OnTheBeach – What Would Love Do Now?

This week’s article is inspired by the Beach Card of the week: “What would love do now? Remember that love is strong, not a doormat.”. I hope you enjoy it!

We’re on the last few days of our October Daily Practice. Did you laugh every day? There’s still time! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this practice, and I’ve got another fun one lined up for November – I hope you’ll join me!

To get a daily Beach Card, and to get reminders of the Daily Practice (and this month, links to make you laugh, rubbish jokes and quotes about laughter!), come and join me on Facebook.

- What Would Love Do Now? -

Yesterday I had a mini-meltdown. I have one about once a month, if ya know what I’m sayin’?! And although it was so tempting to force myself to stay at my desk and keep my nose firmly to the grindstone, my higher self intervened and advised me to finish early (20 minutes early, but hey, early finish is early finish!) Today, having come down off the ceiling, I can see that my highest self suggested the most loving thing I could do for myself in that situation. It answered the question “What would love do now?” Love, funnily enough, would not keep me chained to my desk when I was upset and struggling, it would let me go take care of myself so I can come back raring to go this morning.

But how often do we do what love would do for us? The way most of us treat ourselves is more ‘what would our evil stepmom do to us now’ than ‘what would love do’. Don’t you think that’s a bit sad? We are all wonderful, divine sparks of uniqueness and brilliance (yes, even you) and yet we are treated most of the time like we are naughty children. In fairness, that’s the way most of us are brought up. You just get on with it…until you no longer can. You bottle it all up, until you explode like an angry bottle of champagne. You keep on pushing and pushing and pushing…because that’s what we do with our lazy, bad selves.

Ouch! The weird thing is that everyone I have ever coached, and indeed everyone I have ever known responds much better to love, support, encouragement, empowerment than to being pushed to the point of exhaustion, snide comments and mean-ness. How about you? Do you respond better to loving, nurturing and confidence-building? Have you ever tried to do that with yourself? And with others? Think of a situation you are in, either just yourself or involving another person. What would love do in that situation?

And let me be VERY clear here. Love is not a pushover. Love is strong. Love is gentle but very firm. Love does not lie down and allow people to walk all over her. In an abusive situation, the most loving thing to do for yourself is GET OUT, and the most loving thing you can do for the abuser is to GET OUT. It is not loving to anyone to stay in a situation where one person is being abused and another is abusing. Love would let the abuser know that abuse is not acceptable. Isn’t that the most loving thing to do? It’s like setting boundaries with dogs, kids, friends and family. If they know your boundaries, they don’t have to try to guess what is appropriate and what is not. When strong boundaries are set (an act of love for ourselves and those around us), we can respect them (another act of love).

So what would love do in your situation? What is the most loving thing you can do for yourself today? What is the most loving thing you can do for another person today? Remembering that love is strong, gentle and wise. May love light your path ahead today and every day, may you be cradled in the arms of love all your life and may love flow through your heart, expanding your capacity to give and receive love and filling you with joy.

- Something to Play With -

In every situation you find yourself in this week, ask ‘what would love do now?’ And let me know what love would do for you – leave a comment below.

Love

Donna.x

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Feel The Love

Do you have any idea how loved you are? Do you have any idea of the depth of love you are capable of? Most of us are not aware of either – we are constantly seeking love in entirely the wrong places! We expect other people to ‘make us feel loved’…but actually all other people do is open our heart to love – the love that is already within you.

And then when they go away, we close that door up again and believe that they took the love away with them. That would be like your schoolteacher taking away your intelligence when you left school. The love is already within you – no one can give it to you, and more importantly, no one can take it away from you. Other people can and do help us to open our hearts (as can animals, sunsets, music, poetry, literature, films) but to give them the power to close our hearts is to deny who we really are.

If you want to access the love, try this exercise. Close your eyes and take 3 deep breaths into your heart. Now feel the love you feel for yourself, now feel the love you feel for your family, your friends, your pets, now feel the love you feel for your neighbourhood. Now feel the love you feel for your country, now feel the love you feel for the world, now expand that love to encompass the whole universe (that’s the love you are capable of – wow!)

Now reverse the flow – feel the love the universe has for you, the world has for you, your country, your neighbourhood, your friends and family and pets have for you, the love that you have for you. This is how loved you are! If you really want to feel the love, do this EVERY DAY and feel how the love expands as you are opening up more and more to love. There is an ocean of love just waiting for you to tap into it.

Love (feel that?)

Donna.x

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Follow Your Heart

If you could be doing anything in the world right now, what would you love to do?

What makes your heart sing?

What do the stirrings of your heart whisper for you to do with your life?

Could you start to follow your heart right now?

You don’t have to do something huge and scary to follow your heart, you can just do something small, every day that follows the stirrings of your heart.

Before you know it, you have a happy life, a joyful life, the life your heart desired.

Start today.

Right now.

Love

Donna.x

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Keep in Touch With What’s ‘In Here’

Never, ever trade your own experience for someone else’s words about anything that is really important. – Neale Donald Walsch

Just as I was wondering what to write for today, this arrived in my inbox. There is so much information available today that often we can be swayed by what’s ‘out there’ – remember to keep in touch with what’s ‘in here’ (in your heart and soul), because that’s more important than any temporary world condition, any opinion, any field of study. In you is all you need – when you start believing that, life will get so much easier…and those opinions, ideas, conditions will help you to become even more clear in what you KNOW.

Love

Donna.x

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A Beautiful Heart

One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it.

Yes, they all agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart. Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said, “Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.” The crowd and the young man looked at the old man’s heart. It was beating strongly … but it was full of scars …it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in …but they didn’t fit quite right and there were several jagged edges.

In fact … in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared … how can he say his heart is more beautiful … they thought? The young man looked at the old man’s heart … and saw its state and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine …mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.” “Yes” … said the old man … “yours is perfect looking but …I would never trade with you.

You see … every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love … I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them … and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart … but because the pieces aren’t exact …I have some rough edges … which I cherish … because they remind me of the love we shared.

Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away …and the other person hasn’t returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges … giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful …they stay open … reminding me of the love I have for these people too …and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting.

So now do you see what true beauty is?”

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man … reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart …and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The old man took his offering … placed it in his heart …and then took a piece from his old scarred heart …and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart.

It fit … but not perfectly … as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart …not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever …since love from the old man’s heart flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

-Author Unknown-

May you always have the courage to keep giving a piece of your heart.

Much love

Donna.x

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Releasing the Pain

The first anniversary of my uncle’s death has just passed…I can hardly believe that it’s been a year already – where does the time go? In an attempt to finally process what happened, I’ve been looking at my diaries and blog entries for this time last year, and finally writing about what happened. I’m letting go of a little of the grief and pain and horror and anger and bewilderment, and as I do I can feel my body, mind and soul releasing some of the tension I’ve been holding for a year.

Things happen in life, and we need to process what’s happened, to let it go, to heal. So many of us just hold it in, and we either explode with long held pain at inappropriate moments or we make ourselves desperately ill. Sometimes with fatal consequences. Everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, pain, anger, hurt…just make sure that you ARE dealing with yours, not just hiding it away for 20 years.

For the last year, I haven’t been able to deal with it at all – every time I tried, I had to retreat in confusion and bury it all again. Now, the time has come to begin to work it through. Even as I write this, I can feel the pain in my heart waiting for release. Is there pain in your heart that you can let go? The trouble with holding the pain there is that it covers up the love that’s there – your heart should be soft, flowing, beautiful love. Not hard, painful, crusted hurt.

The time has come for me…maybe it’s time for you too?

Love

Donna.x

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