How to Create from Profound Love
In my previous article, we explored a possible definition of power and its connection to love. Now let's take a deeper dive into what this definition means, how it can be misinterpreted, and how you can find your own way within it.
What Is Power?
The essence of power - I believe, and as defined in my previous post - lies in “our ability to direct our own actions and reactions toward Love and connection”.
While love can be subject to many interpretations and misinterpretations, the experience of connection - whether that’s with a lover, a pet, or the wider world - is something most of us can understand.
In my definition, ’connection’ is with the Profound Love within ourselves – whether we refer to this place as our energy, our soul, or whatever other word we may choose for it.
So a refined definition could be:
"Our true Power is our ability to direct our own actions and reactions from and toward Profound Love (aka connection)."
Unraveling the Misinterpretations of Love
I added the word True as we have all seen and experienced distortions of Power within ourselves and our society (the ‘Love of Power’ in action!).
Both Love and Power are concepts that holds different meanings for each person, and most of us operate (and therefore create our lives) from conditioned and limited beliefs about them.
There are however consistent patterns that we can see in ourselves, culture and society at large that stem from our past stories, traumas, unmet needs, societal influences like our own families and school teachers, as well as what we see on TV, film, music. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with these influences and stories, believing them to be the ultimate reality can create chaos in our lives.
Misunderstandings about love, connection and power will manifest as recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Examples of these include patterns such as:
Co-dependency;
Feeling the need to be the saviour or to be saved;
Waiting for another to make us happy;
Needing to control your partner - even though you love him/her;
Believing your need to always submit to your partner;
Etc.
And while these can cause us great pain, earning to recognise these patterns is the way to break free from them.
How To Recognise the Experience of Profound Love
My friend and mentor Kim Hutchison speaks about two ‘modes’ or ‘patterns of reality’: Profound Love and non-love. These are like software operating modes: when the switch is flipped to one, we experience and create one type of results. And when the switch is flipped to the other, we experience another type of outcomes.
Most of us are constantly switching between the two, and some are totally switched to one side.
Most people can discern the difference between these two modes: operating from Profound Love has a distinct quality and feel to it. We feel a clear, expansive and vibrant energy and experience profound joy in our bodies. And while some aspects of this ‘mode’ may be easily noticeable, others might be subtler and require time and external support to identify and cultivate.
On the other hand, our ‘non-love mode’ carries a subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) tension, accompanied by a desire to control outcomes. At its core, love is freedom – the freedom to be ourselves, to cultivate our own happiness, and to share our profound love and gifts with others. Any patterns of thought, feeling, or behaviour that limit this sense of spacious freedom must be examined, tested, and transformed. When we act from this mode, we always sense or know - even if we fail to recognise it at the time - that this was not from Profound Love.
How To Transform Your Misconceptions
Operating from Profound Love is a journey of exploration and practice. We won't always get it right, but that's part of the process. It requires us to:
Notice our limitations and misunderstandings - and how they are creating chaos in our lives;
Become aware of our limiting, idealised and conditioned images and beliefs;
Learn to differentiate reactions from our thoughts and feelings (which are rooted in non-love patterns of reality) to the responses that arise from Profound Love;
Guide our actions from Profound Love by listening to our bodies and energy.
Four Practical Steps: Profound Love in Action
So, how can you do that? Here are 4 practical steps, which I will illustrate through a recent experience of my own:
Observe and recognise the major recurring patterns in your life.
In recent weeks for example, I began to witness and observe how I had been creating cycles, loops, patterns with a similar ‘all or nothing’ quality: yo-yo dieting and exercising, boom or bust financial periods, love/hate relationships. These all had a common thread: they felt like I had an invisible ceiling in place that was always stopping me from getting to where I really wanted to go and becoming who I wanted to become.
Notice what quality of thoughts (aka ‘programs’) drive these patterns.
As I noticed these patterns of behaviour, I began to also become painfully aware of their source: my attention was focused on a place in my brain where these thoughts (aka this program) originates from. It was very clear: I could see and even feel these thought forms as energy arising from a specific location in my brain. It’s important to note here that, contrary to what we tend to believe about therapy and healing, you don’t need to always understand why these thoughts arise: simply seeing them arise is enough and you can then stop listening to them (and I say this as a trained body psychotherapist with a decade of experience in the healing arts). In fact, trying to understand is often simply another mental loop that you get stuck in, taking you away from actually shifting and healing. If it is important for you to understand, you can trust that clarity will come at some point down the line.
Check how your body feels when you operate from this program.
For me this was instant clarity: when I saw myself listening to (and more importantly, believing!) those thoughts, I could instantly see how I became smaller. It’s like my body closed in on itself, and my energy shrank: my head dropped, my heart closed, I felt stressed, and all I wanted to do was run away and hide. It was painful! Yet the more I witnessed these thoughts, the more I could clearly see and feel the impact they had on me. Now, days later, I get a tiny headache when I get involved in them: a physical manifestation of what they do to me (this is the wisdom of your body and energy in action!).
Choose the new: at every opportunity, you can then begin to instead respond and react from Profound Love.
There may be a moment of not knowing which place to listen to, a kind of limbo state, however if you give it some time and space, this will arise naturally; you will feel a response in your body, that moves you toward expansion, freedom, nurture and connection: that is Profound LOVE! And while it may feel new and vulnerable, I have also found that it feels deeply powerful and clear. It’s become a lot more tangible to me - for example - which actions to take to move to where I want to be, i.e beyond the patterns of ‘all or nothing’. Instead of being stuck in these old loops, I can now see clearly (or at least, with increased clarity) how to respond from Profound Love. And I can choose, in each moment, to listen and respond from there - instead of the usual hamster wheel reaction.
The Power of Profound Love
Profound Love is not the wishy-washy, submissive, co-dependent, romanticised version we are sold on TV. It is deeply powerful, transformative, and a catalyst for connection and change. Learning to direct our Will and our Power from and toward it is how we can truly create magic, both on a personal and collective level.
Our Profound Love in action can take many shapes, sometimes as gentle as a whisper and other times as mighty as a tiger's roar. Navigating it is an art form, one that sometimes calls for a firm "no" or even a passionate "fuck off" when necessary.
Do you recognise the experience of Profound Love vs non-love? What patterns or cycles of behaviour can you notice in your life that would shift if you were to use your Power toward/from Love? Let me know in the comments!
