Love and Openings

What about love and Openings?

Love Everywhere

Love is referenced in many ways. Its meaning has been diluted by this ubiquitousness, but its strength endures. Love is foundational to our existence. The word is used by people both rarely and often. It is everywhere and it is elusive. What is love and how does it relate to us?

Love is a complex blend of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors shaped by our biology and life experiences. People show and experience love in different ways designed to foster connection, care, and mutual support. Love has been described as a strong feeling of affection and concern toward another person. It  is recognized in groups as a feeling that is shared by them through common experience and affection.

Beneath all its forms—eros, philia, storge, agape—love is a reaching out beyond ourselves towards someone or something that lends weight and meaning to our life. It is the force that enables us to cross the  boundary between ourselves and the world—like the lobster, to shed our shell and grow beyond it. (Psychology Today).

So Many Parts

There is so much to love. Love transcends the everyday. It brings us to elevated states and expands our thinking and emotions in positive ways. It lifts us and moves us into higher aspirations. A state of love can be a state of bliss. We pursue it, misunderstand it, want it, deny it, run from it and hold on to it once it is gone.

Love can be misused and distorted by our own misinterpretations and manipulations. It never changes its true form, but we mangle it by calling things that are not love by its name. Love has opposites that are prevalent in our world today – hate, aversion, enmity, hostility, cruelty, malice, neglect, indifference and apathy. Love needs our reverence and care to show us its true power.

Love heals and it hurts. It is a complex emotion, especially when we bring our own expectations and experiences to it. Its power is undeniable. Honoring love and its place in our lives and the world expands us. It is a journey to understand and experience love on the many levels that it exists.

Love and Openings

Where do Openings come from? Ultimately, from love. As aids in our journeys, as challenges that help us grow, as doors to healing and opportunities. If we look at Openings from this point of view, they are benevolent, even when they present trials for us. Whether they are welcome or not, if looked at as coming from love, Openings can be transformative elements in our lives.

When we prioritize love in encountering Openings, our point of view changes. Openings as messages of love. They arrive to help and nurture us. The support we need will be there. They may ask a lot of us because we are capable and can rise to them. If love surrounds us, our journey is better. We are better. The power of love triumphs overall. It is time that we know the power of the heart.

Let’s test this out, by looking back and preparing for seeing love in our next Openings. Take an Opening that was recently encountered. Was love present? How did it show itself? If not present, look again, was it was there even if not seen – did it show up? Prepare for encountering love in the next Opening. Consciously look for and acknowledge the presence of love in Openings. Acknowledge love when it is seen. Keep love present when you think of Openings.