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Love
Time
Now
that you understand you have the power to create love anytime you
wish by smiling and opening your heart, the next thing you may want
to practice is how to keep your heart open for longer and longer
periods of time. Learning to stay in a loving state for long periods
of time will make you stronger, wiser, and happier, spiritually,
mentally, and emotionally. And it's a lot of fun!
The easiest way to learn how to keep
your heart open for long periods of time is to develop a daily practice
dedicated to being in a loving state for a certain amount of time.
We call this practice Love Time. If you read through these writings
and find that you would like to create Love Time into your life,
then take the time to organize your life so that you can set aside
ten to fifteen minutes a day, and use that time to create loving
experience. Set up a schedule so you will know that the time you
have set aside is reserved for you to create loving experience.
Love Time could also be called God
Time or Play Time. Love Time is spending time in a continuous state
of love. Ten to fifteen minutes, once or twice a day is a good amount
of time to start off with.
During your Love Time the object is
to play with life, to develop passion for being, to have the most
fun you can and to feel as much love as you can. The more love you
can feel in a concentrated way through a given length of time, the
stronger you will become at engaging love.
What do you do during your Love Time?
Whatever makes you feel the most love. Be creative! Be passionate!
Be WILD! Be soft! Be CRAZY! Be humble! Be TOTALLY HILARIOUS! Be
grateful! Be relaxed! Be SILENT! Talk with God. Share and express
your love for God, a lover, a friend, a pet. Tell God over and over
of the love you feel in different times and places. Share with God
all of the things in your life that are special. Think of good friends
and good times. Dream and visualize things you want to experience.
Sing songs, do chants, read or write poetry, draw, paint, sculpt,
listen to music, play an instrument, compose a song, write in your
diary, light candles and incense, soak in a hot bath, clean your
house, surround yourself with beautiful pictures, go for a walk
or a hike, cut the grass, work in your garden, commune with nature,
beat on some drums. Do anything that makes you feel love coming
through you. Do something different every day or if you like what
you have done, do it again the next day. Plan your Love Times or
be totally spontaneous.
You will find that Love Time is one
of the most powerful spiritual tools that we can use to get to know
ourselves.
Here is a challenge for you: If you
will create a Love Time for ten minutes a day for seven days in
a row, you may find a significant change come over your life.
Here is Tammi's experience: June 6,
2003
All my life I have had a fear
of abandonment. One could say I have always found myself thinking
and knowing that I would be left in the cold. My father philandered
with other women, leaving my mom to care for my sister and me alone.
Many times I would hear her crying and crying at night and I think
that began my understanding of what men do; they cheat on their
wives and eventually leave them either physically, psychologically
or emotionally.
I could say that my ex-husband
confirmed my fear by doing the same thing as my father. He was a
bit different though. I was married to this man for 18 years and
we were actually together for 20 years. I had three beautiful children,
but I was left most times alone with them to care for and love.
My ex cheated on me on many occasions and eventually he had a child
by his mistress and decided me and my children should leave. This
totally devastated me and my children. I found myself at my mom's
door with three children in tow, knowing that I could never trust
a man again.
When I met Keith, I had recovered
from the abuse of my marriage. I had been divorced for 7 years.
I was celebrating a new life with a new man and we were engaged.
He was a plumber and would sometimes have to work around the clock.
This often left me feeling very scared, anxious and with an upset
stomach. I could not sleep the night through wondering if he really
was working or with another woman. I had never trusted men since
my ex-husband and the men I dated always confirmed what I believed
and that was, "You can not trust a man to be faithful."
Well, our assignment was
to use Love Time for ten minutes a day for a week. I would usually
not like to spend time just thinking about how much God loves me.
I would meditate on thanking Him for my blessings and petitioning
for strength throughout my trials. I began using Love Time and found
my day went better and I knew absolutely in my spirit and my heart
that I AM LOVED. My beliefs taught me that, but I had never felt
it so strongly until now. The first time I did Love Time I ran my
bath as usual, but this time I added God's love to my ambience.
