A Shift to Love

Simply love

Simply love

Simply love

 

H

ave you noticed this trend?

When things get challenging or when you experience a setback, the immediate impulse is to just drop all the support you have going on in your life and spiral into negativity.

A breakup, a tough day at work, a promotion that didn’t go through, a flat tire, another mass shooting, something political that hurts your heart, …

And then suddenly everything you care about and all your support structures get dropped. And with them, your energy siphons off too.

A hopelessness and a depression fall over you. As a result, you lose everything.

You stop taking care of yourself. You get buried under the voices.

You stop exercising, stop eating well, stop meditating, stop getting enough sleep, start eating sugar and start drinking a bunch of coffee.

All the things that don’t support your heart.

Suddenly you’re depleted.

It’s way harder to choose love when you’re in this depleted condition.

However, love can accomplish a great deal. It’s why there’s so much resistance to it from the voices.

If you care about things that you want love to infuse with energy, then you want to take every bit of life force you’ve got and put it in that direction.

If you care about the environment, or human rights, or animal rights, then please take all of that energy and put it there in the form of love.

Bring that love to what is important to you.

The Buddha told his disciples: Just as a mother with her own life protects her only child from harm, so let your love flow outward to the universe. A limitless love without hatred or enmity.

If you have children you love, you know you don’t want to let your depression debilitate you. You need lots of love to care for them. This is EXACTLY the time to be strong and say “NO” to the voices. This is EXACTLY the time you need to care for yourself like that child because you’re counting on you. We’re counting on you.

And it’s the same with loving the world. You can’t love the world by being defeated or hopeless. And you don’t want to waste a second of it trying to figure out who you should exclude or who is worthy of it.

You simply love.

 

In lovingkindness,


If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness (Volume One).

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness (Volume Two).

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness (Volume Three).

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, A Shift to Love: Zen Stories and Lessons by Alex Mill.

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Meditation and Reinventing Yourself.

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, The Zen Life: Spiritual Training for Modern Times.

 


  Alex Mill trained in a Zen Buddhist monastery for nearly 14 years. He now offers his extensive experience to transform people’s lives and businesses through timeless Zen principles.

He is the creator of three powerful 30-day programs, Heart-to-Heart: Compassionate Self-Mentoring, Help Yourself to Change, and Your Practice, as well as the online Zen meditation workshop, Taming Your Inner Noise (now offered as The FREE Zen Workshop).

Alex has also written seven books on Zen awareness practice. The latest are entitled A Shift to Love: Zen Stories and Lessons (Get it for FREE here) and the 3-book series Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness.

He is a full-time Zen Life Coach who offers guidance and life-changing support to his private clients worldwide. Book a call.