Love & Karma
We often think of love in terms of what we want from it, but not in terms of the ways we need to grow to make the best of it.
5 Star Review of The Way Forward:
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Last chance to get a copy before the holiday break. Can still arrive before Christmas too. The Way forward is 23% off on Amazon and available in bookstores.
Three thoughts:
Love is not just comfort, it is also growth – refusing to understand this truth is what breaks a lot of relationships. We often think of love in terms of what we want from it, but not in terms of the ways we need to grow to make the best of it. Relationships are innately revealing, especially when the connection is deep and undeniable. The tricky thing is you can feel love toward a person without knowing how to practice love in a way that feels mutually fulfilling and uplifting. The other challenge is that the practice of love is a world that two people create for themselves that not only feels generative and nourishing, but is designed to meet the unique needs, wants, and commitments that are personal to your relationship. The way one couple expresses love to each other can be quite different from the way another couple expresses love. No matter how you evoke the practice of love, it is necessary to understand that love will show you where you need to growth. It will help you see the parts of you that need more light and it will give you an opportunity to cultivate habits and behavior styles that produce harmony and understanding. If you want to love well in the present, you will have to work on letting go of the past.
Going with the flow doesn’t mean you sit back passively and expect everything to work out. Going with the flow means you don’t cause yourself stress by fighting changes that are out of your control. One of the major truths that holds the universe together is that of cause and effect, meaning that actions will produce results. Understanding this truth and living in alignment with it can help you brighten your life. Not only is each action a seed that eventually produces fruit of a similar quality, but each action immediately impacts the state of your mind. Actions motivated by compassionate and kind intentions support peace in the mind, while actions motivated by fear, craving, or ego will produce tension in the mind; similarly, these actions will attract or produce results in life that are not exact, but akin to their initial intention. This movement of cause and effect, or karma, provides a universal incentive to act in a way that brings you closer to your goals and to live a compassionate and active life that is not interested in harming others. Each action helps you design your life. You can’t control the ocean of life, but you can steer in the direction you want to move in by using your actions wisely.
It is important to be flexible when entering a new relationship because only seeking perfection won’t help. At the same time, it is essential to balance this truth with making sure to not lower your basic standards when it comes to new connections. Emotional availability, good communication, and clear effort are vital elements when seeing if someone is right for you. Even the beginnings of these qualities can be something you can work with if the person is showing a clear commitment to growth. Developing emotional maturity is truly a lifelong project. Especially when you understand that “doing the work” is a new phrase that points to the need for inner development, it is a new cultural phenomenon that will ultimately create a positive shift. Growth as an essential key that supports the depth and quality of relationships is an understanding that still needs time to spread. No one has it all figured out and those of us who care about growth are in the midst of developing the habits we need to show up as the best versions of ourselves. In a way it feels like we are collectively at the beginning.
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MSNBC Full Video:
I was recently interviewed on the Alicia Menendez show American Voices and had a great time. It felt like a big victory to talk about healing, personal growth and how that impacts the world on network TV.
Two Podcasts:
I was just on the Ten Percent Happier Podcast and had great conversation with Jack Kornfield and Dan Harris. We talked about meditation, the limits of the mind, how to handle conflict and much more. Click here to listen to the full convo.
I also had a great convo with Simon Sinek. We had a fun time talking about personal growth, relationships, and a bunch more. A lot of people tell me this was one of my best interviews of the year. Click here to listen to the full convo.
I love how the divine choses to send me messages. My journaling topic this morning was consistency and work and asked the divine to continue to send me messages to remind me of this need for my continued growth and to give me ways to do it. BAAM after I put my journal down I look at my email and see your beautiful reflection! Curious to hear from you Yung and others in this community - What does "doing the work" look like and how do you stay consistent with the effort?
Love your words about cause and effect. We so often get caught in feeling like victims in our lives, instead of recognising the role we play in co-creating our own suffering. Thanks for the reminder today 😘