Face Everything And Rise to LOVE

"Face and Rise Face and Rise Face" these words are still ringing in my ears. "You are the most loving person whom I have ever met" are a second set of words I was told almost daily in my early recovery.

Since I am a child deep inside of me, it is fear and fighting the love which I carry in my soul. During my first years of childhood, I experienced severe trauma. Our mother, I have two half siblings, was physically, mentally and sexually abusive. The woman did not know what she was doing and today I pray for her soul. All the abuse never took up my love of life and people. However, I had to learn to establish healthy boundaries and love myself first, not taking anything personal and making myself first, beyond my love for others.

“Every perpetrator was once a victim but not every victim becomes a perpetrator.” I heard this slogan in one of the AA meetings which I had to attend to recover from a life of suffering. I went into situations with love and had to learn that many other people are not capable of that love. When I met my sponsor Donato, ten years ago this is what he said: “I have never met a person who can love as much as you do.  We will work together so you can let that love shine and so you will let nobody dull that shine. There is great power in Love.”

Donato taught me how to feed my good thoughts and starve unbeneficial thoughts. He taught me how to harness my power in a loving way. He often said to me that he would like me not to respond and walk away. Then one day he send me a video and I sat down and watched this video over and over again. I sat down and wrote out the words of Robert Edward Grant as follows:

“The best way to end something is to starve it, no reaction just don’t feed it, that’s were the true power lies, where attention goes energy flows and when energetic patterns are broken new worlds emerge, don’t return negative energy, remove yourself and create a new algorithm.”

Today, Wednesday 10/30/2024, I was sitting and reflecting on the love that I hold and how I can be a better version of myself feeding the world with that love. At the same time there was that thought that it can be difficult because so many people are fearful. Then I reflected how the fear of others often had affected my love in the past. Without judgement, there is no fear. I reflected on how I work daily with addicts (my kind) and how I can so easily say: “Oh this person is just going through something.” I simply make an observation and write a report thereafter advising staff on how to respond kindly and lovingly.

I was thinking on how aggressive people bring out the anger in me, how judgmental people bring out the judge in me and how lazy people bring out unkindness within me. As I am writing this I am observing how I write: “They do all of this.” Instead of writing: “I give away my love for fear to others.” In 57 years of my life nobody told me, or maybe they did and I was not ready to hear them. “When the student is ready the teacher appears,” and this I know to be fact. I had to grow older to understand that others cannot affect my love if I do not let them. When I let others affect how loving I feel towards everybody and everything, then I give others the power to make me fearful. When I am fearful then I hurt others. “Hurt people Hurt people.”

“G-d grant me the SERENITY to accept the people, places and things that I cannot change, the COURAGE to change the people places and things I can, and the WISDOM to KNOW the difference.” -Serenity Prayer-

Within my there lies love and fear equally and the more I love the greater my fear could become if I let the fear rise to the top. True love then therefore is fearless, and it does neither judge, save, or struggle against. True Love embraces all as it is and will walk away from what does not feel loving. We as humans can learn to love from the far and to not engage and do more damage. I learned that when people show me who they are I believe them. Often it is the most loving thing to let another person have their own experience. It is loving to refuse to have power and give it away to the universe and to just sit down and pray.

My Love is a giver. My Love encourages others and lifts them up. My Love is kind and understanding. My Love walks in grace. My Love speaks only good. My Love is courageous. My Love is happy. My Love is free. My Love is truthful. My Love has integrity. My Love is independent. My Love is a journey.

My Fear is a taker. My Fear discourages others and put them down. My Fear does not understand or tries to understand others. My Fear walks in darkness. My Fear speaks when others are not present. My Fear panics. My FEAR gossips. My Fear is miserable. My Fear is unhappy. My Fear is caged. My Fear lies. My Fear does the wrong thing even when people look. My Fear is dependent. My Fear keeps me stuck.

There is a battle within all of us humans and we must overcome the fear and stop the war. When we as humans makes a final decision, when we feel there is nothing to conquer, when we realize that we neither have or want power over everybody and everything in our and others life’s, We are finally free and we finally learned to LOVE.

I learned that we as humans can hold only one thought at a time. I learned that the struggle within me came from my thoughts. I learned that no matter what I can choose my thoughts. My thoughts carry me thought a feeling experience which will determine my response to an outside event or person.

Hence my biggest struggle today is the choice and only that one choice we all have to make, no matter what, and that choice is to LOVE unconditionally. NO MATTER WHAT!