Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 26: romantic longing 🤎 — part 1

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26: romantic longing 🤎 — part 1 · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  My advice to all of us is that we honor and validate our romantic longing rather than
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  shaming and invalidating it. Hello sunshine and welcome back to paradigm shift with i understood
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  a place where we reframe what is and reimagine what could be. I hope you enjoy today's episode
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  let's paradigm shift together. Today's episode is brought to you by you yourself and you all
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  because i put out a little bit of a poll on my Spotify asking you what is the topic you most
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  want to hear giving you a few options and i don't know if i'm surprised by the results like i
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  do not know but here were the five options beauty politics creativity advice friendship
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  things romantic longing and the fifth was big tech and the attention economy and what emerged as
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  the winner as you can tell is romantic longing and she's intriguing she's fascinating she's
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  interesting and she's interested so i am thrilled to be diving into this topic a little bit deeper
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  with you sharing my experiences and thoughts and some of the wisdom that i've come to
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  and for this episode i reread the book communion by bell hooks the female search for love
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  and it was such a delicious experience because there's so much wisdom and there's a lot of ways
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  that it can be brought into where we are now so just a quick plug is i would love to have your
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  voices be part of this podcast so in the link in the show notes you will see an option to leave
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  me a voicemail in reality it's not a voicemail at all you go on to this website and you leave a voice
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  note it's very very simple and i'm hoping to get to 20 responses by the end of the week so i
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  would love to hear from you do you have a question a thought a piece of advice you want to
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  either seek or provide because we're all students and we're all teachers i really believe that i
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  would love to learn from you is there a paradigm shift that you want to share is there anything
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  that you want to react to that could be meaningful to other people the reason why i'm doing this
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  and not a form is because i think the voice carries the energy and the charge and we get to hear
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  why this matters to you what's the context what's happening in your life and we get to kind of
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  receive your actual energy as part of the podcast rather than the way that my voice would
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  interpret and share your words so please do leave me a voice note the link is in the show notes
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  and keep interacting on Spotify i'm loving all the comments and the feedback and the participation
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  on the polls i really appreciate it if you do not listen on Spotify don't worry we see each other
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  we've got each other those that do listen on Spotify will carry on their backs those that don't in
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  terms of the survey responses and so forth but you can always send me an email or reach out to me
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  on instagram or substack or wherever and i am a slow responder because i'm living my life
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  but i will hopefully eventually respond you know some things in life is like i was not born for a
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  world with email that i do know so let us get into this juicy topic which is romantic longing
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  full of intrigue full of resonance on a soul level and i want to set the stage you know let's get
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  the furniture in place let's get the props let's get the lighting right the backdrop what are we
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  talking about when we talk about romantic longing this is the specific human experience of longing
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  for yearning craving romantic partnership or partnerships to my polyamorous listeners and craving
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  this intimate and deeply often physical but doesn't have to be connection and intimacy with someone
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  you are craving being held and you are craving holding you're craving cuddling dates and experiences
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  together you are craving being spoken to as a subject of love being complemented and being
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  thought of as this divine presence on this earth you are craving being seen and having a safe
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  space to share your secrets you know late at night chatting pillow talking but i don't think
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  that means what i intended to mean but whatever and also if you are someone who is into sex and being
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  sexual you are craving that safe container of sexual connection and the ability to grow with someone
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  in your sexual intimacy right and experiences and you are craving this deep and rich love and
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  you've done the work and you know what you're looking for and you love yourself but you also want
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  to be loved by someone else and that is all so human and maybe there are lots of barriers that
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  you experience between you and romantic love so i've always felt like romantic love is for
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  other people to experience like especially a long term romantic partner i've always felt like
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  it's never gonna be me you know what i mean like i'm not the one who's going to be in a romantic
