Respond with Love
My eye caught this very simple bumper sticker and away went my imagination. The bumper sticker? Respond with Love. How simple yet so profound. It could easily be mistaken for some Hallmark card and be labeled as spiritual bypass in the face of what is happening all around the world, but it is so much more than that.
I want to be known for the way in which I respond to anyone, everyone, all the time. I want to be part of a teaching and a community known for how we respond, and I want that response to be love. No, not some wimpy love, but a powerful life-transforming, mind-altering love. The kind of love that birthed us, the kind of love that heals, the kind of love that saves lives – that kind of love.
Respond with Love needs to be a rally cry for all conscious, self-aware, awake, and studied spiritual and metaphysical people. This is not instead of taking a position against human injustices. To the contrary, we need to realize that it is love that drives us to take action, to take a stand, to care for someone, to stand up to the bullies of the planet.
To Respond with Love is to take inventory of all of your life’s interactions and decide moment by moment how you want to respond, what impression do you want to leave, what do you want your legacy to look like. This is not an easy ask. To Respond with Love is a mastery of self and you do not acquire this mastery without major work on your emotional and spiritual self.
To respond this way, we must heal our inner wounds and traumas, practice forgiveness to come to emotional freedom, and complete our shadow work in order to not be at the mercy of life, reactions, and the stories we tell ourselves.
I have a request – ponder this idea – ponder what it would mean to you and for you if you chose to Respond with Love throughout your life. For me, this means an absolute commitment to do no harm, to be compassionate, and live a life of accepting all unconditionally, including myself.
Ponder please. And come back here and leave a comment, let me know how this lands within you.
Photo credit: Alexander Mass
