Life is and then we tell ourselves a story.
My story is that we swim in a sea of love and the only thing that is real is love. I’m saddened that so many people feel unloved or unlovable. Often people react with anger when I say only the love is real and that we swim in a sea of love because they are so desperate for love.
There is a story I love about heaven and hell.
There are two rooms. In the first room people are sitting in front of a banquet table loaded with food but all the people are starving. They have long spoons attached to their arms and as they try to feed themselves the food falls off the spoons before it can reach their face. They live in hell.
In the other room people also have long spoons attached to their arms but they are laughing and enjoying feeding one another. It is the same banquet table but the end result are very different. They enjoy living in heaven.
Where would you rather live?
Are you willing to change your story about life so you can experience happiness, joy, love and abundance? What beliefs are you still holding onto that limit you?
If you need help changing your story I still have a few spots in my coaching/mentoring program.
With love and aloha,
Susan
PS I have a Kindle that will go to one of the people who take the time to make an in depth comment . . .
this is a very clever story with a timeless meaning, it is like the old saying- a trouble shared, is a trouble halved!
Thanks Zaneta
In a third room, there are also people with long spoons attached to their arms, who reach out for this special bounty. They have realized that the giving and receiving of food, of love, feeds the spirit that lives within them. Their stay on Earth becomes a banquet of love and understanding even during times of famine.
Thanks Linda
Great story – and so true, everyone gains when we help each other.
Love your site and daily messages
Thanks Gail
I believe in this story because there are so many people in this world that feel pity in themselves and they try to bring others down with them. I believe that we do swim in a sea love because if you realize what life is really about you will find love and the joy that is in your life. Love comes in very many different forms and it is up to us to find out what love is to us. If one finds true love in life they will be happy, joyful, and peaceful in there lives now I don’t mean true love like the love that is in your life but true love in finding peace in your self by joyfulness and what you can do for others in an unselfish way. I feel that we do swim in a sea of love and you can do this by being unselfish and having the joy in your life that gives you the self fulfillment and joy that gives you inerpeace in your life.
Jamie White
Love expands, fear contracts. The more we love the more love we have to share and the more we can feel that inner peace.
With love and aloha, Susan
I recently said to my husband as he was leaving the room that “nobody loves me.” He turned to me and said, “Well I guess my name is now nobody.”
He constantly challenges me to see myself as he sees me. Just this morning, he held me and said, “You are a good person. Don’t you see that?”
I am a good person. I know that, but there is that other voice, which so many women have, that challenges that.
In the “Toltec Way”, you talked about that voice, the mitote, that circles through our mind like a broken record. Taming that voice and supplanting it with the mature voice we develop as adults is critical, but it is surprisingly hard.
It can be easy if we just refuse to listen to the old lies and tell ourselves the truth – only the love is real everything unloving is a lie. You have to reaffirm the judgmental thoughts to continue to believe them.
The question becomes – am I ready to love myself and let go of the voice of pain and suffering? If the answer is no then ask yourself how long am I going to continue to suffer? Once we empower ourselves we can choose love or fear. Heaven or hell?
Choose love,
Susan
Love is in the spaces between everything … within the molecules, in our cells and our DNA … it is the air we breathe-in, out-moving through our bodies, through all living beings, the atmosphere around our earth, inner and outer space … when it moves it carries life forms and energy with it, mixing, connecting, bringing familiar and unfamiliar together-and apart … when “Love is in the air” we feel the positive energy of being connected, being alive … it is the force of life itself, so fragile, so vulnerable, yet containing infinite power … when I learned meditation combined with breath work, I learned to visualize the “light” energy that comes in with the breath, to do healing … this is “love” … may you all experience an abundance of love and light, now and always.
Love is all there is – Isn’t it grand to feel it!
With love and joy, Susan
I spent a huge part of my life looking to others for love and acceptance. Judging others and cutting off my own supply of love and acceptance in the process. I am learning to accept myself and others and this is bringing me to the realisation that real love is self love. Not an egocentric self love but tuning into thoughts which are nurturing to the self and others. You can’t be demanding, needy and desperate for the approval and acceptance of others, condemning them all the while, while at the same time expecting and wanting love and approval from others. When you tune into self love, you automatically offer thoughts which continue to generate more of this feeling. Love is drawn into your life from within, not from desperately trying to manipulate things and events externally.
