43. The Secret of Love: The Benefits Of Breaking Our Ego Boundaries

In this episode of Spiritually Hungry, Monica and Michael explore the meaning of true, unconditional love – romantic or otherwise – and its power to expand our souls. Tune in as they share tips and tools for receiving love from others and truly sharing our love with the people in our lives.

Transcript

When people feel love, It raises the bar of what they're willing to accept. At the ultimate level, True love is when you care deeply for somebody else and you want their good. The love we're talking about is something that unless you've experienced it, You really don't even have a clue as to what that really means. It's never based on what you're going to get from someone. It's never based on how they necessarily make you feel. It's like the acceptance of who you are, Which allows you to be vulnerable in that space and be you. Good, Bad, Ugly, Whatever. When you are actively pushing yourself to think and act in love towards others from whom you're not expecting to receive in return anything, You yourself are growing. And as a matter of fact, It is the most important work for which our soul came into this world. Welcome to Spiritually Hungry Podcast episode 43. I promise this episode won't be about grief or death, Not a lot of tears. I hope for those of you who join in with us weekly, You're familiar with my father's process. He has now passed away and he's got lots of thoughts, Lots of processing. But it's interesting because we've spoken a lot about how we felt when your parents passed, Especially Karen who passed eight months ago. And I've shared this with you. I think I've shared it publicly, But she taught me a lot about how to not really fear death. I think before that experience with her and being with her when she transitioned, I avoided death altogether. The idea of it, The discomfort of it, Going close to it, There probably still that residue of the thoughts I had about things like that being kind of contagious energetically. And she passed with such grace and almost joy even that I don't fear it. And I think she really helped prepare me for helping my father transition, Which basically was over a two-week period. I mean, A seven-year struggle with Alzheimer's, But a two-week period in the hospital. But I was shocked to be met with feelings of almost elation when he passed. And I remember that night on Friday night, I came home that afternoon. I said, I feel really strange. I don't think this is the reaction I'm supposed to have. But I think I was so tapped into his feelings and his process. It was all about making him feel comfortable and safe and fearless in his transition that even when he passed away, I think I was connecting to what he must feel like being free from a body that limited him so much. And I really felt that his soul could soar in a beautiful way. And I'm just not getting a lot of sleep. There are really a lot of people on the other side are visiting me in my sleep. Last night, I told you three people. One of them was my father, Spent the evening with me, But he was happy. And we were listening to a song actually from my childhood in New Orleans and he was relaxing or listening to it as very. . . It was a song. Yeah, It was Bill Withers. Which one? Just the two of us. That and then the other one that reminds me of childhood that's his as well is Sailing. That's what it's called. Sailing takes us away. Anywho, So today we're going to talk about something more uplifting, But it actually is connected to something I realized that my father taught me and I only really fully understood it after he passed away. And then when you shared it, It felt so true and I think that's right. I think I referred to it one of the times you shared it with a group of people. And I mentioned that it's a very. . . I feel it's a very important point that shouldn't be overlooked. Well, It kind of came to me like a veil was lifted from my eyes, Which has been my experience of my dad's passing. Really like, Oh my God, How much we all fell prey to the illusions of our five senses and of this world. I've taught it, But to actually live it and then be able to see how it is actualized in your life all the time is profound. And I hope it's this life changing experience, But I hope this change will stay with me forever. But I think that if we asked any of our listeners, Do you believe that you're a loving person? What would most people answer? Of course. A lot of people would say yes. That they're a loving person. Yes. And the question is, Then why do so many people have trouble receiving love? And I think that I understood this so fully after my father passed that in the seven years that he was struggling with Alzheimer's and he was forgetting who he was, I also, Not fully realizing, Was forgetting him as well. I think that when you no longer create new memories with people, And I think also when the person in front of you looks familiar, But doesn't really resemble who they were throughout the entirety of your life, It's easy almost to, I think, To protect ourselves, To remove yourself, To not really connect to them. And again, Forget a lot of the experiences that you had, Especially the positive ones. So when he passed away, It was like this flood of emotion and memories from my childhood. And I felt him so completely as he was in the totality of who he was, Not plagued by the disease. And the biggest epiphany that I had was that, In all honesty, I felt like I was able to choose such a great partner, You, Who could love me unconditionally and really a healthy partner. And how was I able to find that or receive that? And we can look into many different ways, But at the core, I thought my whole life until two weeks ago that as much as my parents, As much as there was love there in the relationship, It wasn't a healthy model. There was a lot of claiming and judgment and misuse of words and just a lot of things. And I remember thinking growing up, Well, I'm going to choose a partner and I'm going to be a different kind of partner than the model that I have in front of me. So I thought, My parents taught