Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
Bonus Chapter Living in Love
This sky where we live Is no place to lose your wings So love, love, love. Hafiz
state. Now that you have read the book and (hopefully) have completed the exercises, I again ask you to take this inventory of your current emotional condition. Please complete it as honestly as you can, using the following scale: 0 = almost never 1 = rarely 2 = occasionally 3 = frequently 4 = much of the time 5 = almost always
1. Regardless of what is happening around me, I know I am a lovable person. 2. Even when facing significant challenges, I trust I will weather the storm and be okay. 3. I care for myself through healthy choices that reflect my intrinsic self-worth. 4. I am comfortable spending time alone without feeling lonely. 5. I am able to set healthy boundaries with the people in my life. 6. I have peaceful relationships with my parents, siblings, and family members. 7. I trust my intuitive inner voice, even when others attempt to discourage me. 8. I am comfortable with my body image. 9. I can handle rejection without questioning my core worthiness.
In Chapter 1 of Free to Love, Free to Heal, I asked you to complete a questionnaire that assessed your emotional
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
10. I recognize and acknowledge my unique talents and am at ease in expressing them. 11. Although at times I may experience episodes of anxiety or sadness, I know that these are passing moods that will resolve. 12. I am authentic in my most intimate relationships; I am not leading a double life. 13. I can effectively communicate my needs to those in my life. 14. I am passionate and enthusiastic about what I am doing. 15. I do not harbor disappointments, grievances, or regrets. 16. I am in tune with, and accepting of, my biological appetites and needs. 17. I am comfortable giving and receiving affection. 18. I enjoy my sexuality without limiting inhibitions. 19. I respond to feedback with an openness to improve and without accepting anothers perspective as unquestionably accurate. 20. I am inherently trusting and trustworthy in my relationships.
Total Points
Compare your current tally to your original score. Having identified, mobilized, and consciously discharged toxic feelings and beliefs from your body, heart, and mind, you will notice a substantial improvement in your lovability score. If you have a few moments, we invite you to comment on our blog and describe how your life has changed since beginning the Free to Love process. What is working for you and in what areas do you still feel challenged? What old patterns have you let go of? Are you now experiencing more spontaneous moments of gratitude and joy? Have you felt empowered to make any changes in your relationships or work? Are you discovering a deeper connection to your spiritual self and purpose? Are you finding it easier to extend compassion to yourself and those around you? Be gentle with yourself as you reflect on your growth and remember that this planet is a school for the evolution of the soul. If we already knew everything, there would be no reason to attend classes here. By doing the deep emotional healing work in Free to Love, you have already completed an advanced course. You have learned valuable lessons from your painful experiences and have broadened your capacity for compassion and humility. The intention now is to continue expanding your sense of self and your capacity to give and receive love in your life.
Loving the One Youre With
Imagine that you love someone with every cell in your body. Mothers often feel this way about their baby or young child. Lovers may experience this level of affection in the early stages of their romance when the drug of
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
passion is at its greatest intensity. You may feel this way about a beloved parent who was a constant source of support and encouragement. If you can feel or envision this expansive state of lovingness, you will recognize that it is possible to care for someone so much that your only desire is for that person to be happy. Now consider how you would feel if you could embrace this level of love for yourself. Although youve probably been taught since before you can remember that while loving and serving others is good, self-love is selfish, Ive learned that those people who can genuinely appreciate their own individuality, with all their socially acceptable and unacceptable qualities, are the most capable of genuinely loving and serving others. If you loved your individuality as much as a mother loves her children, what choices would you make in order to create a life of health, happiness, love, and purpose? You might imagine that, like a devoted mother, youd want your beloved children to take good care of themselves. Youd hope that they would eat healthy foods, get enough rest, and avoid dangerous situations and substances that could be harmful. You would encourage them to associate with intelligent, creative, and compassionate people. You would encourage them to find their passion in life and develop skills that would allow them to create material abundance while doing those things they enjoy the most. Youd want them to have a life rich in abundance, love, purpose, and freedom. These are the experiences we would all like to have, and my hope is that you now believe you deserve them.