I sat quietly in the bathtub and used the rhythm breathing/Humm-Sa
technique. I then began to open my heart and accept ALL the love
that God has for me unconditionally. I allowed myself to feel, sense
and breathe in the LOVE without condemnation or judgment. The second
time, I lay on my bed and relaxed my whole body (I don't do that
often) and I began meditating and using the Hum-Sa breathing technique
and just let myself feel ALL the love.
After about the second or
third day I began noticing feelings of being loved at different
parts of the day. Whatever problems or concerns I had seemed to
lessen and not seem so insurmountable. I am on Worker's Compensation
because of an injury and the pain was not as intense as before.
On the third day, I was in
my house and noticed a bird's nest in the window. There was a bird
nesting and caring for her eggs, it was beautiful! I then went outside
and sat on my porch and just listened to nature. What I found astounding
was there were birds in the trees singing a beautiful song. The
flying insects and other birds seemed like they were talking to
me. I felt so connected with God and all creatures of Earth. I could
feel God's love for every creature!
Another day was filled with
songs of praise. I am a singer and I love singing songs that uplift
my spirit. I started singing songs we would sing at church when
I was younger and then songs my great-grandmother would sing. I
then began singing the songs my Mom would sing to me and my sister,
and the songs I would sing to my children. It was different this
time though. I kept concentrating on the love that the Lord has
for me, the love that takes away all fears. I could actually feel
God's love even more. On another day I sat with my feet up on my
sofa and once again used the breathing technique and opened my heart
to ALL of God's love.
When I went back to our Spirituality
Class Keith was teaching, I shared what happened to me during the
week. My fiancé had to work two days around the clock and
was not available during the nights. Miraculously when I could not
sleep before, I now slept soundly and when there had been tears
of fear there was peace of mind and finally when I thought I could
never trust a man again in my life, I began to trust again! All
is never lost. We have this ability to repair what was once destroyed
and to fortify what was once very weak. Love Time has helped me
discover the God in me and the Love that is always available to
me. I now trust my fiancé and even more importantly,
I now trust that whatever happens in a relationship, it will create
a better me. Love Time has become an essential part of
my growth. It has become very important to me.
Tammi's experience shows you some
pretty amazing results for seven days of doing a Love Time for ten
minutes a day. You may experience similar results if you'll make
the commitment!
Why is Love Time so powerful? Because
when you spend time creating loving experience, you are
growing. You are actively training yourself to create very
loving experience. You are training yourself to feel the love you
have within you, which is the feeling we all desire to feel all
of the time. You are growing spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
Your spiritual body is actually growing bigger.
As your spiritual body becomes bigger, you are becoming
more of who you are. You are putting yourself in the position
to be able to see and heal all of the unloving reversals you have
within your life. You are expanding your ability to engage compassion
and passion in your life. You are raising your consciousness level
and the consciousness level of the planet. And you're having fun!
What a glorious way to discover more about who you are and how life
works! The more fun you have, the better your life becomes.
The Change Transition
If you become addicted to love, if
you become excited and develop the discipline to create a Love Time/
God Time/ Fun Time on a daily basis, you will continue to grow.
As you spend more time in love, you will become aware of habits
you have in your life that keep you from being able to feel love.
As you grow in love, these habits will become more and more uncomfortable.
You may catch yourself throughout your day, acting and reacting
in unloving ways due to these habits. At some point, you may make
changes in your life; you will heal the unloving habits and replace
them with loving moments, new habits. You may reach a time in your
growth in which you will feel uncomfortable with your old habits
and you may not feel comfortable with your new habits. When you
reach this transition, it may be hard for you to feel comfortable
about anything. This transition is called the Change Transition.
