Love is the power podcast

This week’s episode is for anyone who has ever felt the paralysis of trying to make a decision while the thought “I could get it wrong” is playing on a loop in your mind. In this group inquiry, we’re looking at that thought; whether it’s actually true, how it affects us when we believe it, and who we would be without it. What if life isn’t constantly measuring us and judging every action or inaction? What if it’s like a car GPS that, when we miss an exit or take a ‘wrong’ turn, simply reroutes and shows us the fastest way from where we are to where we want to be? What if the condemning is all an inside job–and inside job we could simply let go of?

This week’s episode is an inquiry into our concepts of time and space. We can be very devoted to our belief in time and space, to the point that we begin to see ourselves as dependent on it. The body may be subject to the rules of time and space, but is the body you? Or are you the awareness that the experience of the body is located in? That pure awareness, as Tom puts it, is the location for everything. An analogy for that pure awareness that we are is light; light has no texture, no substance. Objects can come into the light to be reflected and therefore experienced. We can often get caught up in identifying with the object being reflected in the light, but who we really are is the pure light – the pure awareness that has room for everything.

One beautiful aspect of working in a group setting like the Love Is The Power meditation calls is that one person’s brave and vulnerable share can create a whole ripple effect of profound awareness for everyone. That’s exactly what happens in this week’s episode when one inquirer’s childhood comes up to the surface and exposes the universal experience of wanting to be wanted. Whether by a parent, sibling, lover, boss, teacher, or anyone else the mind can come up with, that desire to be wanted is one that most of us can really struggle with. We all know that one specific way we imagine being wanted–how it would look and feel. In this episode Tom asks: Could you want yourself in exactly that way? If that feels hard to imagine, the invitation is to listen to this episode and follow along. Even if it feels easy to picture, this episode is rich with deep awareness for anyone wanting to step into a lighter experience of themselves.

This week’s episode is a deep dive into the world of body odour–actually, better said: it’s a deep dive into the world of doubting our goodness. You may be asking yourself, What does that have to do with B.O.? Well, have you ever sat next to someone with what you might have experienced as an unpleasant smell? Some people in the Love Is The Power inquiry group have, and many experienced the awkwardness of either telling the person and having them be hurt or offended, or suffering silently in fear of offending. And as the meditation gets deeper, what surfaces is the fear that who and what we are (as in humanity) is not truly good, and how it can make us so afraid of ‘causing’ someone else’s hurt. So, the question remains: what do you do if you’re experiencing someone’s behaviour (or odour) unpleasant? Follow along with the group inquiry to find out for yourself.

When we find ourselves in a process of self-inquiry, the way that our perspective shifts is truly miraculous. We see things differently. The people in our lives, the situations we’re in, the resources we have, and most of all, ourselves. In this experience of seeing life differently, one of the fears that the mind will often bring up is the fear of going ‘crazy’ or losing our minds. (It’s actually quite a literal fear: the ego-mind is afraid to not exist, thus the terrifying images of what it must look like to “lose” it.) This week’s group inquiry centers on this fear while also looking at the sidebar fear of being proclaimed “unacceptable.” Who would we be without even these stories? As Katie says, there is nothing so dark that we cannot put it on paper, question it, and set ourselves free.