me, But they taught me something that I didn't want to model. I only realized again, In seeing him in his totality, That was like the gift of sight that I got after he passed. I realized that I was able to receive love and know what that feels like in a healthy way and not settle for less because my father had given that to me. Can I cry a little bit? Say that again because I think it's so profound and beautiful. Because growing up, And I've written it in different ways and I think I understood it on a small level, But no matter what I did or how I harmed myself or with anorexia, Asking him to hike the Grand Canyon with me in one day to the bottom and from the top to the bottom back up again, He never judged me. I was allowed to be vulnerable completely with him, Show him all of me, Even the most flawed parts. All I received in return was his adoration. It was never anything less than unconditional love. Because I knew what that felt like and I am able to receive it, I was able to seek that in a partner and also receive that from everybody else in my life and not settle for anything less. That is a huge aha moment for me. As you said, I was with some people. I was in that week after and I shared this idea because I had that epiphany and then different people went around the room sharing why they can't receive love. I think I asked the question, Which I'll share but I want to hear what you have to say. No, So when you said that, To me what that really clarified is how important it is for each one of us to be giving love to people. Now of course, To your children, To your friends, But really to even people outside that circle. Why is it so important? Like you said, Because when people feel loved, It raises the bar of what they're willing to accept. So like you said, In this case when your father gave you love, It made you understand that in a partner, You want somebody who loves you at least as much as that. You will not accept somebody who loves you less than that. Had you not had a father who loved you in that way, It's possible you would have been willing to accept much less love from a partner. And certainly with our children, The reason it's so important to give them love is so that when they grow up and they choose a partner, And even they choose a partner in business, Or they choose a partner anywhere, Even choosing a doctor or choosing a lawyer, Often, And this is kind of where you see people who are willing to be, I don't want to use the word abused, But be told what to do. We'll never sort of question the doctor or lawyer. That whole psychological acceptance, I think a lot of it foundationally has to do with whether they were or were not given love, Whether they do or do not feel that they've received and deserving to receive. And therefore the bar, The more love you give somebody else, The higher their bar rises to what they're willing and will accept from other people. By the way though, Because as you were speaking, I want to clarify, My father didn't favor me. It's not that he. . . Because a lot of, I think women often don't find a partner because nobody can match how their father loved them. This was a very healthy, Balanced love. And he loved my sisters exactly the same. My father was a man that he saw our flaws. It scared him if anything. All he wanted for each of us equally was that we would live happy, Fulfilled lives. And he wanted it as much for us as he wanted it for himself. It was that pure and unadulterated. And the relationship wasn't codependent, It was interdependent. We equally relied and relished in that sharing of love. So I think that's a really important point because it wasn't this kind of like, And by the way, I made a conscious choice to marry somebody who was very different than my father in many, Many ways. This one part though, The truest, Most pure part is where you both have that commonality for me. Right. And again, I think for our listeners, This understanding of both the importance of giving love and also being able to receive because we know unfortunately there are people who are not able to receive, Who see themselves as able to give love and not able to receive for whatever reasons, And they're not willing or not able to receive love. But again, The power of that, What it does again, Is that it sets a bar for your children, For your friends. So I'm talking about actually somebody we know who allows themselves not to be, Again, They might think that they're being loved, But really not accepting, Not receiving enough love in their relationship. And why? Again, Because maybe, Maybe they never got to a point in their lives, Whether it's their parents or friends or whatever places that they were receiving or not receiving love, That didn't raise the bar high enough. Well the interesting conversation happened because a lot of people around the room was talking about people that they work with and that this person is struggling because they never received love in their childhood. This one never, And it started really with, And I want to go into that a little bit later about attachment styles, Right? It's really important to create that bond at the very beginning with a parent. But as we went around the room, Then the friends, They started sharing their own experience. And one person said that he only knew love according to his childhood definition of what being a man looked like, Which I didn't even understand. Well, He was saying that, Well, He was confused basically. He understood that if you, He was still confused in his fifties, But that he understood that if he felt like a man, I guess macho and strong and stoic, That was the definition of love. So anything, So there's no vulnerability in that, Right? That's what he understood love to be from how he got feedback growing up. And by the way, I was confused by what he said too. I encouraged him to actually go back to find what that really means to be a man. And what is it that you're doing in your life today? Who do you want to be? Not this, I think it's kind of like, If you look at the Marlboro man, Right? On a horse and this and that, You have like this- I was just