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Love Molecules, Fear Molecules
Imagine the air molecules around you filled with the spirit of love. Look up, look to the sides, behind you: the spirit of love is everywhere! If your mind is saying "No!," or doubting, remember: what we see comes from our perception. There are many realities we can choose. Imagine again the spirit of love filling the air. Breathe it in. Breathe it out. Breathe in love. Breathe out love. Try this right now. See your lungs, your cells, your limbs filling with love until it is flowing like a river through you. Perception and Energy Try this practice throughout the day and see what happens to your perception. If you've got your love molecules vibrant when someone is being a jerk, how do you respond? If you've got your love molecules flowing when you walk into work, what changes? This practice is like visualizing the face of a loved one: our energy and our neural connections change with it (many scientific studies have verified this!) Because our energy flows where our attention goes, we can take control of our perceptual framework and our consciousness. We can influence and shift the fields of consciousness that surround us. Perception and Culture This is not news, of course: spiritual traditions and mystics have always spoken of the power of love. Yet we live in a culture where our energies are barraged with perceptions not of our own choosing, in a culture where our brains are manipulated with talk radio, internet ads, loudspeakers and loud advertising everywhere. If we want to be in charge of our own consciousness, we have to find ways to step aside. Think Aikido. We have to retrain our minds, just like we retrain our muscles, to shift consciousness. Observing our minds--our thoughts--is an ancient practice: watch each thought as it comes forth, and let it go. Watch the next, and the next. Experience the bliss of emptying mind! Observe without holding on. Breath is often used as a model for such observation, as it comes and goes naturally. In the same way, the pain in my back catches my attention; it changes; it goes away. Frustration, joy, boredom--whatever thoughts we have--come and go. Making an experiment--or a practice--of imagining love molecules filling and surrounding us is the same. We see and feel them, then a different thought takes over, then maybe the love molecules return, or not. Experiencing this is a way of loosening the mind's hold on our beliefs. Love and Fear Questions about the relationship of love and fear came up in one of my journey groups recently. We decided to discover what we could through direct revelation. Our intent was to learn from the spirits of love and fear, to hear their perspectives. We wanted to know what takes us away from love and towards fear. The Spirit of Love showed herself to me in all the air molecules. She told me "You fall away from love because of attachment." She showed me examples of attachment: wanting a certain outcome; needing acknowledgment and not getting it; wanting someone to like me; and so on. I could see how all these little ego desires do, in fact, pull me away from open-heartedness into a more constricted stance. When I asked to meet the spirit of Fear, he appeared as a dense and heavy energy close to the ground, rather like a fog. The Spirit of Fear reiterated the importance of perception. "You can perceive me, or you can perceive love, it's your choice," he said. I asked what causes fear and was told "disconnection. Disconnection from nature, from friends, from loved ones." I understood this in terms of personal fears, such as when a relationship ends, economic stress overwhelms, or the body experiences chronic pain. But I wasn't so sure about cultural fears: are they also caused by disconnection? The Spirit of Fear explained that "disconnection from ourselves"--we might also call disempowerment--makes us prone to anger, rage, and blame, all of which "make fear." Stepping Out of Fear If fear is caused by disconnection, and fed by what we perceive, an antidote is to shift our perception! An old Native American story illustrates this clearly: A grandfather was talking to his grandson. "I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one." The grandson asked him, "Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?" The grandfather answered: "The one I feed." We can step out of fear by shifting our attention: to gratitude, to love, to beauty, to nature, to the breath of life itself. We can feed the love and connection we do have by noticing them, honoring them. As my friend Woods Shoemaker teaches, "Be aware of the inherent quality of light and joy, peace and love, in your natural state. Rest in these." Imagine, again, the love molecules filling the air around you. Imagine them filling the world. Keep imagining! "As we explore the nature of consciousness, we can see that the root cause of the destruction of this planet is the toxins of our mind, especially delusion, hatred, and greed." -Robert Thurman "May you feel in your hearts the love of this circle, the whales, the moon, and the stars." --Spirit Blessing "Remember so many moments over the past week when you've actually made new choices and met life differently than before, and how good it feels to be new, to be living just how you always wanted to, even for moments". - Li Walters "Don't believe everything you think." -- Bumper sticker | 
