Hello and welcome to day 14 of my 30-day experiment of living from a place of love rather than fear.
My name is Liz Scott and over 30 days I am every day bringing my attention back to a space of love,
Back to a settled space.
And rather than living from agitation or anxiety or worry or stress,
When I notice what is going on,
I bring my awareness back to that settled space within me,
That place of love,
And I just see what turns up that day.
At the end of each day I write a journal and then I share a nugget of wisdom or learning,
Something I've seen during the day.
Today has been about the wisdom of listening and how listening and love seem to be very much two sides of the same coin.
Let me explain more.
I wanted to go for a walk with a friend of mine and she's a friend I like very much.
It's just that when we're together for long periods of time,
I sometimes don't quite know what to say.
I don't feel as though conversation is flowing.
We went for a walk and I was aware that if I was going for a walk with her that it might be that I felt a little bit tongue-tied or a little bit stumped as to what to say in the conversation.
So it was really good to bring my awareness back to love.
We went up onto Dartmoor,
The moorland,
Which is very close to us here in Devon.
It was a grey day,
Blustery day,
And we travelled on a part of the moor that we hadn't walked on before and we came across some burial cairns.
It was a beautiful experience and if you know me,
You'll know that any excuse to get walking,
I am happy.
Also what I was experiencing on this walk was intentionally bringing my awareness back to love,
Particularly when I felt a little bit awkward or I didn't quite know what to say.
And here's what turned up for me today.
I realised a few things.
Firstly,
I realised that I was going to listen to the ideas that she wanted to share with me.
When I usually go walking with friends,
There's a to and fro of ideas.
Somebody will talk about their ideas,
I will share my ideas and we sort of bounce off each other.
It doesn't work like that with this particular friend.
So I intentionally brought my awareness back to love and from that place of love,
I realised I wanted to listen to the ideas that she had.
And I listened and I gave her space to talk of her ideas.
And I also felt as though I metaphorically watered those ideas.
I gave them space to take root,
For her to really explore them and to feel whether they fitted for her or not.
So that was one thing I learnt today,
Was just allowing her to talk through her ideas and that seemed to be a way of me expressing love to her.
Secondly,
I realised that she sees herself as the elder,
The older woman in the relationship.
And as such,
I get a sense that she doesn't want me to take the lead.
And so I allowed myself or brought my awareness back to love and then allowed myself to be led by her.
Now I don't mean being led on the walk by her.
I mean metaphorically being led by her.
And I saw her as this elder,
This older woman,
This wise older woman.
I felt a sense of respect towards her and I wanted her to feel that respect.
She wanted to be seen as the elder.
She wanted to be seen as the wiser woman.
And I felt that authentically and gave it space.
And the third thing I learnt when I was listening from Love Rather Than Fear was that she wanted to help me.
She didn't want my help.
She wanted to help me.
And again,
I listened from that space of love and respect and saw her as this elder and allowed her to help me.
And once again,
I want you to hear that this didn't come from a place of being a technique.
It came from a place of really wanting to see her and to authentically connect with her in this space.
So Love turned up by showing me the importance of listening.
The importance of listening to her and her ideas and helping those ideas of hers take root,
Of listening to her as a wiser older woman and listening to her as she,
As this older,
Wiser woman,
Gave me advice and guidance.
And I did this from a place of authenticity.
So for me today,
When I came from a place of Love Rather Than Fear,
I saw that love and listening are the same thing.
So let me know what you're learning as you take part in this experiment.
Maybe you've just joined me for the day.
Maybe you're joining me for the full 30 days.
What are you learning when you bring your awareness to that space of love rather than living from that place of fear?
