What Do You Love?

What do you love, even if no one else gets it?

What makes your heart sing? What are your dreams? What would it look like if you knew that when you woke up tomorrow morning you would have nothing expected of you, no worries about anyone or anything and that you had the whole day to yourself? What would your choices be?

When you picture yourself immersed in what you love, light and happy feelings spread throughout your entire being. This is your soul speaking. This is your truth. And while you can keep this sense of joy and peace flowing when you immerse yourself in what you love, what happens when your happy thoughts are interrupted? Your joyful feelings can quickly take a back seat to your mind if it suddenly kicked in with, “Hold on a minute – what am I thinking? There’s no way I can take a day to myself; I have to…?” The energy of the moment can abruptly change to one of heaviness, likely combined with resignation and maybe even resentment or anger. Your mind is powerful; it will do everything it can to talk you out of what your soul desperately wants you to know. If your head and your heart are doing battle, it may be that deep down there is a belief that it is shameful or even selfish to make choices that are for your personal happiness. Thinking you can’t take any time for yourself or that it would be at the expense of another may very well be a smokescreen for deep beliefs that you are not meant to be happy, that you don’t deserve to be happy, or even fear that you don’t know how to be happy.

You can also be stopped in your tracks by a fear of what others will think about the things you love. Given that most of us are taught from early on that it is important to fit in, not rock the boat, go along with the crowd, don’t call attention to yourself… the list goes on…it is challenging to live your truth and honor your spirit if all your energy and attention is directed toward going along to get along. Someone who might criticize, judge or even reject you can actually spur you on to living in love and truth when you consider that those criticisms stem from their own fears and have nothing to do with you. You have, in fact, just given them a great gift of being uncomfortable, which can lead to self-discovery and healing if they choose to address and explore it. However, allowing fears of judgment to paralyze you is essentially sending the message that you are giving everyone else the power to decide what your life looks like. What if you accepted that it's not your job to make anyone else happy or that it’s theirs to make you happy? That you are solely and completely responsible for your life, your happiness, your joy and your contentment?

Start by doing just one small thing you love every day. This begins a chain reaction within your entire being: you smile more, breathe easier, feel more peaceful and handle stressful situations with composure. From this space, even if others don’t get it, you gain the courage to live your life authentically. And it has a ripple effect ~ when you begin doing what you love you influence others to do the same, helping to create a world filled with lighthearted, compassionate, focused and loving people.

Carina Bachman / CrystalSpringsHealing.com
©2014