Universal Love

Where there is love, fear has no power.

I love this quote. It’s been rolling off my tongue lately.

What happens when you experience fear in a relationship? In making a decision? In your life? The instinct is to match that fear with fear — it sounds crazy and really counterintuitive, but it’s often the natural reaction.  

What would happen if, instead, that fear was diffused with love?  

If you noticed the fear and said, “Ah...I see your fear and I raise you love.”  And what if  you could start that in your own life first? Say, with someone in your life who is “creating angst” for you?  Or who is “making you feel” uncomfortable for whatever reason?

Or in some situation where the instinct is to recoil, push away, become passive aggressive, and just simply avoid in fear.  What if you looked at the person/situation and said, “Ah, I see you are afraid, and I love you.  In fact, I love this. I love everything about this.”  

The trick though is that you have to mean it.  You have to really FEEL it because the Universe knows when you’re faking it.  I mean, I guess you could fake it for a little bit; but you would have to want to make that your reality in some moment in time.  The point is, don’t lie; the Universe knows.  
 

The next step would be to look outside your own life and then begin loving the things that, well, you don’t.  Say for example, the political climate, our messed up laws, the violence, the people in charge, the Earth and her suffering, the education system, the institutions that are crumbling. What if you loved those people and those things even though it went against everything you THOUGHT was “right”? What if you perceived those situations as a test for you to just love more?

It’s challenging, I know. To love all, as all.
To love another as we would love ourselves.

Here is the problem: We are a judging society and we see each other as separate. Not only that , but we think there is some place to “get to” in our lives. Someone we must prove something to, something we must “do,” something we must be. The illusion is the plan we have for ourselves and the people we think we must please. This takes us away from love.

The only truth is that all we must love. That is all.

So then I wonder what would happen if we just did that. Yes, in our lives, but outside our lives, too. If we stopped resisting and fighting against what might happen. And what if we looked at ALL THE WAYS we were doing this: resisting love, that is, or acting out in fear. What would happen then?  

Wow...just think about it.

Here’s my truth about Universal love:

Universal love is the natural beating of your heart in time with the pulse of Mother Earth. It’s that moment in time where you hear the trees speaking to you in gratitude. You feel the waves and the sand and you know you came from that place and it’s there you will return. It’s the second you look up from your life and see other people as you. You see into their eyes and acknowledge their existence and they beam. And if they don’t, you still see them and you still love them. You continue to love them – no matter what. You are not afraid of dying because you know that you are dying in every moment so you can become whole again.  

We were born to love many and often.  We have been taught to eliminate people from our lives once we are “in love” because, well, when we find that mate, aren’t we supposed to forsake all others that may create a threat to that union?  But is there really a threat to that union or would more love from outside that relationship actually create more love within it?
 

And loving many or “outside” doesn’t mean you’ll be unfaithful, either. True love is moral, with a high sensitivity to the good of one and all, and ample self-discipline. It’s not — decidedly not — driven by whimsy or selfish desire.

Here’s what else I know about Universal love:  

As a mother, I do not divide my love between my children...I love them both fully and wholeheartedly. It doesn’t get smaller when I spread it around, it actually expands.

And enjoying intimate, sensual love with a partner does not mean I cannot love others. Quite the contrary; the love I receive in that intimate exchange actually fills my cup and I can love more. And the trust and love that is created in that giving and receiving in love creates a stronger bond between us both. I find this to be an interesting fact that most of us forget.

It’s because we think that if we love, we will get hurt. We will be abandoned. We will lose. We will miss out. But when we constrict that love...we only create a ripple of constriction, in our own lives and universally.

And here’s one more thing I know to be true about Universal love:  

When we love ourselves, really love ourselves, we begin to only notice love outside ourselves. Meaning we pay attention to and become magnets for … love.  We choose to love everything about ourselves, so we can love everything outside of ourselves. And that mirror we look into only reflects love.

Here’s the real deal...love doesn’t get smaller when we spread it around — only bigger. So please love and then love more.

• Love yourself.

• Love your family.

• Love your friends.

• Love your lover.

• Love your past...especially the ones that hurt you.

• Love what is uncomfortable .

• Love what makes you cry.

Sit in anything that you THINK is not love long enough until you feel love. Then magically, it becomes as natural as breathing.When love is allowed to respond to life fully, freely, without preference or selective withholding, that’s true agape.

Dana Damara