doing love. It's just the idea of you're only worthy of receiving love if you're manly, If you're this strong kind of provider type. Very complicated. Okay. Another woman said she didn't even have a framework to receive love from how she grew up. And another one found that it was easy for him to give love as that's where he had control. But receiving love was nerve wracking because he thought he was powerless in that dynamic, Which I thought was really fascinating. Right. Because he, I remember he said, Because if he allows himself to be receiving love, That could be taken away. So I guess in order not to fall to that possibility, He would rather not receive love. Again, Complicated. Very complicated. But again, I do want to underscore the foundational point, Which is to our listeners, To us, Give as much love as possible because that'll keep raising the bar for your children, For your friends. So if you have a friend who, For whatever reason, Is lacking in what they have received in their life in the way of love, The more you can give to them, The more you're setting them up for every area of their lives to not accept less than that. So it's a really, Really- Yeah, Because the word love, It's like it's thrown around so often. In terms, We're not even talking, We're not talking about romantic love. We're talking about love- Because by the way, Because romantic love, And I'd like to share something about this, But romantic love can actually, Has many elements that are not true love. Because at the ultimate level, True love is when you care deeply for somebody else and you want their good. That's- I think as much as you want your own, But to do that, You have to be healthy within yourself. Right. Of course you have to have love for yourself. You can't love another person. Well, Let's have that love for yourself. But true love is when you have love for somebody else and therefore you desire for them to have good. If you can give it, If somebody else can give it, It's not connected or attached to what you receive back from that person. So it's not reciprocal necessarily. So true love is the thought and brought into action of desiring good for another person. So I think because so many of us attach the concept of love to romantic love, We often have the wrong ideas about love. The wrong expectations for sure. And if you look even at, We think that every child receives love when they're born. In fact, Many are not wanted, Right? We know so many children are damaged because they never received love when they were born, They were rejected. So this idea, Again, I don't want to, Because the word love actually bothers me, Which is like a stronger word for love because the love we're talking about is something that unless you've experienced it, You really don't even have a clue as to what that really means. And that's really what I want. I want to bring that out. So it's never based on what you're going to get from someone. It's never based on how they necessarily make you feel. It's like the acceptance of who you are, Which allows you to be vulnerable in that space and be you. Good, Bad, Ugly, Whatever. It's that. It's everything really. Right. So I'd like to go a little bit in depth into what I think is foundational in both being able to understand what love is and what it isn't. So M. Scott Peck, Who I've mentioned in previous podcasts, The Road Less Traveled. I always break out into song in my head when we do a podcast. I hate this song. What is love, Baby? So what I think is important, I know for me it is to understand the foundational reasons that we make mistakes about love. So the idea is this, And this is based on psychology and on science, What's called ego boundaries, Ego boundaries and how they become developed. So when we're born, We don't see, And this is really interesting in many ways, A difference between us and anybody else. We do not see a separation between ourselves and others. To what age? Yes, Until around, It starts breaking down from one to two and it actually continues all the way till adulted. So what that means is that the child, A baby believes that both their. . . What that brings to is the thought of omnipotence. So a baby's born, He wants to eat, The mother feeds him. A baby's born, He's tired, The mother puts him to bed. He is not even psychologically able to separate his mother's body from his own. As far as he's concerned, He's everything and everything is for him. And therefore, When the trees move, He's moving. When his hand move, The world is moving. So there is that sense and every baby has this. There is no ego boundary between a baby and the world around him or her. And then as the baby grows, Even towards age two, He starts to realize, Hey, Not every time I cry, Do I get taken care of. There are times my mother doesn't feed me when I'm hungry. These disappointments one can call them, But the sense of the world is not all mine and I'm not omnipotent and not everything I want happens to me right away. And he or she begins realizing that there's a difference between me and even my mother. There's a difference between me and the world. And that is called the ego boundary. So we begin to build around ourselves a sense that I am separate from you and I am separate from the world. And that again continues through adulthood. And I'd like to point out a few things. One that the ego boundaries that we develop, That wall between me and you, That wall between me and everybody else in the world, Also as that begins being built up, Also what begins coming down is the sense of I can do anything. The omnipotence and the ego boundary have an opposite effect. So when the ego boundary gets built up stronger, The sense of the ability of the individual to control anything, To do anything also begins to crumble. So I'd like to read a little bit from the book Road Less Travel. Gradually so he explains H1, 2, 3, Again this begins to crumble. Well, The sense of omnipotence begins to crumble and the sense of the self, The ego boundary begins to be built. So at a certain age, Three, Four, That's when kids, Why are they into superheroes? Because they believe