So true Tim. We most love ourselves first so we have love to share with others.
With love, joy and gratitude, Susan
Two things:
1. I taught my children that love is like a magic chocolate bar. The more they give away and share with others, the bigger the chocolate bar gets. They will never run out of love to share.
I like the idea of swimming in an ocean of love. I like that a lot! I’m going to let that just sink in and work wonders. Because… If I am swimming in a sea of love, I have no need to fear or any other needs, really. I already exist in the state I desire, it’s simply a matter now of practicing my awareness of it. This is revolutionary to my way of working in this world.
2. There is little we control in our lives, behind how we chose to respond. I choose to love.
You say that love is the only real thing. This is also revolutionary and his on what I need to learn at this stage in my journey. How do I live with these new ideas? How do I manifest this reality or wake up to it? What is clouding my sight?
Spiritual practices take practice. Just practice feeling and seeing the love and it will become second nature.
Just focus on the love and your vision will be of love.
Thanks for sharing, Susan
Love this story, surprisingly perfect timing xxx
Thank you for reminders
My pleasure Nikki, Susan
I’ve been swimming in this sea of love all of my life. Most of the time with my face in the water. When I did remember to turn my head and come up for air I found the love you are speaking of and would inhale that brief moment deeply. Since childhood I have been surrounded by people who prefer that my face stay in the water and have even held it there. It’s taken a great effort to keep my head above water and I’ve lost “friends” and “family” doing so, but I can’t hold my breath forever and the need to breathe has impelled me towards caring people like you. Discovering the Toltec way has made me realize that the air is sweet and leaving behind what no longer serves me even sweeter. I now do the breast stroke, living from my heart. Susan, your daily inspirations are an essential part of my every day. Thank you.
You can swim face down easily with a snorkel.
Just a thought.
With a smile, Susan
When our beliefs stem from a feeling of self-pity and helplessness, we live in a dim-lighted dungeon. Here, we are myopic to the love and light that surrounds us.
On the other hand, feeling connected to others around us makes our heart light up like a well illuminated cathedral. Here, we realize, that we are a part of the same family.
The way in which we perceive our relationship to the world around us decides whether we are open or closed to our inner heaven.
Thanks Sugandha.
Every day I look to my picture of a 3-year old girl. I’m laughing. I now take care of that little girl in me. She is so cute, so am I. I can feel the expectations and joy she felt deep down inside her. I’m an 48-year old and young little girl.
If that helps you love the 48 year old version of you that is wonderful.
With love, Susan
I have heard this story a number of times and although I understand its meaning, the truth is I had a lot of efforts at feeding other people and then making myself a martyr. It isn’t just about feeding other people. I worked as a volunteer, I worked in public service, I taught school, etc. I loved the people I served most of the time, but I always felt empty. There is a necessary paradigm shift that is hidden in this story. I only began to really face this recently. A teacher of mine once said to my class “all therapy is about reparenting.” Reparenting is about learning to give yourself what you didn’t get as a kid. You give it to yourself and don’t demand it of anyone else. All this time I’ve been giving to others and wanting someone to pat me on the back and say, “You’re good. You’ve done well.” I bankrupted myself to give to others continuously hoping that someone would give something to me. The thing I’ve begun to find out is this: when you give to others you must acknowledge your own good intentions. It’s important to see the spark of goodness within yourself and to treasure that. When you are feeding others, you have to seek out the people who will feed you also what you need and want and not just take anything, because you contain within you a fire and a treasure that deserves respect. If when you give, you give from a place of internal self-poverty hoping that someone else will give you what you always wanted, perhaps your own self-respect, –you aren’t really giving with your heart. You’re giving from your inner child who is hoping to wheedle others into giving to her/him what his/her parents never gave to him/her. Instead when you give, if you also seek others who will give you what is good for your self-respect (very tricky this concept), someone who validates that you have done well because you actually have done well, someone who honors your path and the particularly not yet easy journey you are on, … then you have begun to arrive. Never forget that the practice is to always begin again. Begin anew, each day, each moment is just another beginning.
We certainly can’t give in order to get … One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned was to never give of your essence only give of your over flow. When we are giving it is so important we are full of love and self acceptance then we can love and give from a full heart.
Love yourself first and then allow the love to flow though you to others.
Thanks Mira