Often, when people who are learning
to fill their lives with love do not understand the Change Transition
is going to happen, they go back to their old habits because their
old habits are more comfortable. If you understand that the Change
Transition is going to happen, then you can become very excited
about your growth and you can use your excitement to carry you through
the uncomfortable feelings. When you make it through the Change
Transition, change becomes your new way of life. You can
welcome change because it’s the sign that you are growing
and growth means you are able to experience more and more love.
Now if you start making lots of changes
in your life and change becomes a way of life, imagine what is going
to happen to your relationships with people. Most of your relationships
are going to change. Because you are moving and changing in love,
your relationships are going to become healthier.
This will become such a blessing in your life. You may find some
friends and family dropping away from your life. You may find that
some friends and family have so much love for you that they will
allow you to go through your changes and still remain close to you.
And you may have some friends and family that become so inspired
with your changes that they will decide to grow with you.
It is not uncommon for people who
are learning to move and change in love, to lose most or even all
of their friends and family. Some people have been living in such
unloving environments that the only people that they have around
them are people that support their unloving habits. As soon as people
like this start growing in love and changing their own unloving
habits, their friends and family can become very uncomfortable with
them and lose their desire to be with them. This part of the Change
Transition can also cause people to go back to their old habits.
Many people have become so attached to beliefs of how friends and
family are supposed to act together regardless of how unhealthy
the relationships are, that they will sacrifice their own ability
to grow in love in order to harbor the relationships. Or, because
of their programming as children, they may find more comfort in
living in unloving relationships then they do with
loving relationships. Any of these things could happen
to you when you enter the Change Transition. And you may find evidence
of these factors within days of making Love Time a daily ritual
in your life.
There
are a number of ways to make the Change Transition more comfortable:
-Recognize that
the Change Transition happens. Remember that it is a sign you are
growing, and get excited!.
- As was stated before, using the excitement of knowing that you
are on your way to creating an enchanted life can give you the power
to move through any stage of discomfort easier. It could even become
fun!
- Be patient with yourself. As you start engaging more love into
your life and you are able to see your unloving reversals, be patient
with yourself. You have plenty of time to make changes and you do
not have to make a lot of changes all at once.
- Be patient with others. Have compassion for them. Your friends
and family may not be ready for you to start changing. They may
see you as not caring about them because you are starting to do
things differently. You may have relationships based on supporting
each other in unloving habits. Your compassion for your friends
and family, will help you to arrive at healthy decisions with less
tension.
-Find community. Surround yourself with other people making love
a habit. As you start to move through the Change Transition and
you begin to make change a way of life, you may start attracting
people of like mind to you. You can help this along by searching
for spiritual groups of people with like mind to associate and play
with. (I would suggest the HAI community to almost everyone. HAI.org)
If
you are able to successfully move through the Change Transition
and make loving change a way of life, in time your life will become
so rich with loving experience that you will eventually know heaven
on earth. It is within you. Therefore, learning to create Love Time
for extended amounts of time will move you to embrace a life of
change.
Remember, every moment that you spend
creating love, you are growing into being more
of who you are. And you are love.
The State of Knowing
If creating Love Time on a daily basis
becomes habitual, you will gradually become stronger and stronger.
When you can keep your heart open for long periods of time, you
may want to try to achieve The State of Knowing. The State of Knowing
is a strength of mind that comes from knowing when
your heart is open.
Let me give you an analogy of what
I mean by a State of Knowing. If you have never experienced the
feeling of being totally relaxed, then you cannot
know when your body is totally relaxed, because
you do not have a point of reference. You have not experienced it!
You have to experience being totally relaxed a number of times before
you know what it feels like to be
totally relaxed. In the same way, when you know what it feels
like to experience keeping your heart open for long periods of time,
then you will know when your heart is open.