they are a superhero, Because they still sense that they're omnipotent. So this is the world of Superman and Captain Marvel. Yet gradually, Even the superheroes are given up. And by the time of mid-adolescence, Young people know that they are individuals confined to the boundaries of their flesh and the limits of their power. Each one a relatively frail and impotent organism, Existing only by cooperation within a group of fellow organisms called society. Within this group, They are not particularly distinguished, Yet they are isolated from others by their individual identities, Boundaries and limits. So that's where we get to. That's called the ego boundary. But most of us feel our loneliness. When you believed when you were a child, When you were a baby, That you weren't lonely because everything is you. But through the sense of as we build the ego boundaries, Then that's when you start feeling alone. And we yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us in this escape temporarily. So what happens when we fall in love? The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries. Interesting. That's what happens when we fall in love. And again, We'll see what the problem with that, But that's what happens. Permitting one to merge his or her own identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, The explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved and the dramatic removal of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. And that's what happened and that's why we get so excited about falling in love because finally, I'm not alone. Finally, I could be at least one with one other person and my ego boundaries become diminishing. By the way, What happens when the ego boundaries go down? My omnipotence comes back. The sense, And it's true, When a person's certainly often initially in love, Oh, We can do anything together. When they break up, Oh, We can't do anything. So it's very interesting that I want to underscore that fact that as the ego boundaries come down, In this case, When a person falls in love, The sense of the ability of one to do almost anything begins to rise up again. We and our beloved are one, Loneliness is no more. In some respects, The act of falling in love is an act of regression because we're going back to the way we experienced life at age one, Two, Three, Four, Where we had almost no ego boundaries and we had a sense of omnipotence. When we were merged with our mothers in infancy, Along with the merging, We also re-experienced the sense of omnipotence, Which we had to give up in our journey out of a childhood. All things seem possible. United with our beloved, We feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believe that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. That's what people feel. Now, It seems so important for us to understand the marriage of the removal of the ego boundaries with the sense of the ability to do. The future will be all light. The unreality of these feelings when we have fallen in love is essentially the same as the unreality of the two-year-old who feels itself to be the king of the family and the world with power unlimited. What I've gathered from this, I want to be two. Two again. Yes. Well, That's what I'm going to get to if you can have a few more minutes on this. The real gift of loving others in truth- It gives you the superpower ability. It gives you, Exactly. It's a skill that needs to be developed, But then you go back also to the sense of my ability to do it. That's the gift my father gave me, Honestly. Exactly. Exactly. I just want to close this out. He says, Sooner or later, In response to the problems of daily living, Individuals will reassert themselves. That's what happens. Why do people fall out of love to some degrees? Because at some point, The ego boundaries are built up again. Because you can't, Unless you're truly working as of spiritually, Not go back to your nature of your ego boundaries. For instance, He says, She wants to go to the movies. He doesn't. He wants to put money in the bank. She wants a dishwasher. She wants to talk about her job. He wants to talk about his and so on. The ego boundaries snap back into place, Gradually or suddenly, They fall out of love. Once again, They are two separate individuals. At this point, They begin to either dissolve the ties of their relationship or to initiate the real work of loving. Exactly. So, I'd like to. . . Maybe we'll stop here because I do want to speak about how he talks about the importance of growing yourself through true love. But for me, The importance of this concept and this podcast is for our listeners to understand that the love that we're talking about is not romantic love. It can be a part of the love that you have in a relationship, But love that is not dependent on what you're receiving from somebody else. Love that is an expression of your truest self towards another person for their good. This is how we should navigate our entire lives with everybody we come encounter with. That's how we're meant to live, Truly. Absolutely. Absolutely. The beauty of this, We often like to tie it back to the benefit, Is that when you live in this way, When you are actively pushing yourself to think and act in love towards others from whom you're not expecting to receive in return anything, You yourself are growing. As a matter of fact, It is the most important work for which our soul came into this world. That I think is another important element here. There's a famous section in the Talmud and it's actually based on a verse in the Bible. What is the most important precept? What is the most important purpose? The great Kabbalists, Or the Akiva said, Now hafta leghachakamocha, Which is the verse that says, Love your neighbor, Your fellow man as yourself. That is the most important purpose of, Call it the Bible, Call it spirituality, Call it life. So the question, What that means to me is that the question we have to ask ourselves, If I accept that the purpose why I'm in this world, If you're a spiritual person, Certainly if you're a religious person, Is to become a greater lover. But in this