Back to the Starting Out in spirituality progression of blogs, the last one I talked about was self-love. Building from the space of self-love, you will have a new approach and a new appreciation for the world around you. You won’t fall in love with the world immediately, but that’s where you’re headed. That’s where this road goes. It goes to unconditional love, and all that amazing potential is sitting within you waiting to get out.
You Don’t Have to Love Your Enemies…Yet
I know that almost immediately you’ve got some people lined up in your head as people whom you can never love. They’re there. I know. We’ve all had those people, and right now, the effort it takes to hold that sense of separateness, hate, dislike, or annoyance is draining you.
But we’re early in this process. This is following a progression that you can find in the Starting Out section for cultivating a spiritual awakening. So, the next step in opening into our hearts is to bring others into your life who are doing the same type of work or who are already able to reflect your love. Because if I don’t miss my guess, you’ve probably got a lot of people in your life that you don’t want there. You may even have a lot of mean and fake friends, whom you don’t want to leave for a variety of reasons. We can start to dig into those issues in a little bit, but you need to start making new friends and connections. I would encourage you to find a spiritual community if you already haven’t. It’ll increase your odds of finding people with good heart energy, but good-hearted people certainly aren’t limited to those venues.
Noticing the Energy Differential
I make up terms a lot, so if you’re following along with my blogs, I’m sure you’re not sure what “energy differential” means exactly. This is a term I’ve been playing with for awhile. Essentially, it’s the difference between two energy levels. As you bring people with really open hearts in your life, you’re going to notice a difference in how you feel with them compared to your current friends. Depending on what your current relationships are, this could be striking. It might be overwhelming. In a very real way, people who haven’t had much love in their life really can’t take much. It’s like leaving a concentration camp and trying to eat normally again. You can’t do it. You’re going to really struggle absorbing all of it.
For example, Jane has been around a lot of emotionally abusive friends. They always make fun of how she looks in their jokes. Her boyfriends have all been jerks who control her life. She may even have some physical abuse in her past and very little kind touch. When she enters a situation where everyone is offering hugs and listening with very open hearts, her first instinct is probably suspicion. “Is this real?” she is thinking. “What are they trying to get from me?” Criticism follows up to hide over the fear that’s innately in suspicion. “These guys are such losers and weenies.” Or something like that, you get the point. You may be one of those people.
And if Jane is around a man like this, other core issues may get ignited (male-female dynamics are powerful on the spiritual path). She may think that he wants a relationship from her–specifically sex. Or she may go the reverse and think she’s in love with him because she’s never been around such an open-hearted guy (and in all fairness, my gender is still doing a lot of heart-chakra work, so there aren’t huge numbers of us yet; we are growing though!).
Above all, there is an acclimation process. You will have to get used to being around this type of energy and feeling genuine love.
But I Don’t Want to Lose My Old Friends
This is one of the big concerns on the spiritual path that I hear. It’s one of the “losses” that our egos hold onto the tightest. Your old friends may not necessarily be bad people. They may simply not be able or interested in walking the path that you are choosing to walk. But you never really know which of the friends will or won’t cycle back into your life at a later point. I continue to have people pop up again. It’s always such a joy when someone comes back and meets me on the spiritual path. To stay in my life, they have to accept where I am and what I am doing. And it is so wonderful when they do.
But I can’t lie to you; you’re unlikely to keep all your friends. Of course, I’m not sure how many people get to do this in their whole lives. It’s one of those illusions that needs to pop. It’s an illusion that needs to pop right along with the illusion that you’re somehow staying the same throughout your life. You’re not. You’re a constantly evolving being. Embrace this truth. When you do, you’ll find that moving on the spiritual path is a lot easier than you might expect. You’ll be able to evolve yourself, your mind, your body, and your heart. And in doing so, the natural evolution of your heart will take you down the path of love. You may one day finding yourself falling hopelessly in love with everyone and everything. It’s a beautiful space to come to, and it’s where we’re all headed.