Episode Transcript
How do you feel about the world right now? Do you feel frustrated? Do you feel afraid? Do you wish that you could expand loving feelings towards the world? That's what we're gonna talk about today on the Spiritual American. We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Today we're gonna be talking about loving the world, and last time we talked about the magic of service, which was about getting in touch with our soul conscious feelings and sharing them with the world. Today I'm gonna talk about kind of the same topic, but we're going to look at what is in the way of our being able to love the world, let's say, or get in touch with those feelings. So I have to tell on myself, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Growing up around people in my life, I kind of got the idea that the best way to show people that I loved them was to either tell them that I love them or worry about them. I worry about you. I'm concerned about you. I was very upset when I didn't hear from you. Don't do that to me. You really made me very upset that you didn't call me. It seems like negative feelings, fear, worry, and upset were all mixed into love somehow, and that I should feel happy when somebody's worried about me. So let's think about this for a second. If, whenever in your life if somebody has said to you, I was worried about you. How did that make you feel? Did it make you feel good that they were worried about you? Did it make you feel love from them? Or did it make you feel guilty and bad that they were suffering because of you? I'm just pointing out something that maybe we weren't really thinking about. But another way that this plays out is that if somebody is suffering, we feel bad. Or we feel the suffering and we kind of confuse this with compassion. I'm crying and I feel your pain and I feel what's going on with you. So in spirituality we call that taking sorrow. So we say Don't give sorrow and don't take sorrow. So I think in this episode, loving the world, I think we need to talk about sorrow. A little bit and find out where the sorrow is and if it's possible to live without it. When I love someone, if there's love, there's no sorrow. There's care, there's good wishes. There's maybe happiness. There's a lot of things that are in love. There's a feeling of connection. There's a feeling of belonging. There's no sorrow in that. So I think we should look at why we've put sorrow into this. I think it's because there's so much sorrow in the world right now. The other thought that I had was that somehow we feel connected through our pain, through our sorrow and is a trendy name for that now, trauma bonding, like we're bonding through our trauma. I just feel that it's worth looking at because this is not to say that we shouldn't feel our feelings. As a matter of fact, in other episodes, I'm very much for being able to be with how we feel. What I'm talking about today is love, like being able to have a feeling of caring for others, and I'm saying today that sorrow does not allow for that to happen. If I'm worried about you, I'm not feeling love. I'm feeling fear. If I am upset with you, I'm not feeling love for you at that moment, I'm feeling maybe anger or frustration. So sorrow, anger, fear, all those feelings are maybe hindering us from feeling love. So I'm gonna now define what I mean by love and how is it possible for us to feel love? Well, first we have to stop taking the sorrow. And the thing about it is we say don't give sorrow. We understand that I don't wanna hurt anybody. So intellectually I know I don't want to hurt anyone, but maybe I'm not aware that I'm doing it. Like that thing about worrying, I was so worried about you. That's not to say you shouldn't care about the person, but this idea of feeling sad or feeling worried. So the principle that I'm bringing forth today is that in order to love or in order to help, or in order to be a positive impact for others, we need to think about letting go of the sorrow. Now, how do we do that? I was talking to a student yesterday about this and she says, well, I'm okay with most things, but when I see children being attacked and animals and stuff like that, I really have a hard time. And I said, yes, that's definitely difficult. But if I am feeling it inside, if I'm feeling the anger or feeling the sorrow or feeling bad, I'm not able to give like a positive wish for that soul or that situation. This may sound like not possible to some of you because if I don't feel it, then I'm not gonna care. You could think. My experience is that in soul consciousness in spirituality, the depth of caring is very, very deep. As a matter of fact, if you watch the last episode, the caring is based in myself directly, like I feel peace, and I wish everybody feels peace. I care. I'm aware of the suffering. I can be aware of the suffering of the world and not internalize it. It doesn't mean I'm denying it. See, this is how we're gonna detach a little bit. I care very much, but I recognize that maybe the sorrow is not letting me be of help. Like another quick example, if you're a parent and the child is having a temper tantrum, you don't fall on the floor and have a temper tantrum next to the child. You remain calm and you remain detached, and you hopefully are able to be stable while the child and help the child to work out their feelings. So the same principle is here, a little bit detached, very caring with understanding, because I know that there's sorrow. I know this is going on. I know it's terrible. I know there's suffering, but I don't wanna feel it. I don't wanna weigh myself down energetically with the sorrow. I want to be a little bit away from it so that I can generate a positive wish. I call that mercy. So mercy, I'm going to define as three things in one. Mercy is love or caring, understanding, and detachment. A little bit of space. I see it there and I am feeling very, I feel, I feel empathy. I understand it 'cause I'm part of it. I understand it, but I'm a little detached. I wish that there could be resolution. I wish that the person is taken care of. Then the energy that I'm sending out can be received as love. You can do this at the world level, like this episode