Here is a measure you can use. When
you are able to keep your heart open, to lovingly smile for a full
half hour, twice a day for three days in a row, you will know
that you have arrived at this State of Knowing. This means that
if you were to create a Love Time for a full half hour twice a day
for two days and on the third day, in the middle of your first Love
Time, your heart closed (you noticed that you were not smiling),
you would need to start over and try to successfully keep your heart
open for a full half hour, twice a day for three more days in a
row. Once you have achieved the State of Knowing, it is part of
you and you do not need to repeat the experience.
When should you try to achieve the
State of Knowing? When you have been doing Love Time for some time
and find that keeping your heart open for a half hour at a time
is easy for you. Then you are ready to try to achieve a State of
Knowing. For some people getting their hearts open and keeping their
hearts open will be very easy and for others it will be quite challenging.
If you find it challenging to open your heart or to keep it open
for long periods of time, you can email me for suggestions at Keith@engagelove.com.
Meditation
If these teachings resonate with you,
this State of Knowing can be a very important step in your spiritual
progress because it marks the time when you are ready to learn how
to meditate if you do not already know how. The use of meditation
will strengthen your mind and your will, give you some control of
your emotions, give you clarity about making choices, help you develop
more awareness about living in the moment, and strengthen your healing
abilities. It is also a springboard to learning how to use an even
more powerful tool called the State of Shining.
True meditation is a state of mind
in which you completely stop your thinking process. Can you stop
your thoughts? See if you can move through the next thirty seconds
without thinking . . . How did you do? If you have never learned
to meditate, it may seem difficult at first, but it can become easy.
If you would like to learn how, you can email me at Keith@engagelove.com
and ask for the directions on How To Lovingly Meditate. However,
I would highly recommend that you do not learn how to meditate until
you achieve the State of Knowing. It is very important when you
meditate, that you know your heart is open and that you be smiling
throughout your meditation. Meditation is a very powerful spiritual
tool. It is healthy to think of meditation as magnifying
whatever is in your heart. If your heart is open and you are feeling
love, meditation will make the love stronger. If your heart is closed,
then meditation can magnify your unloving experience and create
more pain for you.
Thinking is a way of channeling the
energy of life into a direction. Every thought you think is moving
energy towards the manifestation of whatever you are thinking about.
If you are thinking positive thoughts or loving thoughts, you are
moving your life towards positive and loving results. If you are
thinking negative or unloving thoughts, you will experience negative
or unloving results. If you stop your thinking process, the energy
that is usually channeled through your thoughts, diverts to expanding
your spiritual body. You start growing larger spiritually. This
is why it is so important that you be lovingly smiling when you
are meditating. You want your spiritual body to grow in love and
light. If your heart is closed when you meditate your body becomes
denser and darker. This is so important to understand. If you are
a person that has been meditating throughout your life, you might
try putting a mirror in front of you when you are meditating and
periodically look at yourself to see if you are smiling. If you
are not, the healthiest action to take would be to stop your meditation
and create a Love Time to get your heart open. Once you get your
heart open, it would be safe to go back to your meditation. Whenever
you finish meditating, you should be experiencing a wonderful state
of love. If you are not, it would be wise to exchange your meditation
time for a Love Time until you learn how to create love for long
periods of time. Then you can master the State of Knowing, and start
a loving meditation practice.
Love Time is a powerful tool for learning
more about who you are. If you become disciplined about creating
a Love Time every day, you will find very pleasant changes occurring
in your life. Because you will be expending extended amounts of
time having fun, that fun-loving head space will naturally start
to flow into other parts of your day. If you have the intention
for this to happen, it will happen even faster. It will become easier
and easier to have fun at home, at work, at school, and wherever
you find yourself. Since you are becoming spiritually bigger every
time you create Love Time, you will find yourself feeling love in
places you haven't felt love before. This becomes very beneficial
when you find yourself facing challenges. It becomes easier and
easier to think, act and react in love no matter what happens.
Remember, if you work out, if you
create your Love Time daily, you will become more and more of who
you are. You are the essence of Love.
Jai-ma!
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