. For a while, we feel better because we aren't getting hurt to the same degree as we used to. But eventually we will probably notice that life doesn't feel like it has all that much to offer. Unfortunately, most of us don't know what to do at that point. We are still so fearful of the bad stuff. Michael Singer has an extended analogy of building a house that is actually over time developed into a fortress and living inside there with no light eventually except from a small hand crank kind of flashlight that we have to expend all our energy keeping this tiny light going, when what we really need to do is leave the house where there's a continual and insanely bright source of light just there all the time for us to bask in.
I could go on with teachings from this book that were seismic in my understanding of my self and life, but really I just want everyone to read it. I'm sure it won't resonate the same with everyone, but I was ready, apparently, and I will be forever grateful that it appeared in my life when it did. The way I described it to people I recommended it to was that it takes the Wisdom of the ancient traditions and puts it into contemporary language and forms so that you don't have to feel like you need a dictionary/glossary or historical framework to understand the ideas.
All this to say, this was what I see now as a first step into what I've come to think of as entering into the flow of love.
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