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  partnership it will always be this experience that's always and already outside of my reach
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  and i've had like short term relationships but i haven't been i'm 28 like in like a long term one
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  of those relationships and there's such a hierarchy of love that exists in our society where romantic
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  partnership and romantic love are put on a hierarchy and seen as more valid more worthwhile more
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  meaningful and more of a qualifier of your existence on this earth so that is called a matronormativity
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  so anyways it feels like this thing that i always feel like i'm on the outside looking into
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  right and like oh it will never be me and so as we think of the context in setting this stage i
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  thought that this tweet was the perfect synthesis or summary of what we are talking about today
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  and what this person north star doll says is i'm focusing on myself and then in parentheses or brackets
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  depending on where you're from pretending i'm not consumed by loneliness and romantic longing
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  every night and i think that does such a wonderful job of encapsulating this duality that so many
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  of us are experiencing what we are willing to own and claim like focusing on ourselves loving ourselves
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  doing us focusing on creativity focusing on our friends etc etc all very valid and wonderful
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  but there is still this feeling that and there should be that we still do crave many of us romantic love
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  like even as we want to be self loving and we want to love our friends and we want to love
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  we still do many of us crave this romantic partnership and being held and holding and having
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  these spaces of intimacy that are linked to a certain kind of connection and that are in their
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  nature rooted in love and a loving partnership or partnerships okay so that is what we are talking
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  about today is this tension and we're trying to give voice for the parentheses to be the main
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  sentence right that we shouldn't have to silence or deny our longings we shouldn't have to only
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  experience them on our own we shouldn't have to have no room to admit that we really do crave this
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  form of love that feels outside of our reach so that's what i want to really give voice to today
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  and how i frame this is it's going to be 15 pieces of wisdom on romantic logging that i want to
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  leave you with and discuss with you and there's going to be two parts to this series so that i can
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  break it up and really bring my fullest energy to both of the parts so let's jump into it okay let's
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  jump into the meat of the conversation which is these pieces of wisdom number one and it links
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  perfectly to that tweet that we just discussed number one my advice to all of us is that we honor
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  and validate our romantic longing rather than shaming and invalidating it okay so when you have
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  a longing within you it's easy to say no okay i can't long for that because i don't have it so
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  i'm just going to pretend that i don't and move on and focus on doing me focus on romanticizing
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  my life focus on love of self and so on and so forth and yet i think that that is closing us off
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  to a deeper longing that we have within us that is yearning to be seen like it's not shameful
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  or desperate or not feminist or wrong to crave romantic partnership and this part of us is
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  something to honor because i believe that our feelings are kind of like little children within us
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  and we can either say to them why are you saying that no like stop talking or we could say wait what
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  do you have to say what's going on where is this coming from and how can i help you how can i
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  make you feel truly hurt and truly acknowledged and seen and i think with our longings i know for
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  myself there's been this kind of trajectory that i've gone on where i went from very desperately
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  longing to like pretending as though i didn't long at all but that was because it was easier to make
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  sense of myself if i conceived of myself as someone who was okay with not having romantic love
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  rather than having to grapple with the tension of not having something that i really wanted but
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  also wanting to have a life that i wanted you know what i mean basically like i don't want to live
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  my life rooted in the lack that i experience like i want to try and find the abundance but then when
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  lack does come up and does pain mean i get those pangs of cravings or longings i don't want to be
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  someone who silences that and rejects it and denies it and invalidates it as though oh no i'm not
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  loving myself hard enough you know this language around the hype individualism just go on solo
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  dates just take yourself seriously and romanticize your life and yet when we are told what that looks
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  like it's often so rooted in consumption and in photographing and performing self love rather than
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  being in self love which is wonderful but it shouldn't be something that silences our longings
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  in our cravings to that point i think that bell hooks is book communion there is such a wonderful