sense, We mean lover of people. Are you really doing that? A lot of us can be good people and growing in love takes effort. Growing in true love takes effort. It is not something that comes naturally. It is our essence, But it is covered by our ego boundaries that we have to fight against. It is actually the most pure part of our essence, But it is hidden. I think it's as natural as learning to walk, Talk, Play. It's all of our desires. And love is right there, Up there. It's a basic human need. Right. But if you think about it, I think for so many of us, And certainly probably many of our listeners, We have muddled what we think of as romantic love with love. But also I think we go around covering, We don't want to be hurt again and we don't want to be disappointed. So we're withholding, We want to protect ourselves. So we're defensive. I mean, I think that we spend a lot more time trying to protect ourselves from hurt than actually being able to give and receive love, Which takes vulnerability. And most people, That word still has a bad connotation to be vulnerable. Right. But the truth is, Again, You have to be, In the love that we're talking about and expressing it, Yes, There is vulnerability, But it's less than I think the romantic love vulnerability that is necessary. It does take effort to go to your friend. You think it's more in romantic love, Vulnerability, Or less? I mean, I think you are more vulnerable when you're in a relationship with somebody who you're hoping is- I don't think so. I think you have more opportunities to be vulnerable, But I don't think that that's true. I think that you can choose to be vulnerable every. . . In fact, There's opportunities to be vulnerable every day of your life, Whether you are sitting with somebody who is dying or you're helping somebody who lost their job, Or if you're apologizing for an error you made. I mean, We have opportunities all day long to actually remove barriers and create connection. Right. I just think that when assessing where the greatest potential hurt can come from, I think the greater hurt can come from a romantic relationship because we have much more hopes. Like if I have a friend or somebody I know and I desire to show them and I push myself to show them love and more and more love, And if they, For whatever reason, Don't take it or don't accept it or don't reciprocate, I'll be less hurt than if my partner or the person that a person is dating and hoping will become their partner breaks up with them. I think that's all I'm saying. Based on this, And I think this is the foundational understanding, It goes on to explain how we grow by growing in love, Growing in love towards other people. The experience of real love also has to do with ego boundaries since it involves an extension of one's limits. It's a very important understanding. We're talking about here, We're not just showing love, You're saying a kind word. There has to be an expansion, An uncomfortable expansion of your own limits is really how you're growing in love. One's limits are one's ego boundaries. When we extend our limits through love, We do so by reaching out, So to speak, Toward the beloved. By limits, You're saying expanding our, I don't want to say vessel, But I want to use a layman term, Expanding our ability to. . . Well, Expanding yourself. For instance, Let's say I know this person, I even have a relationship with them. For me now to think of ways that I can better their life, For me to now think of ways that I can give them love, I'm now expanding myself outwards towards them. As if I'm actually building, Taking down the wall between me and them. Your arm is their arm, The extension. They're now within my boundary. That's how we should view love. That what we do with love is we're actually expanding ourselves to now include more even things, But certainly people. Which I think is a beautiful way to think about it, And again, For our listeners, I hope that this is how we start pushing ourselves to love more. In other words, We must be attracted toward, Invested in, And committed to an object outside of ourselves beyond the boundaries of ourselves. This is an example which I think, A very important example, Use an example of gardening. Here we're not even talking about people, We're talking about things. But hopefully by understanding gardening or the love that one can have for gardening, We can understand how we are supposed to be growing in our embracing and giving of love towards others. It all goes back to nature, By the way. I'm thinking why this example, But the truth is nature is always the number one obvious thing to mimic. Yeah, And to learn from, Absolutely. Let us consider a man who gardens for a hobby. It is a satisfying, Consuming hobby. He loves gardening. His garden means a lot to him. This man has worked on his garden, He finds it attractive. He has invested himself in it, He is committed to it. So much so that he may jump out of bed early Sunday morning to get back to it. He may refuse to travel from it, And he may even neglect his wife for it. In the process of his love, In order to nurture his flowers and shrubs, He learns a great deal. He comes to know much about gardening, About soils and fertilizers, Rooting and pruning, And he knows his particular garden, Its history, The types of flowers and plants in it, Its layout, Its problems, And even its future. Despite the fact that the garden exists outside of him, Through his focus, It has come to exist within him. And I think that it's so beautiful and powerful as a foundational way to understand what it will mean for us to truly love another person. His knowledge of it and the meaning it has for him are part of him, Part of his identity, Part of his history, Part of his wisdom. By loving and focusing on his garden, He has in quite a real way incorporated the garden within him. And by this incorporation, His self has become enlarged and his ego boundaries extended. He can do that with anything. He can do that with anything and with anybody. But I think, Again, I think this is a very exciting fundamental thought about life, That our purpose is to