I chose the name of my blog to be Love.Life. with intentionality. First and foremost, I LOVE the word Love and everything about Love. I love so many people, groups, organizations, places and things. I am a fan of love and doing all things with great love. Love is the most natural expression of who I am in the world. To me love IS what life is about. For me, Love is what makes life meaningful, colorful and joyful. It is one of my favorite things – loving people, loving moments with people, feeling love, giving love, receiving love. Just love. The point of my blog is to help my readers get back to love, to help you love more, feel love, have love and in particular love your life.
Consider the feelings and emotions that love carries with it – feeling loved, cared for, safe, happy, peaceful, contented, hopeful, joyous, excited, and so much more. There are tons of love songs and songs about love, books on love, movies about love stories, it is a very pervasive subject in our society. What’s not to like about love? Well, the downside of opening your heart to love is being rejected, not being treated well, failing in relationships, getting hurt or your heart broken to name a few of the top risks. Love even in platonic friendships can be risky because even friends can use or exploit you. To be able to love and love freely and deeply carries risk with it. That is a fact of life.
When children are very young, unless they are neglected, abandoned, or treated badly, they are just full of love, openness, curiosity and wonder. As children grow up long before adulthood, they most often experience some hurt, embarrassment, shame, and rejection and as a result they begin to shut down or close off their heart. To be an adult and have your heart wide open, to live life full of curiosity and wonder, to risk failing, to give love openly despite the inherent risks is a lovely way to live life. It is a powerful way to live life. It is how I live my life. Is it how you are living your life?
We have all been hurt in life. Some of us more than others. Many of us have experienced serious trauma, betrayals, exploitation, and worse. And that leaves many people jaded, with trust issues, and more than a little wary of other people. There is a lot of sadness, loneliness, and isolation in our world today. Bad things happen to people. Life is messy. Life is hard. Life can be excruciatingly painful. And then there’s your reaction to life.
By the Grace of God, and I do mean that literally not figuratively, I have not only survived deep difficulties and traumas, but I have come out the other side with my heart intact, able to feel love, be loving, and still have my childlike wonder and excitement about life. While I simply am not able to discuss all of the difficulties and traumas in a public forum, suffice to say that I was told that I would be scarred for life and that I would not come out of it “okay”.
Hence, I promptly went into psychotherapy to figure out what the damage was, if I had any therapy issues, and get tested for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), Dissociative Disorder (or something like that), etc. Imagine my surprise, no shock, when the therapist said early on that I was “the polar opposite of a person who walks through the doors of the practice for therapy”. I was very surprised to learn that my religious beliefs were one of my strongest coping mechanisms! I didn’t know that religion or a strong belief in God could be a way to cope with life. I was released from therapy in short order after the PTSD and Dissociative testing came back negative and it was determined that while I am still in a trauma, that I have the skills and abilities to deal with it. It is a miracle that I have not only survived the difficulties, but have come out a better person because of it. It is a testament to God and God’s Love for me that I have made it through so many hardships and can be happy, loving, and full of energy and a zest for living.
I make no bones about the fact that I am a better person for what I have been through AND I would never wish it on anyone else. Like flowing water softens a sharp rock, going through periods of suffering can make you more loving, more compassionate, more generous, more understanding. The operative word here is CAN. For many people weathering life’s difficulties does not make them become better people. It hardens them or makes them suspicious or jaded. I want to take you on a journey of love and healing where you can heal yourself from your past and whatever happened to you and open yourself to love and having love in your life.
If you believe that you can move from point A, which we will call tolerating life or getting through the day, to point B, which we will call engaged and loving your life, then you will be able to take the actions and make the changes to move yourself from point A to point B. Equally as important if you believe that you cannot change your life – you will not be able to. I am speaking about your belief system and what your beliefs are. The beliefs that you have in either your conscious, subconscious or unconscious mind are running your life whether you realize it or not. How your mind works, in particular the conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind will be the subject of a future post because that is too much ground to cover in this post. The bottom line is you can only get what you believe you can have or what you believe that you deserve.
For some of you, particularly if you have low self-esteem (another topic of a future blog post), to begin to say or think that you deserve to have love, to be loved, or to have a life that you love is a leap that you might not be able or willing to take. And, I am asking you to do that anyway. Religion is all about faith! Faith is defined as either complete trust or confidence in someone or something or strong belief in God or in the doctrine of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. I am asking you to be open to changing your life for the better because that is why I am here. That is what my blog is for. It’s for you.
And quite frankly, it’s your life. If you are happy with it the way it is, then you don’t need to do a thing. And even if you are unhappy with your life, you can go on being unhappy with your life. It is, after all, your life. It is my assertion that we either grow and develop through a trauma, bad event, accident, health issue, natural disaster, or other unplanned situation OR we grow and develop by choice. Sometimes it happens both ways. In either case, in this instance I am asking you to take on your own growth and development in an intentional manner for the purpose of ramping up your life to have more love, more fun, more freedom and all the benefits that Love has to offer.
So, here’s how it is going to go – or at least this is the plan at this moment in time. I will be taking you on a journey about love and life with the stated intention to help you move to a point where your life is full of love and you love your life. On a weekly basis I will be posting blogs on a wide variety of topics that all relate in some way to loving life. My blog posts will cover a wide variety of topics including self-awareness, emotional quotient, empowerment and time management techniques, books that I love, a good bit on health because it is difficult to love your life if you don’t feel well, and so much more (more details in the About Me post). I know it can be scary, uncomfortable, and disconcerting to begin this process, but I promise you that it is going to be well worth it. I would assert that there is nothing more valuable that you could be using your free time or your energy for.
A few points worth mentioning. I am not into perfectionism at all. Therefore, there will be typos, grammatical errors, improper sentence construction, and likely some points that do not come across well or cause confusion. And you are welcome to point out all of my imperfections in the comment section. I will not be upset. There will be homework assignments in some posts for those of you who are committed and dedicated to having your life go a different way than the trajectory that it is presently on. And they will not be hard assignments, but the ones that I feel are necessary for you to create love, happiness, joy and contentment in your life. For you to love life. I request that you post any questions or just comments on this blog in the comment section because that is the best way for you to get a response.
I want you to join me on a delicious and FUN ride of self-discovery where you take back your power and create a life that you love. A life where you can feel the full complement of emotions and know how to feel all of what life has to offer both the good stuff and the not so happy stuff. It is powerful to be able to grieve sadness. Being able to grieve a loss is part of the process that allows you to get complete and create something new. And grieving is not something that we in society is very good at or something that we talk about much. And sometimes we in society are just not so good at expressing love either.
Point of order: If you happen to know some of the hardships that I have faced in the last few decades, please do not include that in your comments as there are very serious reasons why I am not addressing some things that have happened to me. Full self-disclosure, I am not a therapist nor do I have any psychotherapy training although I have done a lot of research on the subject of psychotherapy. If you are depressed or contemplating suicide, please call your local mental health hotline or 911. Nothing that I express here can be considered medical advice as I am simply sharing my personal experiences with you.
Thank you for visiting my blog! Hopefully you will be able to sign up to receive any new posts by email. I leave you with my love for you even though I might not know you. I leave you with my most heartfelt desire that you have a life that you love. I hope you will play with me in creating something new for yourself!
Love,
Lisa