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  resource for this she speaks about the need for a people who take love seriously to create new
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  visions new maps new journeys and to take love seriously and to kind of erect like schools of love
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  and understanding that like love is everything there's a quote where she says that like love with a
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  single partner is not everything love itself is everything and so i want to read you this quote
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  from the book communion by bell hooks and although she bases it in it's a feminist book and she
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  bases it in women's experiences i think that this book can be made relevant to anyone who is seeking
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  to love without supremacy do you know what i mean because i actually think that the broader need is not
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  that i think that the broader goal should be to uproot domination as she says from our relationships
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  and she says that love cannot exist with domination exists and vice versa and yet domination is
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  something that so many of us have learned through family through media through culture through
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  society and so no relationship is protected from supremacy they to the two people three people five
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  people involved have to do the work of unlearning supremacy in order to be in loving relationship to
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  each other and so whether that is a queer relationship a polyamorous relationship if that person or
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  those people are rooted in an understanding of domination within love they will not have a healthy
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  love or in her definition they will not have love at all so that's why i want to broaden this to like
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  everyone women non-binary people queer people all types of people who are not seeking who are
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  seeking love that exists outside of supremacy culture which is radical you know what i mean it is
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  radical to have relationships that are rooted in as she says a mutual in a mutual commitment to
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  each other's spiritual growth as she says in all about love i'll just read you this quote as it is
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  my hope for younger generations of women is that they will examine the unfulfilled spaces of
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  their lives soon and boldly unabashedly choosing to do the work of love placing it above everything
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  again and again it must be stated that when i talk about doing the work of love i am not talking
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  simply about partnership i am talking about the work of self-love in conjunction with the work of
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  relational love so that's really important that we take seriously as people who are seeking love
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  without supremacy love rooted in mutual commitment and mutual care that we find ways to take seriously
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  the parts of our lives where we feel unfulfilled and then when she's saying choosing to do the work
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  of love she speaks about how love does take effort you know i'm going to use the word effort instead of
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  work love takes time she says you know so many of us say that we value love and then you look at how
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  we spend our time and we are not committing to doing the work the effort the time of love and i
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  know that that's very influenced by capitalism and how much free time we all have and how we feel
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  when we do have free time and what types of experiences we cling to in that time as a reprieve and
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  that we don't have shared space shared time shared resources all of these things but i do want to say
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  that i think it's really incredible that she's encouraging us to take seriously that love is
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  everything and that love is what we should put first in the way that we live our lives and that when
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  we do yearn for love and crave for love we should never silence that yearning or that craving we
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  should honor it we should seek to understand it and we should seek to find ways to fulfill
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  that void that we are feeling within us if we can so as we honor and validate love i want to
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  bring in the word integrity and what i learned is that integrity at its root means wholeness so if
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  we are living in integrity we are living as whole beings right and so when we have this part of
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  ourself that we feel but do not want to recognize we are in a way not living in integrity because we're
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  rejecting a part of ourself and yet wholeness is integrating all of us even the parts we would seek
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  to relegate to the shadows or deny or reject so i think a very important second piece of wisdom
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  that i want to provide linked to the first is how can we integrate rather than reject our longing
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  and by integrate i mean make it part of us part of our conception of ourselves of the world like
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  can we create from that place can we share from that place can we speak to that place instead of
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  denying it and relegating it to the shadows when we integrate something we bring it into our being
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  we say this longing it's not there it's here it's in me it's in my heart it's in my soul it is a part
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  of me and i am a part of it that is what it means to integrate and instead of rejecting something
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  i can ask myself what is this thing trying to show me what is it trying to teach me what is it
