Be the One to Love First

I just updated the About Me section of my patriciacontenelson.com website and decided to share the update with all of you.

As an Interfaith Minister, I am passionate about the spiritual path we walk together.   I am  dedicated to staying conscious of the Truth that the life force in us is the Divine living and breathing in us. It is my intention to continually remember and help others to remember that we are here to awaken to our Divine essence, to our true nature, to our connection to all that is, to one another, to our oneness because the Divine that is in me and you is in everyone. What we do to others and to our planet, we do to ourselves.

Let us be the peace, the love and the change we want to see in the world. It starts in our own hearts, in our way of being and living with one another.

Whoever is reading this right now, I invite you to walk this path with me. Together we can extend love to the world, one person at a time. That’s how we begin to heal the world by being the love we want to see right where we are. Have you been looking for others to love you first before you’ll commit to loving them just the way they are? I invite you to be the one to love first.

 

Freedom on this Independence Day

What can we declare ourselves free from today on this Independence Day?

We can declare ourselves free from the constant need to do more, be more, get more and deal with what is at hand right now in our lives, which is lack of inner peace.  That is what is under the need for many of the “mores” in our lives.  What is it that we truly want?  Ask yourself that.  For each of us, it will appear to be different on the surface, but under the initial question of what do I want is another question.  What is important to me in my life?  Why am I here?  What do I want my life to stand for?

Is it freedom – freedom from what?  Many will say freedom from stress.  What drives stress is the “be more, have more” attitude that has infiltrated the culture in many places unless you are in a country where your very existence is threatened by no food or war all around you. Then your desire is for freedom from that.  That is about survival.

In the case of many people, it is not survival that has captured our attention.  It is having  more money, more peace of mind, more happiness, all the things that seem to mean something to us.  But then ask what is under that need.  It is a need to be liked, approved of and loved.  We want to be loved and cared for and to care about something or someone.

Many do not feel loved enough and that stems from lack of self-love.  We don’t like ourselves because it is this self that drives us to be more so we will like ourselves.  It is a vicious cycle so what do we do about it?  We be here now in the midst of it without trying to dull our senses with some addictive behavior we use not to feel our feelings.

Most of the time we want to fill up that feeling that feels like a hole inside of us.  It feels like pressure but that is what emptiness feels like.  It is pressure and we want to get rid of that feeling of pressure and be enough.

How do we do that? Just be with it without trying to push it away.  Pushing it away is a killer.  It only makes it stronger in us and then we want to escape from that and we push harder.

The next thing to do will show up.  You will do it, and the feeling may or may not still be there, but it doesn’t matter.  It will just be there as it is; and you will or you won’t be aware that it is there.

Can you feel yourself wanting to do something, to get busy?   Good observation.   Just be aware of it.  That’s all.  Letting it be there is true freedom, not thinking there is something you have to do to be more. You can be at peace in the middle of the feeling of unrest. You can be free exactly where you are, as you are.

Please feel free to make comments about this writing.