The light of the divine awareness has risen in my heart like the sun over the horizon and it will never set. (attributed to Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan)

I can’t remember when it started happening, but I think it was sometime last year. I started telling people that I loved my life. I can recall my inner skeptic flaring the first time I said it aloud to another human: Really? She asked. Do you really love it? Are you just saying you love it?

 

I remember being perplexed by this feedback.  On the one hand: fuck off inner skeptic!  What’s the deal with bringing me down? Lame.

 

On the other: You’re totally right, inner skeptic, I might just be saying it — but it will never be true if I don’t say it.

(Isn’t it worth the risk to say it anyway? I mean, at this point, I will tell you that I genuinely love my life — but is that partially because this is how I’ve been talking about my life?  I figure, if I objectively(?) love my life, or if I just talk about my life as though I love it, my lived experience is the same — so party on, Wayne.)

When I think about what it means that we are programmed to be unhappy and discontent, I am pained: It’s marketing’s fault. It’s comparison’s fault (our sweet thief of joy). It’s people out of touch with their spiritual core. It’s people separated from their tribe. It’s people who are lost, disenfranchised, and apathetic. It’s this god damn fear landscape that we live in.

 

As I lift higher and higher and heal old emotional wounds and continually come into the fullness of my being, I gain perspective on the old.

 

Some say that love is the antidote to fear. Others say that love’s opposite is indifference. What I have learned is that as I love more wildly and openly, I experience less fear and anxiety.