Fulfilling the Human Intention
More than five thousand years ago, ayurveda, the ancient instructional manual of human life, elaborated the four primary human intentions that lead to fulfillment. These are known in Sanskrit as artha, kama, dharma, and moksha. When you consciously translate these four intentions into choices in your life, each of your days will be filled with new experiences and new understanding. Lets look at each of them. Artha Artha means material abundance. On the most basic level, it means having enough food on your table, a roof over your head, and clothing to keep you warm. Many people spend an enormous amount of energy in pursuit of material abundance, only to discover that the goal theyve been chasing consumes their life and love. Our current global challenges reflect the artha intention gone awry. In our relentless pursuit to fill our emptiness through acquisition and consumption, we have been depleting our environments natural resources and heating up our planet. And as consumers became obsessed in biting off more than they could digest, we have collectively contributed to the recent implosion of the worlds economies. An awakened being understands that the essence of abundance does not result from accumulation but from creativity. Knowing that you are an expression of the creative power of nature, you fulfill the intention of artha by nurturing your creativity. The Vedic tradition of India offers a story about a young man who goes in search of the secret of abundance. After many months of travel through dangerous countryside, he meets a rishi a spiritual master and asks him if he knows the secret to creating wealth. The sage pauses and looks deep into the young mans eyes, then says, Those who seek abundance must choose between two goddesses. The first is the Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi. She is generous and beautiful and when you worship her, she may, for a time, bestow her treasures upon you. But she is a notoriously fickle master who may capriciously withdraw her support without warning. The other choice is to worship Saraswati, the Goddess of Wisdom. Saraswati wants devotees who authentically seek knowledge, understanding, and artistic delights. If you venerate Saraswati and dedicate yourself to wisdom, Lakshmi will become jealous and try to capture your attention by showering you with wealth and abundance.
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
As a being of love, you deserve and are capable of creating abundance in ways that enhance your happiness and contribute to the harmony of your community, society, and ecosystem. As more and more people learn to celebrate their innate lovability, our collective need to consume, exploit, and deplete will diminish. Kama Kama is the intention to create and sustain harmonious relationships, in which the flow of giving and receiving are in equilibrium. Loving beings who are consciously connected to their bodies, hearts, and minds quickly notice when their relationships are moving out of balance and make adjustments to sustain and nurture them. Too often, I see people desperately attempting to fulfill someone elses needs while neglecting their own. The inevitable consequence is that they become exhausted, resentful, or sick. A depleted well cannot quench anyones thirst. In any relationship, there will be times when you give more, and other times when you receive more. If you or a loved one is going through a difficult situation (such as illness, divorce, loss), the flow of love in one direction may seem disproportionate. In truth, giving and receiving are different forms of the same energy. Still, even if you are in the role of caring for another, recognize that your ability to support someone else depends upon you taking good care of yourself. Relinquish the belief that you must sacrifice your vitality to serve the people in your life. Remember that you serve others best by being grounded, balanced, creative, and abundant. Now that you know the basic skill set of conscious communication (Free to Love, Free to Heal: Chapter 9), be certain that your heart is open so that you remain in the nourishing flow of love. This means disallowing the accumulation of emotional ama by staying attuned to your own needs and the needs of those in your life. Dharma Dharma is the essence of your individuality. As the universal field of pure potentiality manifests as individual expressions, each being is a reflection of the whole and, at that same time, brings something unique to the world. This is the essence of dharma that everything and everyone has a purpose in life. Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud said the two most important elements of a healthy life are loving relationships and meaningful work. We can reframe that as wholeness and dharma. One of the most important responsibilities of parents is guiding their children to discover their true dharma. However, even if you did not receive this guidance growing up, you can begin to access the realm of dharma by quieting your inner dialogue and asking your heart two questions: 1) What are my natural talents? and 2) What do I most enjoy doing? If you are seeking clarity about your dharma, take a few minutes after each meditation to ask these questions and listen to your hearts response. As you gain insight into what your heart and soul are longing to express, you will notice that what youre doing to satisfy your own needs also serves those around you. Moksha Moksha is freedom. When you analyze any choice you make in your life, you will see that in the end, the intention underlying it is the hope or expectation that you will expand your freedom. Some freedoms take us to a new dimension the freedom to be happy, the freedom to be creative, the freedom to love. Some freedoms lead us away from bondage freedom from abusive relationships, freedom from pain, freedom from mundane work. The ultimate freedom that we carry in seed-form deep in our soul is the freedom from a constricted sense of self. Although we spend a lifetime creating and refining an individual personality, our soul remembers that our essential nature is the expression of the infinite. The movement from constriction to expansion generates unparalleled exhilaration. We move toward freedom within when we quiet our minds in meditation and glimpse the expanded field of
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
awareness that underlies our thoughts, feelings, and choices. We move toward freedom in the outer world when we make choices that are likely to bring us greater joy and lightness of being. Actions that make us feel heavy and deaden our natural enthusiasm bring us closer to the grave. Actions that lighten our hearts bring us closer to enlightenment.
