How do I be love?

Rob84 · MIP Old Timer

How do I be love?

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

I guess the reason I held onto those resentments, babied them and nurtured them, was because if I flip that same card over, they become excuses. If I have excuses, I can use them for reasons to behave badly, to drink, to whine and complain... to feel really sorry for myself.

In this program, I don't allow myself to hold onto resentments. I turn them over and work the steps. When I don't get to hold onto resentments, my excuses are ripped out of my hand too. Things begin to look brighter, go my way, relationships become more meaningful, the moment I'm in becomes most important. I remember that I must work toward this always... because for me to drink is to die.

Today I'm looking for more than just "not dying"... I'm looking for meaning and love... which seems to be flyin at me faster than I can give it away.

So my real question is this: How do I "be love". As in this inspirational quote:

Being love, rather than giving
or taking love, is the only thing
that provides stability.

turninggrey · MIP Old Timer

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It's easy.

Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It's easy.

Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

Sorry Tasha, after my disastrous song attempt earlier, I thought I would answer your question with the (Beatles) song that popped into my mind.
Tom

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

Elephant Love Medley - Moulin Rouge

"Love is a many splendored thing,
Love lifts us up where we belong,
All you need is love!"

Mr_David · MIP Old Timer

Great share Tasha, thanks.

Wren · Senior Member

Everyone has said some really lovely things about this topic. Being love. When I read Rob's, it made me think of the fragile vessel that we are, and we begin emptied, and it's the gathering in and sending love back out that keeps us filled. This lovely cycle. Haha! It sounds like a 70s Donovan song when I put it like that.

I thing to "be" love? We become reflective. We reflect back what is shown to us. We choose. What do we want to reflect back during our human experience? The love shown to us, or the array of other things tossed our way by 'life'? But it is difficult to maintain. Reflect back out what our HP has given us. Sometimes, we need to stop and store some up for ourselves, too. Interesting topic!

chris

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

justadrunk wrote:
So to "be love" - I would INTEND "to be".

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DING DING DING! Thanks!

I found this while looking for "setting intentions". Below is the first page of 3.

http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/926

Goals vs. Intentions

Goal making is a valuable skill; it involves envisioning a future outcome in the world or in your behavior, then planning, applying discipline, and working hard to achieve it. You organize your time and energy based on your goals; they help provide direction for your life. Committing to and visualizing those goals may assist you in your efforts, but neither of these activities is what I call setting intention. They both involve living in an imagined future and are not concerned with what is happening to you in the present moment. With goals, the future is always the focus: Are you going to reach the goal? Will you be happy when you do? What's next?

Setting intention, at least according to Buddhist teachings, is quite different than goal making. It is not oriented toward a future outcome. Instead, it is a path or practice that is focused on how you are "being" in the present moment. Your attention is on the ever-present "now" in the constantly changing flow of life. You set your intentions based on understanding what matters most to you and make a commitment to align your worldly actions with your inner values.

As you gain insight through meditation, wise reflection, and moral living, your ability to act from your intentions blossoms. It is called a practice because it is an ever-renewing process. You don't just set your intentions and then forget about them; you live them every day.

Although the student thought she was focusing on her inner experience of the present moment, she was actually focusing on a future outcome; even though she had healthy goals that pointed in a wholesome direction, she was not being her values. Thus, when her efforts did not go well, she got lost in disappointment and confusion. When this happened, she had no "ground of intention" to help her regain her mental footingno way to establish herself in a context that was larger and more meaningful than her goal-oriented activity.

Goals help you make your place in the world and be an effective person. But being grounded in intention is what provides integrity and unity in your life. Through the skillful cultivation of intention, you learn to make wise goals and then to work hard toward achieving them without getting caught in attachment to outcome. As I suggested to the yogi, only by remembering your intentions can you reconnect with yourself during those emotional storms that cause you to lose touch with yourself. This remembering is a blessing, because it provides a sense of meaning in your life that is independent of whether you achieve certain goals or not.

Ironically, by being in touch with and acting from your true intentions, you become more effective in reaching your goals than when you act from wants and insecurities. Once the yogi understood this, she started to work with goals and intentions as separate functions. She later reported that continually coming back to her intentions in the course of her day was actually helping her with her goals.

Doing the Groundwork

What would it be like if you didn't measure the success of your life just by what you get and don't get, but gave equal or greater priority to how aligned you are with your deepest values? Goals are rooted in maya (illusion)the illusionary world where what you want seems fixed and unchanging but in truth is forever changing. It is in this world that mara, the inner voice of temptation and discouragement, flourishes. Goals never fulfill you in an ongoing way; they either beget another goal or else collapse. They provide excitementthe ups and downs of lifebut intention is what provides you with self-respect and peace of mind.

Cultivating right intention does not mean you abandon goals. You continue to use them, but they exist within a larger context of meaning that offers the possibility of peace beyond the fluctuations caused by pain and pleasure, gain and loss.

The Buddha's Fourth Noble Truth teaches right intention as the second step in the eightfold path: Cause no harm, and treat yourself and others with loving- kindness and compassion while seeking true happiness, that which comes from being free from grasping and clinging. Such a statement may sound naive or idealistica way for nuns and monks to live but not suitable for those of us who must make our way in this tough, competitive world. But to think this is to make the same error as the woman in my group interview.

In choosing to live with right intention, you are not giving up your desire for achievement or a better life, or binding yourself to being morally perfect. But you are committing to living each moment with the intention of not causing harm with your actions and words, and not violating others through your livelihood or sexuality. You are connecting to your own sense of kindness and innate dignity. Standing on this ground of intention, you are then able to participate as you choose in life's contests, until you outgrow them.

-- Edited by StPeteDean on Monday 8th of October 2012 12:24:54 PM

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

Hmmm... Thanks - I was thinking about it more after going to bed (since my inventory didn't take more than a second or two for once hehe).

Well... there is "being IN love". I just found this random inspirational quote above - so I wondered if it was simply a misprint. Even if it isn't - the readings in daily reflections - 24 hrs - today's gift - all came to mind. Talking about not putting all your eggs in one nest basically.

Today is not a day to devote all my thoughts on one quote - or live by one single quote either. Not a day to rely on one person, one anything. Now, through a little bit of work, my circle is big, my eggs are scattered everywhere (kind of like what my real chickens are doing lately - ANYWAY!).

The greatest reward of my program today is that I don't have to get stuck on any one thing anymore... good, bad or neither one. I just don't have to be stuck, I can stay in the moment - move on to the next moment quicker than ever.

Thanks HP - thanks AA - thank you all : ) Have a wonderful day!

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Love begins with a feeling, then it becomes an intention

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

So to "be love" - I would INTEND "to be".

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DING DING DING! Thanks!

vixen · MIP Old Timer

Hmm...I love the subject of love! I often think of it as listening to the highest, clearest, purest voice inside me. When I come from that place, I feel I am moving in the world as love. :)

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

Boy - I need to look more into this Dean! I've never considered it, but I am now. Sounds like exactly what I'm intending! Thanks so much! I found myself nodding my head through this whole thing!

Sobrietyspell · MIP Old Timer

Wow, Tasha! Your love brought out the best in everyone. What else can our love do.. ;) I love you & all, Danielle x

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

The thing about 'love' ... When I was deep into my addiction, I lost the ability to love anything or anyone ... even myself ...

Now, being sober a while, I can actually feel love for another person and slowly I began to love myself ... the AA fellowships taught me this ...
And a wonderful feeling it is too ...

Being love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability.

Being love, rather than giving
or taking love, is the only thing
that provides stability.