Every time I introduce myself, be it on a group for Facebook, on Twitter, or any of the other Social Sites, I always introduce myself as being a student of Love striving to become the greatest expression of Love of which I am capable.

My experience has taught me that there are only two hindrances to being the free-flowing expression of Love, which I hope to become. Number one is that I am afraid. Either I am afraid that I will be rejected in one way or another or I am frightened by the possibility of giving love that is not returned, which is really just another way of stating the same fear of rejection.

Number two is that my ego tells me that the person before me is not worthy of my love. Perhaps he/she has done something I disagree with, and somewhere in my mind I decide to withhold my love, with this behavior or action as my justification. This second choice is actually easier to change because it is simply a matter of immediate forgiveness.

Since our wants, likes and dislikes are so deeply ingrained in our personality, it never seems to work if I merely attempt “not” to judge an individual whose behavior is troubling me. I have found that it is far easier, for me, to notice the irritating action and immediately forgive it. The simple question, “Is this really worth sacrificing my peace of mind over?” is usually enough to remind me to forgive my brother or sister, for my own sake.

The first reason for not loving is a far more complex problem. Fear hides itself, within our learned behaviors. We make up all kinds of stories about why we don’t love, because we are not interested or we are too intimidated to honestly recognize that at the core of the withheld love is fear. This fear of vulnerability is something we discussed in the July 6^th Secret to Peace entitled To Live is to be Vulnerable . Today I want to examine this a bit further.

Consider these words from Gangaji:

Most everything we do is to avoid vulnerability. We dress up in grown-up clothes, and play at doing grown-up work, in an attempt to escape the defenseless innocence associated with child. But innocence is not limited to children. It is possible for you as an adult to be consciously vulnerable and innocent. You can consciously hurt. You can consciously suffer. When you suffer consciously, suffering is revealed not to be what you thought. In conscious suffering, you are no longer fighting the suffering. You are consciously present in it. Then suffering itself reveals the Buddha, Christ’s heart, God revealing Itself to you on the mountain. If suffering is met as it appears, then suffering is discovered not to be suffering. But the intention is not to meet suffering to get rid of it. The innocent intention is to meet suffering as it is, even if it means feeling hurt.

Most people are more afraid of having their feelings hurt

than they are having their bodies hurt. But the willingness to be hurt is crucial. Without the willingness to be hurt, there is no willingness to love, no willingness to die, no willingness to live, no willingness to be.

It is easy to see from your own life experience that no matter how much you try to run away from hurt, you still experience it. To stop the running, to turn and experience what is chasing you, open and unprotected, you have to be willing to be free. Are you willing to be free?

You can examine your life and see for yourself what you are running from, what you are trying to escape. It may be very subtle. But just in the seeing of it, there is the possibility of a deeper opening. Gangaji. The Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2005. Pp. 204-05. Print.

To Love requires the ability to be totally truthful with oneself. This is why I stated that the fear of vulnerability, the fear of rejection, the fear of being hurt is so much harder to overcome than is learning to immediate forgive indiscretions which are simply not that important. These fears are deeply ingrained within us, and after having children, I am not totally convinced that we do not come on the planet with some of these embedded in our psyches.

If one truly hopes to become the greatest expression of Love they are capable of becoming, he or she must learn to be quiet enough to question every truth they hold sacred.

Many, many of our truths are totally unexamined. We cannot love fully without discarding all so-called truths which block our ability to be fearless, when it comes to loving.

I posted a quote, this week, on my Intuitive Endeavors Facebook page, in which Rollo May said: “The inner sense of worth that comes with being in love does not seem to depend essentially on whether the love is returned or not.” — May, Rollo. Love and Will; Rollo May. New York: Norton, 1969. Print.

By this quote and from my life experience it is obvious, to me, that the choice to love pays dividends which far exceed any of the pain involved in moving through my fears. By forgiving, immediately, acts which the old Elliott would have taken personally and found offensive, I reclaim my right to choose freedom. I choose to love; to not be owned by mental thought patterns that were created before I was awake.

Freedom is a choice.
Loving is a choice.

Loving sets us free.
All other options
Keep us imprisoned,
Behind walls we
Never knew were there.

I choose Love.
I choose to Love you.
Even if you may hurt me.
Even if you already have.
And So It is.