What Is Stopping You From Love?

We all recognize the feeling of love. We all love it when we love. It’s that feeling of love that we always try to find our way back home to. But lots of times we can’t. We can’t find our way back home to love.

We just can’t do it. No matter how much we want to.

So why is it, when we love to love, that we don’t just go ahead and love? What’s stopping us?

We Always Have A Reason Why We Cannot Love

We have reasons like, “I can’t love him because he doesn’t like me.” “It’s not safe.” “I can’t love her because she’s dead.” “I can’t love him because he doesn’t respect me.”

Or, “I can’t love him because he’s not good enough for me.” “I can’t love him because he’s a Republican.” “I can’t love her because she stands up to me.”

And Those Reasons Become Powerful Because We Believe Them

When you believe, “I can’t love him because he lies to me.” The mind holds tight to that reason. And it uses this excuse to keep the heart shut down. The more reasons we believe, the more love gets stifled, and choked, and withered on the vine.

But reasons can be questioned.

A reason is just a thought, a belief of sorts, that we can question. We use The Work of Byron Katie to question stressful thoughts.

Some People Think The Work Is Intellectual

They say, “It’s not for me. It’s too cerebral." But they don’t really know The Work. The seemingly intellectual side of The Work is only an appearance.

The Work’s real purpose is not to philosophize about life. That indeed would be purely intellectual. The real purpose of The Work is to free the mind’s grip upon the heart. To cut through all the reasons why we cannot love.

When you question all the reasons why you can’t love someone, you may find that your love for them has no choice but to flow again.

But Couldn’t That Be Dangerous?

You might think, “An unfettered heart could get itself into a lot of trouble.” And I invite you to question that thought too.

Just because your heart is open, and love is flowing towards someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to live with them. It doesn’t mean you can’t respect their desire not to live with you.

It doesn’t meant you have to agree with someone who disagrees with you. Just because you keep love open in your heart doesn’t mean you have to condone their bad behavior.

Love Is An Internal Experience

There is nothing that you have to do with love at all, except enjoy it. It will find the ways to seep into your conversation. And, if it is real love, it will keep you true to who you are.

That’s Why The Work Is Really About Love, Not Cerebral Exercises

It’s about identifying what reasons you are holding not to love someone, or something. When you identify those reasons, and question them one by one, and turn them around, you may find that love comes to you without a reason.

There’s just no reason for it not to.

Pick someone that you cannot fully love for some reason or another. And put the reasons down on paper, and question them.

This is an invitation to see what really holds you back from love. And to find your way free again.

Seeing how others find their way back to love, by watching their process in The Work, can be helpful. Get work snippets and samples, along with helpful articles about The Work each week once you subscribe.