Love is the power podcast

If you ever find yourself wondering why there is so much violence on the planet — and can’t identify your part in it — this episode is the support you’ve been looking for! We all have our circumstances where we are willing to use force and resistance in the name of ‘justice’ or ‘the common good.’ This week you are invited to turn inward and notice where you justify your unlovingness. Could it be that we’re all preaching to give love and peace a chance, yet none of us believe that it actually works?

What is your relationship to your own negative reactions? Do you criticize yourself like a harsh parent? Or perhaps you fight against others and the world? Do you try to justify and defend your case? Or do you simply stuff the negative feelings down until you implode? Whatever your go-to strategy might be, it doesn’t take long to see that none of these are effective for the long lasting change we all desire. If you’re looking for a new way to be with yourself in tricky moments that is wildly effective, this week’s episode is for you. 

Do we really need to be dissatisfied with people, situations, and circumstances for them to improve? Or could it be that dissatisfaction can only breed more dissatisfaction? This week we circle back to the mistaken belief that if I’m satisfied with everything the way it is - things won’t change for the better. Follow along as we challenge an ineffective framework for positive change 

This week we bring the four questions to the topic of victimhood. We invite you to follow along as best you can with your own related experience. When there is an opening, engaging in ‘The Work’ can serve as a powerful invitation out of suffering and into freedom. However, ‘The Work’ has no agenda about what we discover. It just supports us to look for ourselves, if and when we’re ready.

Just like a tree is choicelessly and effortlessly a tree — there are qualities of who and what we are that are effortless and choiceless. This week’s meditation invites us to notice what can often go unnoticed about the truth of who we really are. Open, allowing, room for everything just the way it is. Could it be these are descriptions of who and what we are?

On the path of self-discovery, there are a lot of stories we hear that glorify suffering. It’s as if the things that come easy can't be trusted. But do you know for sure that suffering is a requirement for self-realization? That it can’t come from love, enthusiasm and interest in the truth -- it has to come from suffering. When something comes naturally, is it true that it ‘doesn’t really count?’ Or could it be that the only thing that’s missing is our allowing it to be. This week Tom invites us to let our lives work out beautifully. Could it be that simple?

Could it be that suffering is an inherent part of the human experience and one of our many freedoms? Rather than a flaw in the design that needs to be fixed or something you need to feel bad for. While we can never know for sure what suffering is and why it’s here, we can always know how we show up when we’re thinking and believing it. Join us as we explore all things suffering, challenge inherited conditioning, and consider how to best meet suffering in ourselves and with others.

Do you allow yourself to be peaceful and happy even when it appears other people are suffering? Or have you put other people’s experience between you and your happiness? Cultural programming tells us that it’s insensitive, uncaring, and selfish to go straight for our own peace and happiness. But is it true? Does adding our suffering to someone else’s suffering actually help the situation?

When we notice, question, and meet our stories with understanding, we say ‘yes’ to life. The deep relaxation, ease, and openness that occurs when this happens can feel ‘too good to be true,’ because we’ve been taught that struggle, suffering, and difficulty is what is real in life and easy, effortless, joy-for-no-reason living is just a woo-woo fairytale. This week we confront the possibility that Life/God is taking care of every detail and that we don’t have to pay for all that we’ve been given. Perhaps, it’s all here for us to let go of so we can enjoy the ride. Could that be true?

What if living Life is like following a route in google maps? You have unlimited attempts to get to where you’re going and no matter which direction you take the navigation system knows exactly where you are and directs you from there. When you make a ‘wrong turn,’ the navigator doesn’t criticize, condemn, shame, or blame you — it just reroutes you. It doesn’t even care if you get ‘there’ or not. It has no agenda, no requirements, no rules, and no demands of you. It’s just an unconditionally present, endlessly friendly, helpful, patient, and creative navigator, guiding you along the path called ‘my life.’ 

Could it be that everything we need to meet the next moment is here now? Imagine meeting every moment from the perspective that “nothing is missing.” Quite different from our habitual mental vantage point — there is definitely something missing. This week’s inquiry is quite a relieving one! If you allow it to be. Grace is happening all of the time, but it never forces us to receive it.

