What's LOVE Got To Do With It?

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It’s February.  Valentine’s Day.  Hallmark commercials.  Chocolate hearts.  Romantic love.
The expression of LOVE can come in so many forms.  Yet as I work with clients (as well as with myself), I know one of the greatest challenges is to LOVE ourselves deeply.  To live in alignment with this LOVE.  It shows up in the jobs and careers we choose.  It shows up in our relationships with lovers, families and colleagues.  It shows up in how we talk to ourselves.
LOVE, to me, is all about honoring and opening our hearts, first and foremost to ourselves.  It’s about living from the innermost knowing and heeding our calling.  To do that, it’s about living on the edge, exposing our vulnerabilities to the daily flow of life.  To live in LOVE means we nurture our most heartfelt hopes and ideals while maintaining the toughness of steel to encounter the world on those terms, without reverting to the armor of logic and doing.
But we waver. Pursuing a career that we really want seems too risky.  Speaking up at work, on behalf of our deepest convictions, seems too risky.  Expressing words of fully expressed LOVE seems to risky.  Doing the right thing, the honorable thing seems to risky.
Ah, forget it. I’ll just get on with everyday life.  Really now, “what’s love to to do with it?”. Back to life at hand.  Let’s GET REAL.  Let me get on that Blackberry.  Let me get to the next item on the checklist.  Let me get the kids to the next lesson.  Heart, you’re going to have to wait.  I’ve got life to do.  Adios.
After months and years of living that way, we forget what LOVE is really all about.  We seek comfort in the doings and possessions of life.  But LOVE is eternal.  LOVE is patient.  LOVE is always ready to be lived.
So, this Valentine’s Day, take a moment to stop and BE.  Think from your heart.  Put your hand on your heart (when was the last time you did that?).  Listen.  What does it beckon forth?  Heed its words.
Begin to research that other career you’ve been thinking of for years.
Speak up at the next work meeting about your idea.
Interview for a job that makes your heart go thumpety-thump.
Find a moment to say to your loved one, “thank you for being in my life. My life is so much better with you in it because…”.
So…what’s LOVE got to do with it?  Just about everything.