The Greatest Love of All

While I can’t say I was a huge Whitney Houston fan, I must say she’s been on my mind a lot since her “untimely” death. My first thought in hearing that term used is, “Is any death untimely”? And the answer to 

that, in my mind, is no. Our soul knows when it is our time to exit.

As I walked the labyrinth the other day, which was the day of Whitney’s “home-going” service (I actually love that term!), I carried her with me through my walk, and thought about her struggles with substances, which mainly had to do with her struggles with herself. It also struck me that this has happened in the month of February, the month of Love, and how ironic it is that she was known for a song that she 

mirrored through her shadow side:

“ I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows

If I fail, if I succeed At least I'll live as I believe No matter what they take from me They can't take away my dignity Because the greatest love of all Is happening to me I found the greatest love of all Inside of me The greatest love of all Is easy to achieve Learning to love yourself It is the greatest love of all.”

  

Honestly, truer words were never sung. But NOT always so easy to achieve, as I believe many of us can attest to. My own life has been a determination to get to the “heart” of me, to love me. Sometimes I’m better at that than at other times – but I daresay that’s true for most of us.

            

I am coming to more and more deeply understand about love for myself. I’m not sure I can adequately express it, but the feeling of it is so centering and rings to the core of me. It’s like a heart opening that carries a vibration unlike any other. It’s the vibration of “rightness”, of all things being balanced in my world: my world being me, my “me-ness”, if you will – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  And part of why that is so important to me is due to my medicine name, which is Crystal Heart Delight. This name, as my mentor and friend, Kathryn, likes to say, has “worked me and learned me.” I’ve had the self-realization that the word “delight” is actually opening to de-light (the light) inside me, inside my own heart.

            

My Science of Mind class has just begun reading the wonderful Gerald Jampolsky book, Love Is Letting Go of Fear.  This book is based on teachings from A Course in Miracles, the first one being “All That I Give Is Given to Myself”. So, it is truly about giving away what we would like to experience in our lives – Love, in all its forms. Gerald says, “The law of love is that you are Love, and that as you give Love to others you teach yourself what you are.” This speaks to the fact that we are all students and teachers, that we teach/give what it is we most need to learn. And that thing is Love.

            

It’s 2012. It is a return to the heart and living through the heart, less from the intellect. Often, loving self is nothing more than getting out of our own way, letting ourselves just Be, realizing the gifts we are to the world – otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Not a one of us is a mistake. Just by virtue of being present on the planet, we are worthy and deserving of all the best this planet has to offer. Do loving things for yourself, speak loving words about yourself, and you will be more loving all the way around. After all, “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all”!

And So It Is!