My effort to channel more of my energy into love

I want to remove my resistances, insecurities, and anything else that keeps me from loving fully. 

The world needs more love. I know this from observing that individual people, myself included, need more love. And the world is made up of people. Actually, now that I write that, I realize that the world is more than just people. The world is also plants and animals. These living creatures need more love too, though I don’t understand their need for love by the same empathy that tells me that people need more love. 

At a session of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) therapy last night, the instructor told us to tap under our left armpit with the fingers on our right hand. While we did this, she said something like, “You are wasting your precious energy worrying.”

This stuck with me. I still feel it in my left ribs when I think about it. I waste my precious energy when I fixate on my resistances and insecurities. I try to control. I want things to work out my way. I want the world to satisfy my needs.

It’s when things don’t work out the way I want that I start to resist. Why did I want things to be that way in the first place? Why do I trust my knowledge of what is right for me more than the wisdom of the universe? 

When I was walking on a path along the river in Denver with my friend last week, he told me a story about how he was deciding whether to move to Madrid or to stay in Denver. He left it up to the universe to decide. As he was telling the story, he looked at the river and made an analogy. 

It’s like that river, he said. You can fight upstream and use all your energy and make little progress. You can stand still and use medium energy but make no progress. Or you can go with the river and use the least energy and make the most progress. 

I want my energy to go toward love for others. I want to give, give, give and stop thinking so much about myself and how to satisfy my own needs. 

When I say love, I don’t mean romantic love. I mean the type of love that I vaguely remember Eckhart Tolle describing in one of his books. It is the type of love that is the connection between two parts of the universe, two parts of the cosmic One. The parts are not even necessarily separate in the first place. The connection is like a commingling of two or more of the same substance, like water running together with water.

I am not my ego. I am one with the universe. If this is metaphysically true, then I should work for the good of the universe for the same reason that I work for the good of myself. 

I am part of the universe. Therefore, what I want to receive, I should give. It may seem on the level of form that I am giving of myself to another. In a sense this is true. But when I realize that both myself and the other are part of the same universe, I realize that I am giving to the cosmic One of which I am part. 

This is not why I give. I do not give to receive. I give because it is right. I give because it feels good. I give because it is in accordance with my nature. My powers to give are frustrated when spent only on myself. 

The universe is constantly giving to me. I realize this when I pay attention, when I practice gratitude. The universe has given me the breaths I’ve taken as I’ve written this. The universe has given me strength. The universe has given me nourishment. The universe has given me love and beauty. 

There is a natural flow for all that is given to me to then flow back out of me. It is my ego that blocks up this flow. I am afraid of what people will think of me. I am afraid I will fail. I am afraid that there is not enough and I will experience lack if I give too much away. 

So I hoard. I amass. I keep. I save. I try to hold it all within me. I try to get more to add to what I already have.

I do believe there is a place for this force of retention, of structure. But I feel that I lean too far to this side.

I must open my heart. I must raise my arms, tilt back my head, and shine my chest forward. 

It is easy to write this. It is harder to practice. I have had this thought before. I have even done this before. And I have been happy when I have done it. But I forget. I get scared. I remember now. And I can try again.