Love or Fear – We All Have a Choice

Love allows us to flow together

 toward a shared future.​

                      Adrienne Maree Brown

As we greet the new year, we have an opportunity for a new beginning. We can let go of whatever disappointments or fear that we have been feeling and choose how we will meet the months ahead.

As I listened once again to a song that has uplifted Larry and me for many years, I realized that, at this challenging moment, we all have a choice: Love or fear. And we all have the power to choose how we will live our lives in this new year.

I can see sharing

Or I can see greed

I can see caring or poverty

What do you choose?

I can see gardens, or I can see bombs

I can see life or death

Coming on strong

So what do you choose?

I choose Love

This song asks us to choose how we see our future:

Love isn’t always easy, even within our families and among friends. As I looked back on my life, I came across something I had written about my years as my mother’s caregiver:

“It was to be a journey that challenged me in ways I could not have foreseen.  It challenged me to grow, to be honest about myself, and to become the person I said I wanted to be but had never done the hard work to become.”

As I read these words, I realized that they also apply to the journey we are all on today. We are being challenged to become the best we are capable of being. In order to do that, we need to be honest about where we are on that journey, and we are invited to do whatever it takes to step fully into the potential within us.

Since you are reading these words, I believe that you are a kind person who loves easily.

The opportunity before us now is to find ways to expand our love to include others who have been left outside our circle of kindness. That may require some self-reflection, but it opens up unimagined possibilities for our lives.

The choices we make will have an impact on the world. We are all co-creating the world we live in – whether we choose to take deliberate action or to sit out and watch history unfold around us.

We all get to choose our contribution. You are already bringing love into the world with every kind action. Each act of kindness sends ripples out that uplift other people, so you will never know the full impact of your kindness.

Most of us have within us a mixture of love and fear.

Let’s look at fear, so we can understand how it impacts our lives. It can show up directly as fear of the future, fear of change, fear of loss, or fear of other people. It also shows up indirectly as greed, competition, exclusion, judgment, criticism, complaining, close-mindedness or even hatred.

Just living in the world today exposes us to an onslaught of messages of fear

In talking about overcoming fear, Gabby Bernestein says that

“We all have the choice to engage in more drama, the choice to get hooked into more chaos, or the choice to love no matter what.”

That choice is easier to make than to implement in our lives. So many influences pull us into fear – current circumstances, media that thrive on sensation and separation, family and friends who are experiencing fear themselves. We need to make a conscious decision not to go there.

I appreciate Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s guidance for times like these:

“It is especially important to return to what is essential and true, what cannot be bought or sold.

Simple acts of loving kindness, an open heart that listens, hands that care—with a friend, a stranger, with someone in need. These are the true currencies of our shared humanity”

His words remind us how easy it is to bring more love into the world.

Shawn Galaway’s song ends with an uplifting message:

I choose to love with freedom flying

From my heart where the light keeps shining

And I choose to feel the whole world crying

And I choose to feel the one voice rising

And I choose to feel us all united in the strength that we can rise above.

I choose love.

As we choose love over fear, we are a powerful force for healing in a world that desperately needs it. And we receive the added benefit of experiencing the joy that comes from living with love.     

Our wish for you is that in the new year, all your needs are met and your days are filled with love and joy.

Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay

We invite you to be uplifted by Shawn’s video:

I CHOOSE LOVE – SHAWN GALLAWAY

What are your thoughts?  Please leave a comment below.

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We’re grateful that you are on this journey with us.

With love from our hearts to yours,

Pat and Larry