Believe it or not: Love is present.

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Beaumont sunning on the deck.

Beaumont sunning on the deck.

We are all human scientists, continually searching for evidence the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves are true.

Last week, an incident occurred that fired a deep-seated lie within me. The details of the incident are not all that important. What is important for me, is my response to what happened.

“See Louise,” the critter voice hissed. “You don’t belong. Nobody wants you. I told you not to trust them. I told you if you let down your guard you’d get hurt. Ha? See. You should’ve known better.”

I knew that my fear I did not belong or was not wanted was not real, but for a moment, it didn’t matter. These are toehold beliefs.  I felt the old familiar ache in my heart. The tears gathering at the back of my eyes. The constriction of my throat.

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

I swallowed hard and gave my automatic response in times of fear. I smiled and sat there and didn’t say a word.

The critter was on full alert, screaming at me to Dive! Take cover. And above all, “Don’t trust yourself to stay in this place. Don’t trust anyone or anything around you!”

The critter doesn’t believe he’s telling me lies. He sees his job as keeping me safe. Without a thought to the longterm consequences, or to the reality of where I’m at, he compares past events with current and determines the best and quickest route to safety. And then, he madly goes about trying to convince me to heed his advice.

The critter does not see into the future. He can only look back and back there, behind me, is a mess of times when I felt unprotected, unaware, unconscious of my own power.

Not now.

This time, when the critter went into high gear, I slowed down.

I breathed and breathed again.

And here’s the deal.

This all happened in the passing of a few moments. It had little to do with the circumstances I encountered that triggered the critter’s cries to dive and take cover.

It had everything to do with my old path of believing the lies I tell myself when I feel unwanted, insecure, invisible or just simply take what someone else is doing as a measure of my worth.

When I spoke with the individual whose words/actions triggered my unease, they asked me a very important question.

“What’s it going to take for you to know you are loved here Louise?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

And then, I got to thinking about their question.

What’s it going to take?

It’s going to take me making the decision that I am and then, acting as if I believe it’s true – no matter what.

See, that’s the thing about being a scientist. We get to prove what we believe, true or false.

I believe Love is always present.

Yet, in times of stress, my disbelief in Love overwhelms my belief and I become fixated on proving “I am not safe” true.

Most of us do that with our emotions. We find one that works, that seemingly keeps us safe, and then, we bring it out, again and again in similar situations hoping it works, again and again and again. We might have a set or series of different emotional responses to similar situations we incorporate into our being, but always we bring them out, again and again when faced with situations the critter determines are similar to past experiences. Unfortunately, when dealing with our hearts, we don’t tend to look for new ways to respond unless our health, relationships, life is compromised to a point, we have not other choice.

Change or be changed. Find a new path or stay stuck in the fear our deepest fear is true.

I am grateful. I was given the gift of seeing my deepest fear is just a reptilian response that does not serve me well.

Instead of giving into my fears, all I have to do in moments when my fear Love isn’t present is triggered, is to breathe and decide, I believe it is true — and then, spend my time proving myself right.

 

 

 

18 thoughts on “Believe it or not: Love is present.”

  1. When the soft underbelly of vulnerability and self-defeat nudges too far into my immediate vision, posts such as yours give me the hope that finding the courage to strengthen my self-respect will win me over. Thanks Louise and I am glad for you that you tamed your inner critic.

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    • I love how you phrased that Elizabeth — “When the soft underbelly of vulnerability and self-defeat nudges too far into my immediate vision” — that is exactly how it feels, isn’t it?

      Taming the inner critic is a continuous journey of learning more about my own capacity to be vulnerable and real in my world — sharing my journey helps strengthen my self-respect and sense of purpose in the world. Thanks for my friend for being here. ❤

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  2. Not giving in to those fears is not easy, sometimes the voices in our heads are so bloody loud and doesn’t matter how often we knock it down and tell it to shut up it’s still there and it still goes on and on.

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  4. Thank you for sharing this Louise. I think we can all relate. ☺️
    I love how neuroscience brings a fresh perspective here. We are programmed from a time when our brains were not able to understand and process what was going on. It is embedded along with learning to walk and a dislike of a particulate food! Re-programming certainly takes a while!! … and lots of practice and courage to face those triggers. xo

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  5. I wonder, Louise, why we were able to be programmed like this in the first place! But, yes, I think everyone who reads this will know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I find it beautiful that you were able to right the ship so quickly, and I suppose that is very good progress!! 🙂 Here’s to all of of evolving to the place where we never even consider that there is anything present but love!! ♡♡
    (Puppy Wuppy is growing so big!! 😉 )

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    • I really do think Lorrie it is because as children, we were unprotected and the only way we could withstand the undecipherable assaults of life was to create behaviours that made sense of nonsense.

      I too am grateful I could right ship — it is part of the process of becoming awakened to my own behaviours that block my living ‘this wild and precious life’ fully.

      Puppy Wuppy is a treasure! 🙂

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  6. Dearest Louise, you are loved by more people than you know or perhaps will ever meet. Your blog soothes more souls than you realize and we are grateful for your loving presence. xoxo I am glad the critter didn’t win. Love prevails and indeed is present. xoxo

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  7. good, you slayed the lizard (dragon) …. again

    next time we lunch I want to tell you about a great Lou Tice book I’ve been reading. While it is rooted in NLP, it makes so clear that our reversions to ‘that person’ is because our non-conscious mind is programmed to see that as a norm. When we re-program, as Tice teaches, it is recognizing the non-conscious takes everything literally, even if something was deposited a long time ago, until we replace it with something new so we recognize these occurrences as ‘that’s not me’ …

    so, when are we having lunch? I think it’s your turn …

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