Love letters always reach their destination – to the person who wrote them in the first place.

I think culturally the hesitation people have about themes like kindness, compassion and love is that these are soft qualities and that there is a limit to how they would serve you in the world as it is. But the same things that threaten us also create an opening for resilience. There is a connection to kindness, compassion and love that also translates into resilience in the world as it is not just  as we wish it to be.

Cultivating the qualities which will promote resilience — yes, in some sense it’s soft, but in another sense, you couldn’t get much harder in terms of what really matters.

Every time you choose to love, you have also just chosen to die. Every time you truly love, you are letting go of yourself as an autonomous unit and are giving a bit of yourself away to something or someone else, and it is not easily retrieved – unless you choose to stop loving – which many do.

Intimacy is our capacity for closeness and tenderness toward things.  It is often revealed in moments of risky self-disclosure.  Intimacy lets itself out and lets the other in. It makes all love possible, and yet it also reveals our incapacity to love back.

Love is the only thing that can move across boundaries and across cultures.  Love is a very real energy, a spiritual life force that is much more powerful than ideas of mere thoughts. Love is endlessly alive, always flowing towards the lower place, and thus life-giving for all, like a great river and water itself.

When you die, you are the sum total of the capacity you have developed to give and receive love.  Recognition of this is your own final judgement or yourself – becoming responsible for what you now see.

If you have not received or will not give this gift of love to  others, your soul remains tied to a small, empty earthly world. We must choose to live in love.

Life is a delicate dance of internal alignment and external circumstances. And some of this dance is in our control and some of it isn’t. But what I know is that the dance goes much smoother if we choose to go right into the middle of our life and send love and healing to our energy field around us.

But how do we embrace and expand the most fulfilling experience of love?

We begin by going within and uniting with the unconditional generous love the universe has for each of us. Feel the flow of that love by remembering the moments that left you breathless or melted your heart. The first moment that you held your newborn, the moment you experienced the vast majesty of the sky or mountains or ocean waves or for me that one moment I first stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

That love is ours to share and when we do, joy multiplies beyond our imagination. We all can flow towards a new experience of giving, receiving and connecting.

To experience love fully means experiencing who you are fully. Nothing is more natural. Love is holistic. The only reason we do not experience love everywhere is because we are not used to living at the level of the true self.  One you realize this you can start to live love rather than looking for love. To keep the flow of love, take the time to put the focus on the different levels of love available.  When you notice then, the simple action of putting your attention helps to make it an intimate part of you.

If you appreciate something, like a sunrise, take the moment to say to yourself: this is love. These are no small things, love is gentle by nature and many experiences are infused with. As you begin to notice love your awareness will expand naturally and then it becomes easier to make those gestures of kindness and compassion which are expressions of your true self. You then develop the awareness of the universal love that embodies all of creation.

I have learned that love isn’t perfect. It isn’t a fairytale or a storybook and it doesn’t always come easy. Love is overcoming obstacles, facing challenges, fighting to be together, holding on and never letting go. It is a short word, easy to spell, difficult to define, and impossible to live without. Love is work, but most of all, love is realizing that every hour, every minute, every second was worth it because we did it together.

Big things always start small. The healing of the nations or the reconciliation of the moral arch of the universe starts in you. You cannot give the world what you do not have. You cannot forgive others if you are not willing to forgive yourself. You can’t love others if you refuse to love yourself. Loves moment starts in you.

What is the first simple step you are being called to make?  What is the simple shift you can take because once you do it you will know what comes next.

Love is the most powerful force in the world. When we express ourselves from a centered place of love – miracles happen.

Love starts with you.