FREE TO LOVE FREE TO HEAL - CHAPTER 8

Learn How to Awaken Into Love Through Conscious Awareness

Awakening into love is a lifelong path. We begin as innocent beings, fully dependent upon our caregivers for all our needs, without a clear sense of separation. As we grow up and become adults, most of us learn to see the world in terms of “us” and “them.”

However, each of us has the capacity to transcend this dualistic perspective in which differences fuel conflict. We can learn to embrace the inherent paradox of life and experience our wholeness.

Finding Light in the Darkness

Reality is a selective act of perception. Two people observing the same event will have different experiences, as they filter the energy and information through their personal history and needs. Cultivating flexibility in your perceptions of others and yourself plays a vital role in attaining emotional freedom and physical healing.

In this next exercise, you will practice the art of seeing your stories from a different point of view. Return to your list of undesirable traits you identified in Chapter 4. Now see if you can reframe each negative quality in a way that allows for something positive to emerge. For example, you might take the term overly sensitive and reframe it as I am connected to my feelings and those of others. Look for a way to see each trait in a different light that allows for healing and transformation. Here are more examples:

Negative Trait:	Reframed:
Overly sensitive	Connected to my feelings
Unattractive	Not obsessed with appearance
Lazy	Easygoing
Critical	Discriminating
Procrastinator	Careful before proceeding
Closed-off	Careful
Selfish	Self-reliant

Reframing each negative trait allows you to be less judgmental and more accepting of your humanity. When you can shift your perspective of a core belief, you free yourself from its imprisoning influence and are in a much better position to make the changes you are seeking in your life.

Creating Loving Relationships

In addition to accepting all aspects of yourself, the path of awakening involves learning to cultivate fulfilling relationships. Most of us did not receive formal instructions on how to love. We learned by observing our parents, siblings, and caregivers, who may or may not have been competent at managing and demonstrating their emotions. Judging from my personal and professional experiences, most people have a fairly undeveloped emotional skill set.

By becoming more conscious of the principles and patterns that drive emotional responses, you can learn to recognize and express your feelings in healthier ways, expanding your sense of self and your repertoire of responses. The fruit of this effort is wholeness, freedom, and more nourishing relationships.

Why Do I Feel This Way?

To begin bringing our unconscious emotional patterns into conscious awareness, we need to ask ourselves a critical question:

What determines whether I interpret an experience as comfortable
or uncomfortable?

When I ask this question at seminars, the inevitable first answer is “prior experiences.” It is, of course, true that past experiences influence our responses. If you were taken care of by a nurturing, Hungarian nanny when you were a child, you learned to associate her accent with kindness. As an adult, when you meet people from Hungary, you are predisposed to anticipate kindness from them. On the other hand, if you had childhood piano lessons with a harsh, demanding teacher from Hungary, hearing someone speak with that familiar accent might elicit anxiety in you today.

While past experiences influence our present perceptions, we do not have to be slaves to our conditioning or emotional Pavlovian dogs. We can go beyond our habitual thought patterns and make new life-supporting choices.

Needs: The Heart of Emotions

Here is the question again: What determines whether we interpret an experience as comfortable or uncomfortable? If past experience is not the whole story, we have to look to the present, which means that we have to listen to our body. Remember, emotions are sensations in the body associated with thoughts in the mind. From the perspective of our body, our feelings of comfort or discomfort are primitive. We feel comfort, happiness, and pleasure when we are getting our needs met. We feel distress, sadness, and pain when we are not.

All emotions derive from needs. All emotions derive from needs.

Repeat it to yourself like a mantra until you grasp the simple profundity of this insight. When you do, you will possess a vital healing tool: the ability to nurture your emotional well-being. Whenever you are uncomfortable, in distress, or in emotional pain, you can begin to change your situation by realizing that you are suffering because you are not getting something you need (or want).

Conscious Communication

If you can accept that needs determine emotions, you are ready for the next step: recognizing and communicating your needs more consciously. Experiencing greater emotional well-being flows from mastering the ability to clearly communicate what you want in life.

The key principle of conscious communication is making it as easy as possible for the other person to meet your need by asking for the specific behavior that will fulfill it. I encourage you to master it by practicing the following simple method, which you can find in the Chopra Center’s online library at www.chopra.com/communication.

Love is an ability that improves with practice. The more consciously you can identify and communicate your expectations, the more likely you are to create a healthy, evolving bond. Listen therefore to the wisdom of your heart and allow it to guide you into higher expressions of love.

Get Ready for The Next Chapter

When we move from a state of constriction to expansion, we begin to see love not as a sentiment or emotion, but as a practice that benefits both lover and the beloved. Next week we will refine this practice for becoming mindful, masterful lovers, radiating love in every intention, thought, word, and action.

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Dr. David Simon is the co-founder and medical director of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California. He is the driving force behind the Chopra Center’s flagship programs and workshops and is the author of Free to Love, Free to Heal: Heal Your Body by Healing Your Emotions; www.freetolove.com