Nurturing Your Body
Our bodies have relatively simple needs. We need nourishing fuel, rejuvenating sleep, and regular activity. Loving parents ensure that their children receive proper nutrition, enough rest, and regular exercise. Since you are now willing to lovingly care for yourself, this is a good time to consciously fulfill your bodys basic needs. Having written hundreds of thousands of words about health, I can now summarize everything I know in a few paragraphs. Nourishing Food Long before the United States Department of Agriculture began calculating the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) of nutrients, the human body innately knew what it needed to be balanced and healthy. The ancient healing system of ayurveda reminds us that our bodies are always trying to tell us what they need to be healthy and vital including the specific foods we need for our unique mind-body type or dosha. According to ayurveda, we can make nutrition simple by ingesting the healthiest sources of six major taste groups: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent. If you ensure that throughout the day, you ingest foods from each category, you will maximize your bodys potential for health and well-being. Favor those sources at the beginning of each list, while reducing or eliminating those at the end. Sweet Sour Salty Pungent Bitter Astringent Grains, pasta, breads, nuts, dairy, oils, sweet fruits, starchy vegetables, fish, poultry, meat, sugar Citrus fruits, berries, tomatoes, tart fruits, vinegar, chutneys, salad dressings, pickles, condiments, alcohol Table salt, fish, meat, seaweed, soy sauce, processed foods Pepper, cayenne, ginger, garlic, onions, leeks, chilies, radish, salsa, basil, thyme, cloves Green and yellow vegetables, green leafy vegetables Beans, legumes, peas, lentils, tea, cranberries, pomegranate, apples, green leafy vegetables
The second most important component of a healthy diet is listening to your bodys signals of hunger and satiety. This means only eating when you are unmistakably hungry and stopping when you are satisfied (but not stuffed.) The easiest way to stay in tune with your need for food is imagining that your appetite is a gauge, where a 1 on the dial means you are famished and 10 means you are completely full. Pay attention to your internal signals and only eat when youre close to empty (level 2) and stop eating when you are at about 70 percent of capacity (level 7). Remember that food is for nutrition. Continuing to eat after the point of satiety overloads the digestive system, resulting in a build-up of toxicity in your physiology. Including all six tastes each day and listening to your appetite are the two essential elements to lovingly nurturing your body.
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
Appetite Gauge 10 (stuffed) 9 (uncomfortably full) 8 (overate) 7 (satisfied) 6 (almost satisfied) 5 (no hunger awareness) 4 (could eat) 3 (definitely hungry) 2 (very hungry) 1 (hunger pains) 0 (completely empty) Eat at level 2. Stop at level 7.
Restful Sleep It is difficult to be loving if you are tired. In fact, becoming recalcitrant, irritable, or withdrawn are signals our bodies generate when we are fatigued and need rejuvenation. Restful sleep provides the foundation for a healthy body and mind. Here are a few basic suggestions to ensure that you are receiving enough rest. Aim to be in your bed with the lights out between 9:30 and 10:30 pm. If you are not used to getting to bed this early, move your bedtime up by half an hour every week, until you are in bed by 10:30. About an hour before bedtime, run a hot bath into which you place a few drops of a calming aromatherapy essential oil such as lavender or sandalwood. As your bath is running, perform a gentle massage on your head and feet using sesame, almond, or an herbalized oil. After your massage, soak in the warm tub for ten to fifteen minutes. Keep the lights low or turn them off and burn a candle. As you luxuriate in the water, listen to soothing music. After your bath, drink something warm and soothing, such as a cup of warm milk with nutmeg and honey, chamomile tea, or valerian root tea. If you mind is very active, journal for a few minutes before bed, downloading your thoughts and concerns so that you dont need to ruminate about them when you shut your eyes. Read inspirational or spiritual literature for a few minutes before bed. Avoid dramatic novels or distressing reading material. Do not watch television or work in bed to avoid activating your mind and stirring up thoughts that could keep you awake. When you are ready to go to sleep, close your eyes, lie quietly on your back, and consciously relax your body starting by bringing your attention to your toes, then moving up your legs to your trunk, arms, and head. Notice any area where you are holding tension and let it go.
