Posts by Valerie Varan
Stages of Love
Have you ever wondered how we tend to evolve in the ways of love? Here is a brief look at love as it unfolds through us. Stage 1: “I love me” This is the stage where “me, me, me” is the object of love. We focus on our safety, security, self-preservation, appearance…the physical aspects of self. Physical sensation rules. Love is confused with sex. Instinct is the predominant consciousness here. This aspect of love is needed because we have to be very aware of the physical self or else we would run into walls and, in many ways, hurt ourselves. However, if we overdo it, we can get stuck in narcissism. Balance is key. Stage 2: “I love you, on condition that…” This is the stage where “you”, another person or thing, is the object of love. Here, we focus on love for family, friends, and most of all, our beloved or significant other. But love is usually limited to one or few people, and handed out on condition that we get something in return. Our big desire is to get into intimate relationship, marry, and have children. Yet, we have this selfish habit of picking people who “complete us”, who fulfill certain needs that we see in ourselves. Unfortunately, these types of relationships aren’t often sustainable because when we outgrow the need, we outgrow the person.
Where are you on the ladder of love?
Though in reality love is already present in all dimensions simultaneously, it appears to us as if it evolves. Within ourselves as individuals, as well as within our social and cultural norms. It seems to enter our human consciousness in steps, as if we were climbing a ladder. From a physical instinctual style of living, to an emotional relational feeling style, to an intellectual thinking way of being, toward a more integrative and social creative mindset, and even beyond all of that, we are transformed. Most of us have at least touched the first three steps. But we differ in which step we choose to live our life from as our usual way of being, whether the physical, emotional or mental realm of love consciousness.
Using Love as Healing Meditation
Love is the divine force that unites all as one. It is ultimately always love that heals, by returning us back to our source for wholeness. Try this exercise in self-healing with love:
Since it is Love energy that actually heals, use your ability to imagine the experience of unbounded Love to elevate yourself to the highest state of love consciousness that you can before you begin your healing meditation.
Les Miserables: A Story of Love
If you haven’t seen Les Miserables, go see it in theatres now! Far from depressing, it shows the commanding power of love and forgiveness.
How To Offer Loving Support To Your Spouse or Partner
Many people have asked me how to know whether or not they are loving their spouse or partner in “healthy enough” ways. They wonder how they can best support their loved one on a daily basis, in the daily activity of their relationship. First of all, ask them. In a quiet moment, when you are talking about your relationship, ask them directly in which ways you could do more to make them feel loved. The goal is to allow them space to be who they really are authentically inside, to freely support them as they express their loving self in the world at large, to forgive them when they make mistakes as we expect them to forgive us in return, and to give plenty of room for change, balance, growth and evolution. In the person, as well as in the relationship. Realize that everyone experiences love differently. The mistake we often make is assuming that the way we like to experience love is the way our partner likes to experience love. For instance, I feel very loved when my husband does little things for me without me having to ask him, like emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming the floors, or picking up clutter around the house. Why?
The Ways of Love: Qualities, Attributes, Characteristics
Love is….. Gentle. Not terse.
More an intimate whisper that invokes intent listening and inspires responsive action, than a fierce wind that sends us scurrying for protection.
Kind. Respectful of all.
Wise. In wisdom, there is loving understanding…..a sense of patient compassion that comes from the realization that perfection lies in the whole beyond time, rather than in the part that defines space.
Responsible. We know what needs to be done. We choose a part to play in the entire activity of construction. We do it, regardless of how inadequate our contribution seems. We understand that perfection is only achieved from group rather than individual effort. Follow through is our strength, as is persistence and steadfastness to the task at present.
Present. When we are present, we are listening, attending and connecting. We become aware of that which weaves us together in synthesis. Through mindful and heartful presence, we fully become aware of the whole, as well as our role in it. Meaning and purpose become known, since it is the whole picture that bestows context to any one part. (Consider that when our life fails to have meaning and purpose for us, it is we who have neglected to give it any.)
Allowing. Freeing. Not binding, nor demanding.
In love, there is understanding that each flower grows in its own field in its own time and pace, and in this way, life continues its blooming.
Grateful. Appreciative of what is, rather than judgmental of what is not. This is the yin of love, receptive and open.
Inclusive. Including all, marginalizing no one. Love’s creative process requires our togetherness, unity, synthesis, collaboration, and cooperation.
Constructive. Supportive. Creative. This is the yang of love. As St. Paul said, love builds. Any destruction that takes place simply makes room for the building process. An old house must be torn down before the new can be erected in its place. When the new one is built, it is constructed upon a foundation of support. Love supports, like rebar to a concrete structure. Love raises us up, like pillars and beams to a roof.
Healing Meditation
Imagine Divine Love as a white stream of energy pervading the space around you. Breathe in this Love energy. See it enter the top of your head, the crown chakra, as you inhale. As you exhale, send Love energy through your breath deeply into your body. Allow your breath to carry Love to its holy destination. Inhaling Love…..exhaling Love…..sending Love into every cell, every organ. Notice which areas of your body feel tension. Breathe in Love. Then with your outbreath, target Love energy there. Feel the area lap up the Love, and relax, smooth, expand. Become aware of which organs are most in need of healing. Inhale Love energy. Exhale Love energy, sending it to your organs with intentions (instructions really) of healing. See the white energy of Love as a jewel, radiating, sparkling, illuminating your organs with its healing light. See the organ you are healing as a jewel itself. Become that jewel. Notice which colors within Love’s light spectrum you feel called to infuse within the cells of the organ. If purple, become the amethyst brilliantly radiating purple throughout your organ body. If red, become the ruby. And so forth…..diamonds, pearls, dark blue sapphires, green emeralds….. For any color you feel drawn to, see it in your mind’s eye as clear and bright. Try it on, like a new shirt. Become aware of how it feels as you are wearing it. Magenta, daffodil yellow, coral orange…..notice the unique and varying sensations that each color brings into your body. Linger with each that feels particularly soothing and nurturing. Breathing in Love, exhaling Love…..sending Love’s magical light into every cell, organ, or system in need of healing.
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How Love Heals, Part III
When our body, mind or heart is broken, we seek healing.
Healing is the process of integration, of joining together that which has been fragmented. A fractured bone mends. A scattered mind focuses. A heart finds wholeness. And the soul remembers oneness.
All wounds are a tear in the fabric of Love, the field of synthesis for all that has been sewn from the one thread.
In healing, Love calls back to itself what has gone awry. It magnetizes back to center what has been split apart. At the energetic level, Love coheres, attracts and unifies. It sounds out its vibrational note, and gathers in all that resonates with its song. Love energy moves as a coherent field…..spiraling tightly like a laser, systemically like a galaxy…..whirling seemingly separated particles together within its gravitational hold.
How Love Heals, Part II
Love is the cyclic movement we call the inbreath and outbreath of God.
Divine Love breathes out creation as the force of involution.
As the force of evolution, Love breathes in, and gathers the many into the One.
Through Love we are born. Through Love we heal.
(to be continued in part III…)
How Love Heals
Love is the primary energy through which matter, our familiar dense and physical form, is constructed.
Pure energy that is Spirit inter-courses, weaving form out of formlessness, falling back and forth upon itself, One Thread becoming the many-threaded material of our physical existence.
The process, we call Love. The sound, a multi-verse of exploding life birthing from the One Life. The primary effect, we call Creation, Awareness, the field of Quantum Consciousness.
(to be continued in part II…)