12 HOLDING A SPACE OF LOVE

"The best exercise I know to practice and strengthen your ability to hold a space of Love is to close your eyes and allow yourself to become quiet. With your awareness focused inside, think of that which inspires in you the clearest, strongest, most powerful Love you are capable of feeling… "

"What if I feel nothing?" he interrupted.

"In my workshops, Richard, I often ask the question, 'Do you remember a time when you looked at the way people around you lived their lives and asked yourself if things were supposed to work this way?' The majority of people answer a resounding 'Yes!' When quizzed further, virtually everyone says they remember knowing life was about Love , caring and support . Each then recounts how they cut themselves off from Love .

"Each generation of children is seduced into giving up their experience of a world based on Love . They exchange this for a world controlled through fear, anger and manipulation. They are often taught that this tradeoff is the only way to get 'things' and 'be successful' in the 'real' world. The ancient Aramaic teachings warned us to be careful that we do not allow ourselves to be 'conformed to this world.'

"Often, if we allow ourselves to fall into the world's ways we cut ourselves off from Love . It then feels like a void when we first attempt to return to the experience of Love, as we do in this exercise. If you continue to practice, over time , the experience of Love will grow.

"Once you feel Love , imagine yourself intensifying it until it fills every cell in your body. The next step is to open your eyes and imagine extending that Love out through your eyes to someone or to some situation in your world.

"Another step is to enfold yourself in that Love and, when possible, look in a mirror as you do. Invest some time in this exercise and soon you will find Conscious, Active, Present Love will become a part of your vocabulary and your life!"

When Richard first called me, he was on his way out West to start a new life. Now he asked if a simpler solution might not be to just move on. "After all," he thought aloud, "if there is no one to trigger the pain , life is fine."

For many people the geographic cure is an option, but it is only a temporary solution. The problem with the geographic cure is that we take ourselves and our whole reality structure with us and attract similar situations as a result. Running away does not work because the painful reality is carried within the person running. The only permanent solution is to understand and heal what is at the root of the reality structure causing the pain. Holding a space of Love while the underlying reality surfaces is how we heal.

KEY THOUGHT—The Commitment on the back of this book is a major key in the healing process. It is a set of tools that show how to develop a space of Love in relationships with self and others.