Most of us can relate to wanting the best for ourselves, for others, for the world. But how can we be certain of what that ‘best thing’ is? And then if we do feel clear about it - what is actually effective for bringing about that positive change we’re wanting? This week we look at the primary human strategies: resistance, force and control and then consider the turn around: accepting Life exactly as it is. Could it be that accepting Life fully is not only a more peaceful path, but the most effective and reliable one available to us? 

Is it possible to be separate from Life? Or is there only one reality? Often we experience ourselves as “in here” and the world is “out there.” But what does our direct experience show us? When we experience ourselves as separate from the intelligence of the universe, we call certain things natural and interpret other things as unnatural. But what if it is all an act of God? Join us, for a deep inquiry into the nature of reality, truth, and our attempt to find peace within it.

Doing ‘The Work’ is not just an inquiry process to discover what’s true — it is an uncovering of the most effective ways to meet Life in all of its expressions. This week’s episode explores how we show up in a moment of crisis. What is the most supportive stance to take when someone we love is going through something challenging? What do we do when there is nothing left to do? Is it possible that wanting the best for someone is enough? Follow along for a heartfelt exploration of divine helplessness that brings us into contact with the unlimited, sensitive, intelligent power of love. 

While there’s no way to know if everything happens for a reason — what we can know is that things don’t need a reason in order to happen. Perhaps, ‘reasons’ are just a story we tell to make ourselves feel like we have some sense of what’s going on here on planet earth. When in reality, we have absolutely no idea. This week we explore what happens when we consciously open up to Life being completely out of our control and meet the mystery of the universe with a willingness to say yes, while not knowing what we’re saying yes to. If you find yourself willing to find out if the universe is indeed friendly and if goodness is the real nature of life, then this is the episode for you!

Do we really have to hold it all together? So many of us walk around with the pressure to contain, maintain, manage life without ever stopping to inquire about whether we actually have that power in the first place. When believing this story, we have to imagine a future where something terrible happens if we don’t keep it all going. Yet, the nature of this reality is that everything comes to pass not to stay which puts us in an impossible position. As Byron Katie says, when we fight against reality we will lose — 100% of the time. Yet, when we notice what we’re believing on top of reality and question it — we begin to trust and flow with the great mystery of life. 

We have the mistaken understanding that if we give ourselves the freedom to be as we are — especially when we’re feeling or desiring something ‘negative’ — that we will have to act out on it. But is that actually how it works? Giving ourselves full permission to be is like giving ourselves unlimited space and allowance to be, which Tom proposes are two qualities of love. Could it be that who we are responds to love and that all of the good things we want for ourselves, others, and the world have a much better chance of emerging from freedom rather than force and control?

The promise of happiness is one of the greatest ‘motivators’ we hold for ourselves, our children, our partnerships, the world. But where does happiness actually come from and what is its nature? Is it actually sourced from relationships, objects, jobs, money, experiences going a certain way? Or is it possible that happiness is not dependent on anyone or anything? Could it be that happiness is primary to who we are — a natural state of being? This week’s episode invites you to put down everything you’ve been taught about happiness and everything you think you know about it, so you can open up to experience what’s true about happiness, for yourself. 

Could it be that everything that happens within you and without you is unfolding in utter perfection? If you’re suffering, you’re suffering perfectly. If you’re pushing yourself, you’re pushing yourself perfectly. If there’s war, it’s warring perfectly. When there are no shoulds, no shouldn’ts, no wanting it to be different; when nothing is held up in comparison to anything else — the glimmer of perfection begins to shine through all things. Follow along and discover what happens as we open up to a radical new definition of perfection.

Some beliefs are so subtle that when we first inquire into them we may have a hard time relating. We may think, ‘I don’t have that going on in my world,’ only to discover that it is impacting us in a much greater way than we had anticipated. This is exactly what happened for a majority of participants in this week’s episode. Group  inquiry is: awareness alchemy. With each individual’s reflection we are reminded of experiences of our own or invited to see something in a new way, which supports us to drop deeper and deeper into the effortless, ever-present state of awareness. Which as Vernon Howard aptly says, “Is the cure, the only cure.”