diminish our ego boundaries and to expand ourselves. And how do you do that? Through love. Love manifested through thought and action. So I think there are many people out there who think, And speaking to me to myself, I love people. I share with people. But how many people are in your boundary? And just this person with their history, You take care of them. You'll wake up excitedly on a Sunday morning to try to do something better for them. But this is the purpose of life. This is the purpose of life. And again, The beautiful effect of this is that as you expand yourself and you bring down your ego boundaries, You will become more powerful. You will go back to the two-year-old in thought who believes he or she can do anything. Powerful in terms of your influence and your- Yeah, What you believe about yourself. So I think to realize that, Again, Maybe there are people out there who are so spiritually evolved- I think that's one of the things. It's honestly, That was the other understanding I had. And I know you agree. It's not about being spiritually evolved. To really live this, You actually have to understand love in a completely different way. And really ask yourself the question, What are you doing to expound your boundaries? What are you doing to diminish your ego boundaries? Why? Because this is actually why you're in this world. And think about it. This week, This day, Not even so much with your partner, Not even so much with your children. Again, There's a lot to be spoken about the love that needs to be even grown there. But I want to specifically talk about the garden. I want to specifically talk about your friend. I want to talk about somebody who may be not so close with yet. Our purpose in life, And that's why the great Kabbalists say in the Bible, The most important verse that it is the foundational teaching, Love. But not love as unfortunately, We've all muddied the understanding of this love that we're talking about. The love that is outside of us, The love that it makes us diminish or remove our ego boundaries and make us greater. Because now when you're truly invested in loving another person, Then you are actually expanding yourself. In a deeper way, And this is based on spiritual teachings, You actually draw great light and blessings. There's very few things that a person can do in his or her life to draw blessings that we desire that we need and the manifesting of love towards other people. Now we, I think, Begin to understand a little bit why. Unadulterated love, This pure love. I think that's why people are so attracted to children, Just watching them play and be in that energy. It's because they're connected to this that we are not. Absolutely. By the way, As I was reading this, One of the reasons why we know that children in the womb and even in the early stages of life in this world are much more connected to truth. Because the lack of ego boundaries and the sense of omnipotence, That's much closer to who we truly are than all the stuff that we- That we collect later in life. To end this, I'll just read the last paragraph here, Which again, I think is both inspiring hopefully for our readers and for us. What transpires in the course of many years of loving, Of extending our limits, Is a gradual but progressive enlargement of the self. This is the paradox, Right? Because the ego wants us to enlarge ourselves by only taking from ourselves, When in truth the only real way to enlarge ourselves is by bringing other people into my ego boundary. That's interesting. And incorporation within of the world without, And a growth, A stretching, And a thinning of our ego boundaries. In this way, The more and longer we extend ourselves, The more we love, The more blurred becomes a distinction between the self and the world. We become identified with the world, And as our ego boundaries become blurred and thinned, We begin more and more to experience the same sort of feeling of ecstasy that we have when our ego boundaries partially collapse and we fall in love. Only instead of having merged temporarily and unrealistically with a single beloved object, We have merged realistically and more permanently with much of the world. A mystical union, In quotes he calls it, With the entire world may be established. And that I think is the purpose, Not I think, I know is the purpose of life. And my hope is that our listeners become excited by this because the purpose of this podcast, Certainly this one, Is not to hear a nice concept, But how am I going to now live differently? And I could say for myself, I'm even thinking of ways and things that I will do to live more in love. Really? What are you going to do? I think it's about, Well, There's actually two, And the first one is a little bit more complicated and maybe we'll get into that a little bit later, But really focusing in our relationship. We all have relationships with other people. It could be a two minute relationship. Even for example, Somebody you come across in the world. Somebody asks you for directions, Right? You can say, There's a few options. You could say, No, I'm not going to help them. You say, Yes, I will help them. The third, Which is I think the most powerful, Say, I will show them love. You're doing the same thing. You're showing them directions. You're showing them the time, But it's coming from a different place from within you. Every single exchange is an opportunity to love more. Exactly. It's interesting. Today, When I was working out, I ran into somebody I hadn't seen in a really long time, And her mother also had Alzheimer's and her mom just passed. There's so many parallels. They keep meeting people in the same kind of boat, But she was sharing how her mother's birthday and her daughter's birthday is the same, And her birthday is five days later, And she just found out her grandmother's birthday was the same day. I started sharing all this stuff about Tikkun and reincarnation. She just looked at me, And as I finished, And I was really excited to share with her because I thought it would help her, She just looked at me and I thought to myself, Well, I'm not sure what she thinks of