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  trying to point me towards or guide me away from and i want to give you an example from my own life
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  the times in my life where i've had the strongest most insistent romantic longing have been times
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  when i felt most unfulfilled in my life generally working a job i did not feel aligned to or connected
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  with surrounded by some friendships that didn't feel as enriching as i would hope to have in my life
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  and so there was that void within me that space and i reacted to that by trying to pursue romantic love
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  but what i think i should have done or what i would do now is integrate like how can i bring more
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  fullness and less lack into my being how can i find romantic spaces in my life that exist
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  like how can i try and rethink my friendships and see if i can reach out to people who i think
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  i would be really good friends with or make sure that i'm seeing and speaking to and in touch with
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  the people who do make me feel really full and how can i at the time didn't see myself as creative at
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  all i had no creative outlet as they say so now i feel so full full of life full of erotic energy
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  because i love the things that i'm creating and the people that i'm creating it for and i love
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  being in touch with myself in this medium and in this way through the medium of creativity
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  and i love the friendships that i have in my life so if i integrate my longing i see it as a space
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  that is looking to be filled and a space that's also trying to tell me about how i'm living my life
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  today and how i'm not living in integrity and alignment in the sense that maybe i feel like i'm
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  surrounded by people who don't really hear me or see me and therefore i'm channeling all of this
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  romantic longing in two romance and this fantasy in my head of a partner when it may actually be
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  trying to teach me something about my state of being today and with that i want to read you a
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  passage from the uses of the erotic and if you enjoy this idea of integrating and finding a way to
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  let your longing be a guide i highly recommend you listen to my episode on redefining the erotic and
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  reclaiming the erotic and that you read Audrey lords essay the uses of the erotic because that is
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  so much what this conversation is about and so i would love to read to you from that essay right
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  now and sit back and relax because it's a little bit of a long quote okay so Audrey lords says
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  when we live outside ourselves and by that i mean on external directives only rather than
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  from our own internal knowledge and needs when we live away from those erotic guides from within
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  ourselves then our lives are limited by external and alien forms and we conform to the needs of
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  a structure that is not based on human need let alone and individuals but when we begin to live
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  from within outward you see what she's saying instead of from outward inward from within from
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  our needs our heroes our energy outward in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves
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  and allowing that power within to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us
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  then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense do you see how powerful what
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  she's saying is and that is why we cannot silence our longing because our longing is coming from
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  within obviously it's shaped from the world and that's another thing we have to interrogate why we
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  long for what we long for is there a deeper longing that this longing is concealing so for example
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  while i thought i was longing for a romantic partner i was really also longing at a deeper level
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  to feel like i was experiencing heroes in my life you know like i felt that i was craving erotic
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  energy and i could only conceive of one channel that i could experience that through so when we begin
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  to go inwards and listen to that inner craving and that inner longing and that heroes that's begging
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  to be seen and to be actualized and then we actualize that from inward outward we paint the world
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  with our consciousness and the world could mean through our art and through the sharing of it but
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  it could also mean through our relationships and how we relate to people like we externalize the
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  internal rather than internalize the external these forms that she says are inherently alien to us
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  you know like desiring what the status quo has taught us to desire letting other people's opinions
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  of us decide how we move and act living from their perspective their judgment their expectations
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  and then coming to the end of our lives and saying wow i never lived a day for myself you know what i
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  mean i never lived a day from myself is even more powerful and then to this point of integrating
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  everything within us and moving from that place listen to this okay so she says for as we begin
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  to recognize our deepest feelings we begin to give up of necessity being satisfied with suffering
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  and with self negation and with the numbness which so often seems like they're only alternative
