Ingredients of lovesenergy
Below are the qualities or ingredients for lovesenergy. I don’t want to claim this is the right number or that it’s ‘the truth’, (even though I use words like truth and reality quite often in the text below). Of course also the name lovesenergy is just a name I came up with. Not important how you name it, more important how to practise it. Adding these ingredients to your life can help tremendously to overcome difficult problems and consciously move through changes in your life, so you can learn from them and come out a more awake, wiser and happier person. There are many other ways to do this of course. If you have found one that suits you then that’s great and there’s no reason to replace it or add to it unnecessarily.
However, if you would like to get started with the ingredients for lovesenergy, it has the greatest chance of succeeding when you do it according to the 'drops of love' –principle. It means that you steadily apply little drops to your life, in ways that are described below. You only have to think about it to begin with it. Again and again. Slowly but surely you’ll have more of this energy in your life. But remember: every beginning is difficult....!
Acceptance
The energy of acceptance gives rest and stops resistance against a truth that just is. Acceptance means that for now, you totally accept what is here now. Through accepting, you can take an honest look at what the situation is like for you in truth. Because all the energy you invested in resisting or trying to change the situation, you can now use to calmly and without stress or haste, see, feel and understand what exactly is going on. Sometimes even, acceptance itself is already enough and the situation changes for the better. In that case, experiencing the situation, without fighting it, already is enough to let the necessary change happen. And another time come to see that the change you wanted wasn’t the best for you after all. Then there are also times when you’ll have to learn to accept that you just don’t know for now and all the feelings thát brings in you, so you can be patient until you do know. The art here is not to force things, not to rush when you’re continuously accepting reality.
Pitfalls:
- Acceptance can be exaggerated. For example, when you use acceptance to close your eyes to an unacceptable situation.
- Acceptance does not entail judgement. Acceptance is something other than approval.
- When you see your judgements and then push them aside, then that action shows you’re not accepting your judgements.
- Acceptance doesn’t preclude change, it creates space for it.
Patience
Patience acknowledges that everything you come up with in your mind doesn’t come out of your hands immediately. Patience takes into account the journey and not just the goal. Patience gives you time to enjoy somewhere along the way, instead of running form one goal to the next.
In a culture where we mainly learned to think and less to observe what’s really happening in and around us (actively instead of passively), we are inclined to come up with solutions when we see a problem. Not to say it wrong to conjuring solutions, but when that happens directly, before calmly looking and listening, a lot can be missed and we’ll continuously be busy executing our fabricated solutions. This costs a lot of energy and can lead to creating more problems. The only appropriate ‘action’ when faced with a problem actually is to practise patience. It can be very hard to do nothing when you’re used to take immediate action. It can feel as though it can’t be good (because, why else would you usually go through all that trouble?).
Also, when you know (or especially when you know) what to do it is tremendously important to have patience. In this society, we are used to instant satisfaction. Just think about food, luxury, television et cetera. When it comes down to our own transformation or processing of the past, there is no such instant satisfaction that we’ve grown accustomed to. Practising being patient with ourselves is one of the loving things we can do. Sometimes a growing consciousness and acceptance already is sufficient to create the space that is necessary to let change take place. Patience then is needed to allow that change to happen.
Pitfall: sometimes it is good to learn to take action, i.e. in situations where you’re not accustomed to it or have been fearful.
Space
(Spaciousness, empty space) Through accepting what is and practising patience towards change space arises. Space in your head, space in your life. Within this space change can take place. This space used to be filled with resistance against truths of the present (i.e. already wanting to be ‘there’) and actions to force solutions. It can be very tempting to want to fill up this ‘new’ space with new actions or making plans that will speed up the natural change processes (or plans that will prevent changes from taking place). This actually has a reversed effect, because then there is no more space to let the change happen.
Space is always present. The problem here is very clear: if we think we don’t have space, we think too much and/or do too much, without first making contact with space. Making contact with space can be brought about by meditation. You can become aware of the space that’s around your thoughts. Even, when you can look quite calmly, you can see more and more space in your thoughts and they can even ‘evaporate’ in front of your eyes. Because we are very identified with our thoughts (or mind), it can be quite scary to make contact with space. It is unfamiliar and frightening and can therefore bring about resistance. To experience this resistance with acceptation and patience makes that you can release it and allow space to come into focus. Space offers an opportunity to the self healing principle of your body, but also to new insights, new and unknown possibilities. Space makes you receptive to those.
