I AM * YOU ARE * LOVE IS

The Concept of Love The mind is a friend. It is a valuable tool that can be used to consciously create the reality we wish to experience. Unfortunately not everyone utilizes the tools of the mind in this way. The mind often gets a bad rap. Even in the culture of spiritual growth, the mind is often made out to be the enemy long before it is realized that it is really a friend. In meditation and other spiritual practices, the ultimate goal is often slated to transcend the mind. And this is commonly done by suggesting to gently allow thoughts to float away and return the focus to the breath. Gently pushing something away is still pushing something away. It is still resistance, no matter how lovely we try to wrap it up. And what we are resisting is a message from a friend. A friend that wants nothing more than to inform us we have not been utilizing it properly, and to show us how we can utilize it more efficiently. There is an Internet meme I saw a while back. It stated something along the lines of a good friend being one that would bail you out of jail, but a best friend would be sitting there next to you talking about the crazy night you had. The mind is that best friend. It has been with us through everything; it has created everything we have asked it to. It has gotten us into trouble, stayed by our side through all of it, and bailed us out when we were ready. It has told us everything we have asked it to tell us. Yet we blame it for negative self-talk, call it names like ‘monkey mind’, and hold it responsible for anything in our lives that is not the way we want it. When really every negative thought or event that we blame for sabotaging our life has been serving as road signs, constantly pointing at what is truly getting in the way of us experience the life we wish to live. The role of the mind is important in the discussion throughout this book, because it is the mind that utilizes language as a tool we use to communicate and build relationships. Language is the final representation we have to project much deeper aspects of ourselves out into the world. Often we do not know how to access many of these deeper aspects, so exploring our language is the first clue we have into what is going on under the surface. Misuse of this tool can create obstacles for ourselves in experiencing the relationships we want, and thus get in the way of us experiencing the life we want. Throughout the rest of this book, we will explore the depths of each of these aspects. We will explore the source of who you are, the primary experiences that pass through that source, the emotions you feel as a result of those experiences, and the concepts we create to explain all of this. Furthermore, we will look at how the collection of these concepts provides a framework for what we create for ourselves and project into the world. It is this framework upon which we build with thought, some of which we combine into packages of energy that get expressed through language. We will see look at each aspect of this process, bringing awareness to any area that may be in direct conflict with who we truly are and providing the opportunity to transform anything that does not align with our ultimate purpose. To get started, we begin by looking at one of the outer layers of this process, our relationship with the mind, exploring ways to transition it from the nuisance we have perceived it to be into the resource that it was meant to be. Mind With Matter Mind With Matter is a simple idea constructed to go one step beyond what we traditionally consider when utilizing thought to manifest our desires into the physical world. Whether we are creating art, attracting money, or facility the mind-body connection to move toward health and wellness, allowing the mind and matter to work synergistically facilitates a much smoother, and often much quicker, process overall. It is a very slight and subtle shift in language, which is designed to facilitate a slight and subtle shift in perspective, which lays the foundation for an immensely powerful shift in our lives and our relationships. The traditional perspective in the world of personal growth and development is to take on the idea of Mind Over Matter. From this perspective, if a person sets their sight on something, if they mentally focus on their desires long enough, those desires will be manifested. For many this works. For just as many however, this is a very slow undertaking. Repeating affirmations and mantras and creating visual images that are not representative of a person’s current experience can lead to the desired change, but it is often akin to filling a bucket up with water one drop at a time. It can be slow and tedious, which results in many people giving up on their desire before the necessary time is allotted for the bucket to fill. Much of the reason for this slow change, if one is able to keep it up long enough for any change at all, is that there is a conflicting message in the current view of manifesting by merely changing one’s pattern of thought. On one side of the coin we are told to accept the present as it is. On the other side, we are told to use our energy, our thoughts, our words, and our feelings to focus on a different moment, a moment that includes the environment and experience we want as opposed to the way things actually are. As we know, with most things there is a space where the two sides of such a coin unite, where a paradox can co-exist and we see each side creates the whole. However, when it comes to utilizing thought and language as a resource for facilitating transformation, there is very little guidance in how to allow both sides of that coin to simultaneously co-exist.