What is Love? Hint: It's not a feeling or an emotion

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Hello, and welcome to the Art of Life podcast.

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This podcast is where I share my journey of living a life with more

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abundance, more freedom and a lot more love than I could imagine.

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So as I go along in my journey, I want to share these tips and

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resources with you as well.

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My favorite hack is called grounding.

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This is the way in which we connect with earth and the sun.

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These are the natural resources that are available to us for balancing our

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internal energy, for releasing stress.

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And for bringing in all the goodness that we want in life.

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If you wanted to access grounding or learn about grounding, you

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can go to artoflifecenter.

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com slash grounding, where I have a free grounding course.

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It's got lots of useful tips and little 5 or 10 minute nuggets that

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will just help you find calmness, no matter where you are in your life.

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Alright, let's dive in into today's topic.

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Today I wanted to talk about love.

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What is love?

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A lot of times when we hear someone saying I love you, that can usually

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mean I love you when you do this and I don't love you when you do this.

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So I wanted to unpack what love actually is.

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And let's take a little bit of inspiration from the resources that we have.

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So we're all living on earth.

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And if I think of the endless love and the unconditional love that mother earth has

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for us, that stays, that doesn't go away.

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When you're feeling angry, she's still there.

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She's still there if you're feeling happy, if you do something right, if you

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do something wrong, she's still there.

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The sun will shine, regardless of how much you're earning, of what

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you're wearing, regardless of you having bad days, good days, there's

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no condition to the sun shining.

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There's no condition to the earth giving you space on earth and

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letting you live here, right?

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So love to me is just that.

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It's the ability to simply be there.

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It's that compassion where you see the other person,

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you have compassion for them.

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Whether you agree with them, whether you don't agree with

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them, you have some degree of care and de attachment with them.

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Now what I mean by de attachment is that there should not be an

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expectation of how they are going to behave, how they are going to react.

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Love simply is.

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Love isn't a feeling.

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Love isn't an emotion.

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Love simply is.

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Does that make you think?

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Love simply is.

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When you love someone, you just love them.

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Whether they are doing it right by you, whether they are doing it

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wrong by you, you simply love them.

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You would love them regardless of their age, you would love them regardless

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of their action, you would love them regardless of their salary, you would love

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them regardless of their looks, etc, etc.

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That is pure love.

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Now, in saying this, not all of us have always been given pure love.

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But doesn't mean we can't practice it.

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So whether that's with your child or whether that's with your people

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around you, you can still go ahead and you can still just say I love you.

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Now.

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I try to say I love you all the time.

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It is easier for me to say I love you to people I genuinely love and like and

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then it's harder to say I love you to people who I don't really like because

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they are so different than who I am.

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Maybe they're doing actions that I don't like.

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It's hard to say I love you.

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But I have to just remind myself that love is just that oneness,

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is knowing that they're on their journey, they're on their path and I

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can simply have compassion for them.

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I'm not expecting them to change, I'm not expecting them to do anything differently.

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I love them means that I just see them and it's okay.

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They can be on their path.

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So let's say even if it's a demon, me saying I love you to a demon

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just means that I acknowledge that the demon is a demon and the demon

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is on its own journey doing what it wants to do, what is right for it.

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I don't have to control that, that's not my path anyway, like I'm living

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my life, the demon's got its life.

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And it's just that.

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I had a very beautiful experience with my son last night.

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So he spilled some water in the bathroom and then he was feeling

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pretty upset because he'd made a mess.

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So together we cleaned it up and then he was like, Oh, but I've made

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now a thousand mistakes and his head thousand is a very big number.

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Um, and he went, well, because I've made a thousand mistakes.

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Now I can't be with you anymore.

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Like I've made so many mistakes.

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And so I had a chat with him later on and I went, Hey, why did you say that?

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Why did you say that you can't live with me anymore?

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And he obviously was feeling very guilty about it.

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That was his way of saying that he felt truly bad and in some

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sense, not deserving of my love.

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And so I went to him and I said, look, it doesn't matter.

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You can make a thousand mistakes.

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You can make a thousand more mistakes and you will still be my favorite.

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I will still love you.

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Of course, I had a much longer chat with him and I explained

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all of this to him a lot more.

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But when he went to bed, I was thinking about it and also wondering if I

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had ever been told this in a similar fashion that somebody loved me.

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It doesn't matter how many mistakes I make, but somebody

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would still love me then.

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And so here's the trick.

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Nobody has to say that to you.

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Nobody has to say that.

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Hey, you can make a thousand mistakes so you can make one billion

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mistakes and we will still love you.

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Your body is an amazing thing.

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It doesn't differentiate between your feelings, whether you feel them

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because you say that to yourself or whether you feel them because

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somebody else is saying them to you.

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So just what I said to my son that, Hey, I will love you even if you make a thousand

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mistakes, you could say that to yourself.

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You could go, well I can make a thousand more mistakes, I can make a billion more

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mistakes and I will still love myself.

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Because you are just so much deserving of that love.

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Just the way the sun, the earth, they don't give up on you just

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because you've made a mistake.

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And by the way, your very reason why you came on earth was to

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evolve, was to grow, grow, grow.

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Grow.

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In that, making mistakes is a very inherent part.

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In that, not abiding by everybody's expectations, that's very

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inherent, ingrained in that.

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So let's stop fighting that whole deal that you've got to be

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perfect, because you don't have to.

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That was never on the agenda anyway.

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You are not going to achieve it no matter what you try.

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So just embrace.

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That you will not and just embrace that you're perfect as you are

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and love yourself as you are.

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Give yourself the compassion that you are okay.

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that you are fine, that you're absolutely perfect just the way you are.

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Love yourself the way you are and if you can find the strength then practice

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saying I love you to everyone around you.

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Know that it doesn't have to come from a place of attachment,

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it doesn't have to come from a place of wanting to shift them.

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It's simply that you see them and acknowledge them because when you

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acknowledge another person, you see that they are however they are, you're

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giving them the space to be themselves and you're also giving yourself a

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lot more space to being yourself.

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So happy loving, enjoy your time.

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So that's it for today's podcast.

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Thank you so much for tuning in.

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I wait to hear your messages at artoflifecenter.com/hello.

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Reach me there at any time, even ask any specific questions or any specific

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episodes that you would like me to do.

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Thanks a lot and subscribe for more.

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See you soon.