Pitfall: experiencing only space or emptiness can point to dissociation from thoughts and feelings.
Receptivity/Openness
From this mental spaciousness (whether or not it is supported by space in your life through a meditation practice) you can open yourself up and allow yourself to become receptive to some unfamiliar energies you never had your focus on before, which may seem new, but have always been present. You become receptive for new wisdom, new insights and possibilities. These are always present and you can always contact them, but if you’re busy executing plans or assignments or worrying about something, your focus is somewhere else. When you accept the situation, patiently observe and watch from spaciousness nothing stands in the way between you and new insights. You can receive them now. Be unprejudiced in your openness. Let whatever comes come, get to know and don’t respond. Don’t shut out possibilities, be unconditional. With an unconditional approach you’ll be truly open and receptive. In this way you can receive new insights and possibilities that enable you to let the change happen more easily and that help you cooperate with a change for the better.
Pitfalls:
- When your head is full with thoughts about solutions there is no space and of course no receptivity.
- Being too open and receptive can become scary. When you’re that open, potentially éverything can réally touch you. This can be quite overwhelming and letting in too many stimuli (that really touch you) is not good for your peace of mind. To protect yourself you can practise becoming more open and receptive in an environment you won’t be influenced in (i.e. nature or a silent and private place).
- Once you’re in such a safe place, don’t steer your focus or what you are receptive to.
Unconditionality
To be in a state of unconditionality means to be, without conditions. In receiving truth there’s no place for conditions. Truth needs space to appear in. When you look conditionally, you’ll see a reality that’s been in some way altered by you (i.e. limited, distorted, fabricated, etc.). These possible realities that you think of, often originate from hope or fear or a mixture of these two. It isn’t easy (nor handy) to just open yourself up unconditionally to the entire unknown. Start with yourself. Learn to be unconditional with yourself. In doing so you can benefit from using the other qualities of lovesenergy. Be unconditional towards yourself and accept everything you encounter and see in yourself. Don’t try and alter anything, but be patient, give yourself space and receive your emotions, thoughts, sensations, inner battles et cetera in that space. Bear with yourself. Look upon your inner being with the compassion that naturally arises when you look with acceptance, space, patience, openness and unconditionality. Also observe your judgements and give them space too, don’t resist them, accept them and be patient. When you feel a natural need arising in you, satisfy it (like putting on a sweater when it’s cold, crying when you feel tears welling up). Also accept it when you’re not immediately able to take care of yourself, for whatever reason (sometimes it takes a while to get to know your own needs).
Pitfalls:
- Sometimes when a person you love behaves ‘badly’, you can look the other way or smooth things over, in an attempt at unconditional love. In that case, you can let people cross your boundaries (a little, but sometimes a little more each time) to protect the other person from the pain that stopping the ‘bad’ behaviour could bring. When you look at this with lovesenergy you’ll also unconditionally acknowledge crossing of boundaries when you see it, whether it is yours or someone else’s, without judgement, but with acceptance of that truth also. So this isn’t a case of ‘love blinds’. In this way you can set boundaries derived from insight and you’ll no longer let others walk all over you, without loss of unconditional love for yourself and others.
- When something ‘difficult’, ‘scary’ or ’ugly’ arises in you and you want to escape it, you apparently still have set up (a) certain condition(s). The condition could be, for example: I only want those insights that come with a pleasant feeling. You then run away from parts of yourself or situations that could be really valuable to you. Unconditional receptivity is a very brave state of being.
Consciousness
What is consciousness? It’s the ultimate self. It’s that which consciously ís. The observer knows that thought is being generated, that there are feelings, that there’s interaction, and those are happening within consciousness, observing, knowing, seeing, thinking and feeling are still, no matter how subtle, actions. We live in this consciousness. In it everything happens. Often we identify only with a fraction of what’s happening in (and is being born of) this consciousness. We actually are that consciousness also, we’re just usually not aware of this. Such a fraction can be all kinds of ‘personal’ manifestations. It can be your thoughts or your feelings or the self image you have (built up by thoughts): your identity. It can be your professional identity, your gender, your culture or an identity derived from it.