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  in our society our acts against oppression become integral with self motivated and empowered
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  from within in touch with the erotic i become less willing to accept powerlessness or those other
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  supplied states of being which are not native to me such as resignation despair self-effacement depression
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  and self-denial and there is for me she says no difference between writing a good poem and moving
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  into sunlight against the body of a woman i love wow i just love her so much that is so
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  powerful oh my goodness like wow wow and there is for me no difference between writing a good poem
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  and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman i love now the reason why that is so powerful when
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  it comes to today's conversation on romantic longing is she saying that erotic energy erotic
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  potential is something that we can find as much in for her writing a good poem now you have to
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  find what is that for you and moving toward the body of a woman i love so that's what i was saying
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  around feeling unfulfilled in my life and craving romantic longing what i really was also craving
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  is another space of eros in my life and now that's how i feel about creating podcast especially it is
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  erotic it is filled with the feeling i think that she i imagine she had about writing a poem it's
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  energizing it's enlivening it's passionate it's not a fairy tale it's not without suffering it's not
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  without pain but it is the type of pain that i choose for myself because it is more pleasure
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  and it is more aliveness and it is more alignment and spiritual fulfillment and nourishment and it
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  is more purposeful and it is more like something that i feel fully is in tune with my soul and my
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  spirit and so i feel as much enlivened by creating this podcast and devoting myself to it and
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  interacting with you all through it as i do to the prospect of moving towards people that i may
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  love and come to love in the romantic and erotic sense and i'm also committed to finding other
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  forms of eros and querying the understanding that it can only be activated through the romantic
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  paradigm shaped by the colonizer's imagination okay okay so let us move on to the next point which
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  links to the conversation we were having on self love and that is love yourself in response
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  to your romantic longing channel the romance into yourself but do not stop there do not stop
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  there so you know when they say romanticize your life so that is valid and meaningful but it can
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  only be a starting point why because of ubuntu because we exist as relational beings because we only
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  exist through relationship and because when we become more loving we change the world we change
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  each other and if we move through the world as love and through love we literally can have such
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  at a phenomenal ripple effect on the people and the forces in our lives so that is where the bell hooks
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  quote comes in she does say that women cannot live by self love alone i dare to make that proclamation
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  in response to the barrage of advice giving material in self help books that pits self love against
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  our need to love and be loved by others and i think that's exactly the point that i was trying to
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  make with the idea of romanticizing your life and how focused on the self it tends to be it's not
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  really romanticized the people in your life which i think is a beautiful understanding of romanticization
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  but that's not what they're saying on the ground that's not what they're saying on twitter it's
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  really romanticize your life and i think that has had a positive impact in many ways but i think
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  we need to understand that self love is just a starting point the goal is to create a loving
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  society where love can thrive and all kinds of love can thrive love of self love of each other
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  just love can be a species or an organism or forest or an ecosystem that is just like everywhere
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  thriving in all its manifestations the next piece of advice i want to give you is that longing is
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  love so i believe that we all truly seek love in all of its manifestations and so when we are not
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  feeling the love that we think we could be feeling like we all seek to be the highest manifestation
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  of love that we can be and to receive the highest manifestation of love that we can receive
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  and so that when we are not in that space of feeling love and feeling loving we start to invent
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  and construct these illusions these hopes i love that in spanish the word illusion means both hope
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  and also illusion and i think there is a philosophical claim that can be made there whereby
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  even though hopes and dreams and fantasies can be incredible and they can be life giving
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  and they can literally sustain us in times of despair and difficulty they also are often tied to
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  illusion they may never come to be they may be a complete misrepresentation of reality
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  because they don't exist so we have to invent them and construct them so when we think of longing as