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
Then simply observe the slow, easy inhalations and exhalations of your breath until you fall asleep. Move Your Body Energy flows freely in a healthy body. As we become increasingly interdependent with technology, it is easy to go through an entire day without using many more muscles than those responsible for typing on a keyboard, moving a computer mouse, and pressing a car accelerator or brake pedal. In the same way that loving parents ensure that their children get off the computer and out of the house to play, loving yourself requires a commitment to move your body. Self-loving behavior includes daily conscious movement to keep your body flexible, strong, and fit. There are three primary components to a complete fitness routine: flexibility enhancement, strength building, and cardiovascular conditioning. A regular yoga asana practice can fulfill the first two aspects, while cardiovascular conditioning requires an aerobic activity that increases your heart and respiratory rate. To receive the greatest benefits from your cardiovascular regimen, most fitness experts recommend that when you exercise, after you warm up, you increase your intensity level until you are breathing hard enough that although you could carry on a normal conversation, you would rather not. At this level, you will also notice a thin layer of sweat on your body. Sustaining this pace for 20 minutes, five times per week, will help your circulatory system function at an optimal level. Combine your cardiovascular conditioning with a daily set of heart-opening yoga poses (instructions in Chapter 3 of Free to Love, Free to Heal), and your body will reward you with energy and ease. Expanding Your Sense of I Every human being has a sense of self. When we are facing a challenge in life, this sense of self tends to be constricted. If you are experiencing discomfort in your body, your world tends to revolve tightly around the symptoms that influence your immediate choices. If you are in the midst of a challenging relationship, your day-to-day reality is focused on the immediate issues that create emotional turbulence for you. Our sense of self directly affects our capacity for love. When we have a contracted sense of self, we are constricted in our lovability. As our sense of self expands, our ability to love increases proportionately. When we are in distress, our inner conversation revolves around what we need. When we have peace of mind and comfort in the body, our inner dialogue shifts from Whats in it for me? to How can I help you? Daily Inventory You now have everything you need to create a life that expands your sense of self and your ability to be a source of compassion for the world. To support yourself on your path to wholeness, take a daily inventory of your life, asking yourself these questions about your body, heart, and mind. Body Did I attentively nourish my body today with healthy food? Do I feel rested today? Have I taken time to quiet my mind in meditation and did I experience restful sleep last night? Have I given my body the opportunity to move consciously today through activities that enhance my flexibility, strength, and endurance?
Free to Love, Free to Heal: Bonus Chapter
Heart Did I utilize the skills of conscious communication in my relationships today? Have I maintained healthy boundaries with the people in my life today? Did I take myself less seriously and yet more responsibly today, allowing me to engage with others from a more expanded sense of self? Mind Have I set my intentions today with the mind-set that either Ill get what I want or Ill learn something of value? Have I been open to seeing the world from new perspectives, even those that seem in opposition to my usual point of view? Did I learn something new today that expanded my mind and generated enthusiasm?
Free to Love, Free to Live
You have all the ingredients and the recipe to make a magnificent life. Now is the time to mix them together and see what you can create. Choosing a life of freedom is a worthy pursuit that will make every day fascinating, enabling you to live in gratitude. Choosing the path of love will ensure that you always have wonderful beings around you to celebrate your accomplishments and support you during your challenges. This incarnation is whizzing by at the speed of life, and we dont want to have regrets as we approach the departure gate. As I share the final days with patients who are moving through their transition, time and again they say to me, Its all about love. Its always been about love. Love is the only thing thats real. To conclude, I offer you the words of my beloved Hafiz: Lets stop reading about God We will never understand Him. Jump to your feet, wave your fists, Threaten and warn the whole Universe That your heart can no longer live Without real love!