says, loving the world. You could also do it in an individual relationship level. Am I giving sorrow in my relationship? Am I taking sorrow in the relationship? This is very important work. I'm not able to love and care if I'm hurting, and you can check that for yourself. Are you able to be loving and caring when you're hurting? It's kind of common sense, but this is a 15 minute video. But I'd like, I'm offering this as something to consider that maybe worry is not loving. Maybe worry is just fear and attachment. I'm worried I can't let go of the person, so I'm gonna sit here and think about them and think about them and focus on their suffering. Or feeling frustrated with someone, I feel frustrated. I can't seem to make a difference to this person, or they don't act the way that would make me feel good. Or, how can I love them if I'm feeling this way? And it's not about changing them or changing the circumstances, it's about releasing myself from the sorrow. I release myself from this sorrow. I don't need to worry about anybody. Maybe I'm maybe, I mean, obviously you can be concerned. If somebody says they're not gonna be there, then you can be concerned. But to sit there, I know people that are sitting there worrying and worrying and worrying when nothing's happening, or the situation is generally stable, but they're still worrying. So I think we've kind of taken on these sorrowful habits, worry, guilt, frustration, anger, irritability, oversensitivity. All of those things are generating sorrow within. I'm not able to love or care or be generous or be sensitive or be of help in any way. I'm not able to be of use when I have those feelings. So think about that. And it's at the level of interpersonal relationships, it's the level of work. It's at the level of every part of life. Am I taking sorrow? Am I able to give? And then of course, for the whole world, I have the capacity to love the whole world, but am I taking on the sorrow of the whole world? How much sorrow am I taking? I'm not blaming anybody. We're all doing this, by the way, we're all doing this. No one is immune to what I'm talking about right now. We're all doing it. It's just this is trying to bring the awareness to it. What am I actually doing? So let's practice a little bit. Let's do a little reflection, a few reflection questions, and see if we can maybe uncover some of this this week and have a bit of a transformation. Okay. Sitting quietly, just take a moment and let's just look at a first reflection question. Where in my life am I experiencing sorrow? What relationship and how am I experiencing sorrow? Is it worry? Is it frustration? Is it anger? Is it anxiety? Is it fear Is it depression? Just take a moment and think of maybe two places where I'm experiencing sorrow. Second reflection. Has this experience of sorrow helped the situation or made any reasonable, logical or positive difference in the situation or the relationship. So just give yourself a chance to give a logical answer to that question. All the sorrow, all the frustration, all the depression, the anxiety, the impatience, worrying, guilt, regret. All of that. Has any of that actually had a good, positive, reasonable res resolution impact on any of these relationships or situations? Okay. Third reflection question. Am I willing to take a chance? Pick one situation now. Not the most painful, one of the lesser painful ones, not the most painful. Don't do the top one first. Do the lesser painful ones first. Think of one right now that's not so painful, like a simple one. Am I willing to put aside the sorrow and generate love and care and mercy into the situation in my mind and my heart? Am I willing to do that? To try it? Just to try it. And then the fourth question is, Can I set aside a little bit of time and meditation to try this? So it would look something like, okay, there's a person at work that I was feeling jealous of and I'm really, every time I see the person, I feel jealous and my heart sinks and I'm taking sorrow. I'm experiencing sorrow. So can I now say I don't wanna experience sorrow anymore. It's not helping me, it's not helping my health. It's definitely not doing anything positive for that person. 'cause at an energetic level, I'm kind of cursing that person, right? Cursing myself and them. So can I say, okay, I'm gonna remove the sorrow and I'm gonna try to just send love into this one situation. Not everything, just this one situation. Okay? I'm no longer jealous. I love myself, I respect myself, and I respect that person. I respect that person's part and their own life, and they have their own part to play, and I'm sending understanding and general love. I don't have to care like, like the person, but I'm sending general soul conscious love to that person and to myself healing energy to myself and good wishes to that person. Can I try that? What are we doing when we're doing this? Now the reflections are over. What are we doing when we practice this? We're changing our energy. We're changing our karma. Whatever thoughts, feelings, and perceptions I have is my actions, my karma with the energy that I'm generating in the world. I'm gonna get that back, right? It's gonna reinforce itself. So here I'm starting to shift. Trying to shift. So what is it this relate to loving the world? We start small and we begin to shift, and little by little I begin to feel more and more capacity. I can send wishes to the whole world. I can look at the news and send wishes, good wishes to the whole world. Don't get me wrong. I know watching the news can be a challenge or watching different things or relationships can be a challenge. Each one of us is unique and there are different areas are gonna be more challenging than others, but try one that's small and see if you can shift your energy. Very powerful, and ultimately we can develop the capacity to love the whole world and remove the sorrow in myself and help the world too. Okay, so I will leave it there. I hope that's given you all something new to think about and the idea that you can actually remove it. You can actually change this experience on the inside. Try it. So our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And until next time, take care.