Sometimes you can identify with your work or even your whole office. In this case, when something goes wrong, you’ll be personally bothered by it. This is a very good illustration of the fact that actually, there are no boundaries between ‘I’ and ‘other’, duality is an illusion, but in this way, the experience of this doesn’t contribute to happiness. This is because you’ve limited your consciousness to a narrow identification and an idea (or set of ideas) you have about how things should be. It’s an oppressing state of being and in it; you’re constantly busy to make everything run smoothly, which is very tiring. It basically leaves no time and space to live, let alone enjoy life. You’re too busy making sure this does happen and that doesn’t.
And what about illness, loss or an unknown emotional burden you carry? Ideas about how things should be narrow your consciousness down to how exactly those ideas and so you can remain stuck in trying to set things ‘straight’, make things different or denying the truth. This also costs energy and gets in the way of living your life from a good feeling about ourselves and the world. Therefore, be consciously aware of your being, without action and then observe the rest. Be aware of the space you experience when you are just present for a while, without the ‘doing’. This last part isn’t so easy by the way, with all the automatic thinking going on. You can begin with: do not consciously add fuel to that fire.
Pitfall: Sometimes your ‘trying to get to’ that state of just being conscious, ‘trying to get to being by doing a lot (inside your head). 'Trying to get to something' already implies an active state, that generates a lot of extra movement, for example in the form of thinking.
Unambiguous
Lovesenergy is not multi-interpretable. If you’re still in doubt about something, then there’s still something in the way and lovesenergy still ‘says’ no: you’re not getting a clear direction. When you then attentively keep applying the qualities of lovesenergy, especially at those times when doubt arises, it will get clearer and unambiguous. Often the right choice or change for the better is a step towards something unknown to us or a step away from the expectations of our social environment. Sometimes we’d rather not take these steps, because we’re afraid of unknown consequences. In this case, lovesenergy can help again. It lets you accept your fears, allows you to remain patient with yourself until you are ready to take that step (or leap) or it gives you space to take baby steps. It gives you whatever you need.
And when you appear at a standstill from the outside, you’re actually not still with lovesenergy. You’re busy clearing out lots of inner anxieties or other feelings that Block you from your happiness. It could be that in some cases it isn’t necessary to take any outward action. Maybe the confrontation with the choice is already enough to release you from a restricting inner burden. Whether you take a step or not, when you’re ready to take a step will be clear when you look with the help of the ingredients of lovesenergy. It’s about feeling free(r), that’s the most important. Not if you live here or somewhere else, have a job and what kind. It’s about living pleasantly, how is then of secondary importance: a logical consequence of living from lovesenergy. When you live from lovesenergy life is easier and flows more.
Pitfall: sometimes something seems unambiguous, but it is still attached to one of your judgements, or some other extra information. Therefore, when you’re getting messages and truths through your observation, try to let them become as short and naked as possible, stripped of any extras from your mind. Spend some extra time observing with that intention to see if it changes.
Natural effects:
Compassionate caring
In the process of allowing lovesenergy into your life, more and more you’ll see that many things are moving by themselves, without your efforts. Your attitude towards life slowly but surely changes as does your attitude towards yourself. Becoming aware of lovesenergy gives you space, acceptance of yourself and patience to receive all that you are unconditionally. Now you can also see what you need. With a new attitude you are better able to nourish yourself on any level (the chakra system can help you to map out your different needs to make it easier to take care of them).
In learning to take better care of yourself you also patiently accept it if you don’t know how yet, if you can’t yet or if your needs aren’t clear to you yet. You simply do what you can, out of true love of yourself. Knowing this will relieve a lot of restlessness in your body and mind. As you observe your thoughts in lovesenergy, you are also caring for yourself in allowing them to just be there, without trying to change them. You let your thoughts come and go more and more, attaching less and less.
Trust
Through giving space and continuously patiently observing, without resisting what is, you’ll notice that (some) things change by themselves. Sometimes what changes is your attitude and sometimes it is the reactions you get, other times it is your thoughts themselves that change. Sometimes you all of a sudden feel the need to do something that you never came up with before. There’s an intuitive knowing that guides you in the right direction. You’ll act accordingly quite naturally. Often things change in another way than you would think and insight in the change processes often come unsuspected. The experience of allowing the change process to happen and the growing realisation that the changes will benefit you (r body and soul), gives you trust in the natural scheme of things. And by following your intuition, you’ll get more confidence in yourself. Your body and mind learn to trust you’ll provide them with the best care you know of and as best you can. This gives you an indestructible confidence, you can truly trust yourself.