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  love what we see is that we are beings who want love to channel through us
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  but now the drain is blocked because we are craving romantic love but we are not in a position to
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  receive it so now we have a choice to say fuck the drain is blocked or we can say wow what is at
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  the root of this longing for romantic love it's love itself and i want to read you this quote
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  by a philosopher named ah almas okay and listen to this the origin of all feeling is love
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  the first feeling is love if you follow your feelings all the way back what will you come to finally
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  hmm and so if everything comes back to love then what if our romantic longing is a response
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  to the love we have not received the love we know we are capable of receiving the love we have
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  not given and the love we know we are capable of giving so it all comes back to love our need to be
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  loved our pain at the ways that we have not been loved and what bellhook says in communion is that
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  many of us are using the romantic ideal to create a sense of salvation from the way that our families
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  and our caregivers have failed to love us from the trauma of that and the pain of that so if longing
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  is love and love is an energy that heals that connects us to each other then any love that we
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  leave dormant within us is in a sense a lost opportunity a waste do you remember in the
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  episode i did on being cancelled i'm not sure if you've listened to that but essentially at the
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  end of it i was speaking about disposability culture and i read a quote by Adrian Marie Brown
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  where she says that nothing in nature is disposable everything in nature is made useful for some
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  other process so compost is an example she gives there's nothing that is wasted if nature is
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  left to its own devices and yet when we are longing and then we just silence that longing or do
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  nothing with that longing that is love seeking to pulsate through us we must do something with it
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  because it is an energy and energy moves you know energy can move us closer to the world that we
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  want to see which is a world rooted in love so if longing is love then how can we come back to love
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  how can we reflect on the ways that we are desiring to love and be loved on the ways that we have
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  failed to love and be loved and recognize that this is a child that just wants to be loved
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  within us and also a child that feels that they want to give more love than they're currently giving
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  but that is so powerful and that can be channeled away from the blocked drain and into literally
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  the abundance of everything else and I love the idea of love as an abundant energy that we are
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  taught to see as scarce and that our society erects barriers such that it is in many ways made to
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  be scarce you know barriers in terms of who is seen as lovable who is seen as desirable barriers in
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  terms of not teaching us how to love and how to be loved how to relate to each other in a deeply
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  loving way imagine what a different society we would live in if that was the education we were
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  receiving is literally how can you be a manifestation of love on this planet how can you be love how
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  can you give love how can you receive love how can we completely remove all the barriers in our world
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  that exist between us and love so to that point of this blocked drain longing is filled with
• 30:11
  erotic energy like that is what longing is that's why when you hear the word you go you know
• 30:18
  because it's filled with that juiciness it's filled with that aliveness that passion that mystery
• 30:26
  and so it's filled with this erotic energy then what else can it be channeled into and I don't
• 30:33
  just mean the self we must be also facing and being towards others if we are yearning to give
• 30:41
  this love to a romantic partner how can we say well who else could I give it to then like I've
• 30:47
  always felt in my life I have so much more love to give to children and I wish I was in a society
• 30:53
  that made it a bit easier to do that that removed the barriers between all elder people who want to
• 30:59
  support children and children and I know I could be doing things like there are always there's
• 31:03
  teaching and there's you know support and volunteering and I have cousins that I could go visit like
• 31:08
  there are ways that I could do that but I've always felt we should live in a society that makes it
• 31:13
  so easy for people who have love to give that love to people who need it and yet there are all
• 31:18
  these barriers erected there's a lot of barriers many of us yearn to teach but cannot find students
• 31:26
  you know even though there are students who are seeking our lessons and so there's all of this
• 31:30
  yearning and longing that exists and I believe in this imagine our whole society was structured
• 31:36
  on that if government was about governing love and by governing I don't mean restricting and
• 31:40
  barring it but enabling it if the government's role of our society was to make sure that love has
• 31:47
  the conditions to flourish which means we are taught to be loved we are taught to be loving we
• 31:52
  grow up being loved and being loving you know we are schooled in love we are schooled in the many
• 32:00
  innovations and possibilities around love how can we love differently how can we love more
• 32:04
  expansively you know and the teachers and scholars of love today are black people queer people trans
• 32:12
  people polyamorous people people for whom love has become an active survival and they are also
• 32:18
  collectivist cultures for whom love has always been the basis of how we relate to one another love
• 32:25
  between cousins love between siblings you know and yet at the same time without a deeper schooling