this. She might hate everything and disagree with everything I just said. I wouldn't care, But for a second, I felt a little awkward. Then she's like, I have chills all over my body. For me, It's like I'm always going to try to help somebody in some way even if they don't fully want it. I think what I would add to that is, And what I would say to you and to me is that actively have it come from a place of love. Well, It did because I wouldn't have done. I mean, What I said was out there. I really just really genuinely wanted to make her feel to have some understanding that she didn't have. Yeah, It did come from love. But I do want to just break this down for our listeners a bit more because I do think about so many who have broken hearts still from, Again, Not having healthy attachment styles with their parents. They never received love or maybe the love was attached to some kind of outcome. If they were a good child or they had good grades, Then they would get love if not the parents were withholding. We see this a lot with people across the board where they can be so successful and really doing a very great job, Being a great parent in any box, Right? But they judge themselves or they can't see themselves because they don't love themselves because they never received love from that one person. And sadly, They go on through life even in their 50s, 60s with that narrative and that story, Right? I can't really love myself or give love or receive love because I never got it from the one person I wanted it the most. So for those people, Where do they actually start? I think for you and I, Thank God we're in healthy places with love. And I think that we helped each other in a lot of ways, Really learned to give and receive love because we were vulnerable with one another. So what do people do when they don't have that and they haven't started in that way? Do you have a suggestion? Well, I think the first thing is, We talked about this a little bit in the last few episodes that so often people are unwilling to even mourn a parent or they're still hung up on what that person should have been or should have done for them. So I think the first place is to start and really say that everybody's just doing their best and that might not be great. It might be sometimes pitiful, Quite honestly, But it's their best, Right? And- That doesn't help the person that- No, But if you look at where they came from- You don't say they helped you forgive them, But it doesn't help the lack of love. No, But you have to start with that space, Right? In terms of learning to love yourself, Again, If you've never experienced that, I think that you need to. . . What I would do is I would look at people who are healthy in that way and I would model what they've done or what they're saying and learn to do that for myself. I know that that is all learnable for sure. I wouldn't wait for somebody else to offer that. It has to start from there. And I think one of the actions- Because by the way, As much as my father loved me unconditionally, I did go down a very dark road of not loving myself, Starving myself, Right? Nearly to death and then learning to love myself, Right? So I actually did what I'm suggesting for our listeners to do. I knew not to settle for anything less in terms of what I was going to receive. I still had to learn to build it up for myself. Right, Right. And what I was going to say is that I think one very practical action, And we've spoken about this with different people, Is that one of the ways that we awaken love is by doing actions of care, Right? We've been talking with other people. But one of the ways to build the love for oneself, Especially in situations where growing up for whatever reason that baseline wasn't created by the love received from parents, Is to actively, Actively give love, Do actions of care and love towards oneself. I mean, Unfortunately, Sometimes it's very difficult for people to do that because of that lack of baseline of love that they did not receive. And the negative stories. Right, But I think, And this is related to everything we spoke about, That when you understand that loving is a skill that needs to be developed, And one of my favorite quotes is that real love is permanently self enlarging experience. So every one of us, No matter where we are, From the lowest place of loving ourselves or others, We all have to be growing in that. And it's a learnable skill, Especially since, At our essence, We have it. And it's probably the truest part of who we are, That we love ourselves and we love others. But again, We have to build that up. Which is why we have this battle all the time within of, I want to receive love, But I can't receive love. I think I'm deserving, But I'm not good enough. We have that because innately, We all have that within us, But it's covered with these false belief systems. While you were speaking, I was thinking about that cartoon or the animated film Trolls, Right? It's like all happy, They're color. One person's not in color. I think he's like blue or gray, And then they awaken it through love in his heart, And then he's all the colors, Right? I mean, I know it sounds kind of cheesy as I'm saying it out loud, But that is, In essence, What we all need to do, And we can. Absolutely. And again, I go back to this because I think it really frames it in the proper way. This is the most important thing that we came to this world to do. The most important thing. I think a lot of people think about it, It's a nice thing, Or I have love in my family, I have love in my. . . Every human being came to this world, And the ultimate state of any one of our fulfillment is based on how much love we are giving towards others. How much we are, Again, In these terms, Reducing our ego boundaries and growing the amount of love that we're giving towards other people. So in a certain way, It's a very, I don't want to say selfish, But it's the right way to go about life if you want to be happy, If you want to be fulfilled, If you want to have blessings. There you go. Yeah, So I really, Again, Like I said in the beginning, I really hope for ourselves