Chapter 50: Receiving My Own Love for Peace
It is time once again to Stew on this! How is my ability to receive my own love important for peace in the world?
Hillary has been facilitating an online observance of the “Season for Nonviolence,” marking the 64-day period between the anniversaries of the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Each day there is a suggested activity, based on the principles they espoused, to help bring more peace to ourselves, our relationships and ultimately our world.
We are currently about halfway through, and it is ironic that my country is now once again at war.
Ironic, tragic, and timely, as the Season so far has been a powerful reinforcement of my worldview and deepest beliefs and principles. I would never choose to abandon any of them based on circumstances. Though my heart is deeply grieving over events, doing the daily activities is helping me hold to my beliefs and principles.
And they help a lot.
As I continue to get older and the world continues to appear crazier, I continue to gravitate toward one of those core principles. Aldous Huxley described it this way: “I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”
I have found that the best way to “change myself” is to apply blissipline toward expressing more of the Infinite Intelligence and Love that I am is. That blissipline is based on self-love. And “nurturing my human,” giving him the best and sweetest experience of life possible, is a terrific approach to self-love.
It is terrific because it does not depend on circumstances. It does not depend on how I feel about myself or the world on any given day. I can nurture my human even on those days when I don’t particularly like myself, as well as on days, like today, when I very much dislike what is going on in the world.
It is also terrific because it gives me the opportunity to practice two of the most important things in my life; two things that remain vital to me regardless of what is going on in the world: giving and receiving love.
I, like many, am somewhat better at the giving than the receiving. I intend to be a better receiver so I can be more of a peacemaker in this world.
How is my ability to receive my own love important for peace in the world? Because when I shut down to it; when I hide behind events or self-imposed labels and put limits on what I deserve, I am committing an act of violence.
Yes, thinking I know what someone deserves, me included, makes it much easier to have violent thoughts, speak violent words, and even take violent actions, toward that person.
We all have different views on the virtues of war. I hope you would agree that waging war is made infinitely simpler by determining what the enemy deserves or “has coming to them.”
When I approach myself in that way, and decide I do not deserve my own love, I find it incredibly harder to practice nonviolence and put loving, peaceful energy out into the world, as I always intend doing.
Nonviolence is an interesting word. Just as with nonresistance, which I wrote about a few chapters back, we do not have a word for it in English that describes it in an affirmative way; that doesn’t include a “non.”
Gandhi had a word. He called it ahimsa. Ahimsa is usually translated as nonviolence, but just as health is not merely the absence of disease or symptoms, ahimsa is not merely the absence of physical violence. It is a positive force that promotes love, compassion, and respect for all living beings.
Gandhi described ahimsa as a force rooted in the soul, based on cultivating an attitude of love, care, and empathy that transcends violence. It is not just moral principle; it is a spiritual practice.
Through his ahimsa practice, Gandhi transformed his own consciousness, turning anger, hatred and fear into love, care and empathy. And in doing so he helped free a nation, without his “side” firing a single shot.
I don’t know about you, but I am not willing to live on goat’s milk whey and spin my own clothing. I am not willing to go to most of the lengths that Gandhi did. But I can embrace the principle behind his transformation and bring it more to life by being a better receiver of my own love.
I have a strong feeling that Gandhi was buoyed by self-love during his process. I cannot believe he would have been able to transform his consciousness by beating himself up or by placing limits on how much love he deserved.
So, today and every day, my focus will be on taking an attitude of love, care and empathy toward myself instead of anger, hatred and fear.
For me, the state of the world is call to radical self-love, because I can only change myself, yes, but also because the energy I put out matters as far as changing things out there, and self-love helps upgrade that energy tremendously.
I can still take a stand. I can still speak and act for what I believe, which I intend doing. But with self-love, whatever words I use or actions I choose will be focused more on what I am for rather than what I am against. Or on what others deserve.
Energetically, those words and actions will then contribute to the solution instead of the problem.
In the meantime, I intend to amp up exercising my receiving muscles.
In my silent time I will breathe love in and out of my heart and REALLY receive it. In my gratitude practice I will include things I appreciate about myself and REALLY feel them. When I become aware I have withheld love from my human I will immediately affirm the Truth of my being and REALLY take it in.
My mentor Jim Sigafoose always said that the primordial subluxation, the fundamental issue in humankind, is separation between man and God.
I am fine with that terminology, but I tend to translate it to, “separation between me and Love.” Every time I give myself permission to receive my own love, I heal that separation. For myself and for the world.
Stew on that, and I will see you next time.
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