• 32:31
  and interrogation abuse can also flourish within those systems but I really love that idea of like
• 32:37
  what if the role of these structures was simply to facilitate enable and grow love rather than grow
• 32:43
  economies rather than grow conflict rather than grow pain and grow profit what if the goal was to
• 32:51
  grow love and plant seeds of love and nurture them the next thing I want to leave you with is embrace
• 32:59
  love as a verb to practice rather than a noun to receive and this is a little bit of tough advice
• 33:07
  to hear for some people because so many of us are really focused and even the idea of romantic
• 33:12
  longing we long as though we'll reach a state where someone will love us and then we will also
• 33:18
  love them right but we are manifestations of love right now in that we are no wait not even that we
• 33:24
  are potentialities of love in the sense that at any moment you can choose right now to be loving
• 33:31
  okay like if each of us learn to see that we are love's potential like we always have the potential
• 33:39
  to practice love now it may not be in the romanticized sense of it that we've imagined
• 33:45
  but what she says in the book communion is that so many of us are more focused on receiving love
• 33:52
  than on being loving on practicing the actual skill of love love is tied to action it's not tied to
• 33:59
  theory it's not tied it's tied to what we are actually willing to do love is a practice you know
• 34:05
  it's so funny again what if the society was rooted in love so many of us are taught to have
• 34:09
  a meditation practice a journaling practice a self-care practice are we ever taught to have a
• 34:15
  loving practice towards others like oh did you practice love today no oh how unproductive you
• 34:23
  know like I don't like productivity culture but I find it so interesting how there's no way of
• 34:28
  accounting for being loving towards others I remember one day I was on a phone call with my best
• 34:32
  friend and we were speaking and he was telling me how today he helped his dad with some tasks
• 34:36
  around the house and then he spoke to his mom about this in that book and then he spoke to me on
• 34:41
  on the phone for an hour and a half and then in our call he was saying down like I have not been
• 34:45
  productive today at all and it was so interesting because I was reflecting to him all the amazing
• 34:51
  ways he had been loving today towards his parents towards me towards himself and yet that cannot
• 34:57
  be accounted for in this capitalist colonial imagination of time and of productivity you know
• 35:03
  like when we are loving we will not be rewarded for that and that's also why like people are less
• 35:09
  loving than they could be it's because the culture is not really encouraging them to and then also
• 35:14
  the structure does not enable them to fully be loving and yet I think this is a little bit of a
• 35:19
  false idea because it's often the communities that are hardest hit by war pain you know by
• 35:27
  supremacy by oppression that are the most loving internally so we know that love can thrive even
• 35:33
  in the worst conditions you know from the concrete who knew that a flower could grow and so this
• 35:37
  deep commitment to love that we have always had and like we can become much more loving and we know
• 35:43
  that it's not a perfect dream scenario because we know what has happened to fracture and fragment and
• 35:48
  you know divide and all of these things among us but I will say that love can flourish even
• 35:55
  in the midst of all of these oppressive systems and it's actually crucial that we make sure that it
• 36:00
  will because that's how we paved the way to a new type of world that is structured in love is by
• 36:05
  being loving now not by waiting for love to come by saying okay I am craving like for me this is
• 36:12
  an outlet of love this is a way that I can be a manifestation of love on this planet and I've
• 36:16
  now reconceptualized my purpose as that like sometimes I'll ask myself how can I be loving today
• 36:23
  instead of my to-do list instead of what if I put love at the center of my day today what would that
• 36:27
  person do so I want to leave you with first a quote and then a question and that's going to
• 36:32
  conclude part one and it is only part one so do listen back and that is AHL mass says our nature
• 36:40
  is love we are in fact the source of love so the most powerful force within us is the loving force
• 36:48
  and I think that's really powerful like how can we remove the conceptual barriers we've placed
• 36:52
  between us and love how can we be and act as love would act what would you do next if you were
• 37:00
  to be loved instead of to wait to be loved and you do deserve both let me be clear I'm not saying
• 37:07
  that if you know it becomes unsustainable if you are acting in loving ways and you are not receiving
• 37:12
  love back from the universe okay but what I want to ask you and ask us today is how can we be
• 37:20
  more loving today how can we channel the romantic longing that we have the longing to be chosen
• 37:28
  and to choose the longing to be held and to hold the longing to be validated by someone in our
• 37:33
  life and experience these things that we've been taught from such a young age are so critical to
• 37:38
  the human experience how can we channel that longing which is love which is our need to be loved
• 37:46
  and how can we channel that into being loving what would you do next what would your to love list do
• 37:53
  write a to love list and even if you do one thing to be more loving what would that be
• 37:59
  I love you so much and I'm sending you all the love today and I'm hoping for a world that is
• 38:06
  really rooted in love this is an act of love and I hope that you receive it I hope that you feel it
• 38:14
  I just want to say all kinds of love are so needed and each way that we resist the description of
• 38:20
  love that has been given to us and we move from the inward place outward from our own definitions
• 38:25
  and our own needs and desires outwards in a loving way the more we can reconstruct and recreate
• 38:31
  the world and there's that quote by Octavia Butler all that you touch you change and all that you
• 38:37
  change changes you what will you touch what will you let change you and I'm hoping you have a wonderful
• 38:45
  wonderful week filled with love if self love is all that is accessible to you at the moment self
• 38:50
  love is a universe there's so much to be do experience within the realm of self love and yet if
• 38:57
  you can find ways to be loving towards others online or offline how can we be more loving
• 39:03
  to ourselves and to each other to the universe as well I'm sending you all the love I hope to see
• 39:08
  you on part two thank you so much for being here and I will see you on the next episode please do
• 39:14
  interact send me voice notes let me know what you think and I'm just really grateful to be on this
• 39:19
  journey with you okay love you so much bye I hope some paradigms have been shifted for you in
• 39:26
  today's conversation as always if you can please leave a five star rating on apple and Spotify like
• 39:32
  comment subscribe I love you so so much okay I love you join me on my sub Slack links in the
• 39:39
  comment section go there okay love you so much love you bye