and for our listeners that we are inspired to actively pursue love because it is the path, And then again, It has to be uncomfortable. It has to be uncomfortable. Real love must involve the thought of our own growth. Why am I pushing myself today, Tomorrow, To give love towards other people? Because I need to grow. Because I need to grow. And it's okay if it's foreign. I think everybody starts out as a stranger every single day. But it's not really foreign to your essence. No, But it might be foreign to what you understand. Look, People can be comfortable with all kinds of horrible things. It's what they're going to write, And that's why they choose negative partners and negative situations because it's what they know. You got to go against what isn't working for you and to tap into what's really true. Do you have a letter for us? I do have a letter for us. I'd love one if you'd surprise me. What's it about? I don't know. I hope our listeners aren't checking out. Do you have anything else? The world run out by an analyst playing during rush hour in DC really struck chords with me and helped me have a breakthrough this week. During the day, I now reflect on the messages I am learning and how to transform and embrace light and try to be an observer of my general thoughts during the day and to identify my tycoon, What I need to correct. My initial week of doing this was shocking. I couldn't believe how often unsubstantial thoughts of criticism or judgment came up on my walks around London. I don't even consider myself a very critical or judgmental person, But apparently my filler thoughts between thoughts beg to differ. I actually urge towards the compassionate healer side of the spectrum, But what I've uncovered this week is that COVID has really impacted my perceptions of others whereby I now have a slight apprehension or fear of others and find myself judging people who aren't following distancing COVID rules or similar courtesy. On my walk last night, I found myself judging someone who walked too close to me or riding a bike too closely on the pedestrian walkway, Despite there being plenty of room across the sidewalk. Fill in the relevant critical thought here. Once I passed them, I almost immediately came upon a small family where the father was pulling his child away from me to avoid me. I realized I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, Judging someone else that I was guilty of the same in the next moment. Wow. That observation hit me hard. I'm not sure if you experienced this in New York, But living in London, I've realized that when you're outside amongst others, Most people wear headphones now, Myself included. So whilst we're around so many others with the opportunity to connect and share light, We tend to block everyone out these days and build a sound barrier and therefore disconnect. I also recognize that even when we do have time in our day, We never really do in our minds. We're often on a mission going from point A to point B as efficiently as possible to complete our tasks and don't stop to smell the roses or listen to famous musicians playing in public transit along the way. I'm an autopilot most of the time I'm coming to realize. And with a pandemic, I'm an autopilot and also afraid of strangers getting too close or even coming near me these days. When I realized this, I shifted my gear from automatic with a serious voice of the opponent narrating my life without realizing, To manual, To take back control of my thoughts and my life and stop being a jerk, Which was as such a shock to witness within my own thoughts. Just like learning to drive a manual, I'm stalling a lot, But continuing to listen to your weekly podcasts and wider support from the teachings and they are immensely helpful. Thank you for sharing your insights, Lessons, And learnings with the community. I am so glad to be a part of this community and for the first time in a long time, Feel more connected to the light and more hopeful each day. Your lessons helped me peel off the layers I didn't even realize I had added in adulthood. And I couldn't be more grateful to you for providing this wisdom and a path to light the way in the right direction. Wishing you both all the best and thanks again, Ashley. That's so beautiful. And thank you for being vulnerable. Right. And sharing this with us and with our listeners. But see, That is an extension of love. Exactly. And that's why I thought it's so interesting because we get letters that are sort of, You would assume or think not connected obviously to the podcast and we're recording it and it seems it's exactly right. And this is because this is exactly what we're talking about today because love, What is love? Love is about bringing down the ego barriers. Love is about expanding ourselves. And that's really what Ashley is talking about. So thank you, Ashley, For sharing with us and for sharing with all of our listeners. Thank you to all of our listeners. And as we often mentioned, And now Monica is making fun of me, Do it anyway. Make sure to send your letters, Stories, Questions, Thoughts, Feedback to Monica and Michael at kavala. Com. That's Monica and Michael at kavala. Com. How do you spell it? Monica A and D. Michael. Oh, Right. I forgot that part. At kavala. Com. Go to Apple podcast, Five star. Or wherever you hear your podcast. Yes. Could be Spotify, Could be anywhere else. Apple. There too. That's what I mentioned before. Support this podcast, Share it with your friends. We do this because of people like Ashley. Also that. But also because we know that there's so many people all over the world listening to this podcast, Whether, And I think many of us, Many of our listeners know this, It's available in Portuguese, It's available in Spanish, It's available in Hebrew, It's available in English. Nice add on Michael. We are very inspired when you share your stories with us. So please make sure to continue sharing your stories with us. It continues to inspire us and I hope we continue to inspire you. And I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast. As much as we enjoyed giving it. Recording. Close. Bye.