Love While We’re Here

Love is a funny thing. 

People talk a lot about falling in or out of love like it’s something that just happens as if by magic. Now, I’m a big fan of the magic and mystery of love but that’s not all there is to it. 

You can have all the chemistry in the world coupled with enough magic for a Disney princess and still not choose to experience love. How is that possible? 

Because love isn’t a mystical feeling that just happens. It happens because of a thought you’re having.

Don’t believe me? Let’s play a little game of make-believe.

Imagine for a moment you’re completely in love. The object of your affection is all the things on your checklist and even a few you didn’t know you wanted. You’re happy and confident and they are without a doubt the person you adore the most and the person you think understands you the best.

Are you with me? Can you feel the warmth and the excitement and all the things?

Alright, now your phone rings and you find out that this perfect human who makes you feel warm and fuzzy just betrayed you in the most unforgivable way imaginable. They’re married to someone else, they cheated on you, they voted for the wrong presidential candidate, or loaded the dishwasher wrong, whatever. That thing that you know would be your done button.

Are you still with me? Can you taste the disbelief and devastation and all the things?

If you felt either of those emotions to any degree then you just experienced your thoughts and imagination having a direct impact on your feelings.

This is the same reason we cry during movies or at the moment in the book when Dumbledore dies. It’s our thoughts. 

Here’s another example. Have you ever been ridiculously angry at someone for something only to find out later you had it completely wrong and had literally no reason to be angry? If not, I’m a little jealous because my temper has jumped the gun on more than one occasion.

Imagine you’re significant other has a habit of being late but you’ve made dinner plans at your favorite restaurant. They know how important it is to you and how much you dislike it when they’re late so you feel confident they will be on time. You get ready and are waiting for them to arrive exactly at 7. The problem is that you’re still waiting at 7:10. They don’t call, they don’t pick up when you call, they don’t text, nothing. They’ve totally forgotten. Again. By 8 pm you’re confident that you clearly don’t matter to them, right? By 9 pm you’ve decided they can’t treat you like this and expect you to stay. Obviously by 10 pm you’ve planned out how you’ll be telling them all of this as soon as they remember you exist again, am I right? I mean really who do they think they are. Around midnight you cry yourself to sleep because they either don’t care at all or they’ve died in a tragic asteroid crashing into earth accident and no one has notified you.

You spend the next day fuming to your friends and obsessing over everything. You order food to be delivered and have Netflix ready to go. The doorbell rings and you go to pay for dinner and the entire cheesecake you’ll be devouring later but when you open the door…. It’s your significant other. They look at you and apologize for being early but they dropped their phone in the subway the day before and they didn’t want to risk running late. That’s when you remember that you’d changed the date from Friday to Saturday but you’d forgotten to change it in your calendar. Oops.

Now that was a little overly dramatic but I don’t know anyone who hasn’t gone through some version of that little emotional rollercoaster. And it illustrates the point beautifully. In the story, the main character went from feeling love and bliss and excitement to rage and betrayal without the partner doing anything. Literally, no conversation or argument, they didn’t forget the date, and they weren’t late yet the main character felt all the feelings because of the stories she was telling herself. 

Brains are cool. 

If our time here is finite, and it is, why wouldn’t you want to spend every moment that you have falling or being completely in love and reaching for joy? 

Why would you choose to live in fear and scarcity when you can choose hope and abundance?

Why would you choose anger over hope?

The only thing I can tell you with complete certainty is that you and everyone you have ever loved will die.

You only ever have the moment you’re experiencing and it is completely up to you how you experience it. 

As hard as it can sometimes be I choose to try to stay in the space of love and wonder.

Sometimes that means being completely in love with myself, the way my brain works, the way my skin feels, the way I can lose myself in a song, or the way my tastebuds allow me to experience a sugar cookie. 

Sometimes it means writing and then recording this podcast in a space of wonder at how the technology I don’t understand is able to connect us and how my words might help you fill your day with a bit more love and wonder.

Sometimes it means loving someone who has hurt me or someone who is no longer here. 

And sometimes it means loving someone I’ve just met or never met instantly and completely for whatever reason my brain has come up with that I don’t fully understand because of that element of magic. 

True story, I loved my best friend from the first conversation we ever really had and before we ever met in person. Not because she was conveniently located but because she was fearless even when scared and she has such an open mind and open heart and a desire to always be learning and growing and being a better version of herself. What’s not to love? Other than her preference for dark chocolate and semi-questionable taste in music.

People feel love freely and frequently even if they think they’re afraid to in specific situations. It happens the first time you hold your child, when you become emotionally invested in a fictional world or character, taste cheesecake for the first time, watch an artist paint, feel the wind on your face as a storm rolls in from the water, or watch a sunrise in the stillness that allows you to hear your thoughts.

Love doesn’t have to be complicated or hard. It’s as easy and fun as you choose to make it. 

Music Time

Today’s podcast is inspired by one of my favorite songs for as long as I can remember, Time Passes By by Kathy Mattea.

From the song:

Too many times we do what we ought

Put off 'til tomorrow what we'd really rather do tonight

And later realize

Time passes by, people pass on

At the drop of a tear, they're gone

Let's do what we dare, do what we like

And love while we're here before time passes by

So tell me... 

Where in your life can you choose to experience love, wonder, and joy? Why aren’t you already doing it? Is it because you’re afraid of being hurt or afraid there might be a better love out there? That’s another great song by the way and spoiler alert, there’s no better love because all the love you experience comes from your own thoughts and is independent of the object of your affection. 

Spend time with these questions and concepts see what comes up. If you’re feeling frisky, hit me up on Instagram and share your answers with me. 

If you want help feeling all the love and all the joy about all the things, I’d love to work with you. You can set up a consultation to learn more at https://www.wickedveracity.com/consult. 

Until next time, my wish for you is that you find a willingness to do what you’ve never dared and that you find thoughts that allow you to experience love that fills you with wonder.

Podcast Theme Music

License:  Rustic Ballad by Alexander Nakarada