The arrival of February has me thinking about – yep, you guessed it, Love 💕. Specifically, as it pertains to relationship, community and the obstacles that prevent us from connecting more fully to ourselves and one another.
And these thoughts brought me to this quote by Rumi – “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
And there it is. The task is simple ~ find the barriers to Love that exist within you.
Notice that Rumi does not say that we must destroy the barriers ~ our task is simply to increase our awareness of the obstacles we put between Love and ourselves; to know ourselves better and to be honest with ourselves about the true nature of our relationship to Love. And with that increased awareness and greater knowledge, we are free to make new choices ~ the choices that let Love in and allow us to be an authentic expression of Love to ourselves and in the world.
Simple. Not easy.
The good news is that this is a journey that we are all on and an area in which we can be of genuine support to one another.
So this month, let’s think a little more about relationship, community, and the obstacles that prevent us from connecting more fully to ourselves and one another, beginning with Rumi’s wisdom as a source of inspiration and asking ourselves –
How do I hide from Love?
What barriers have I built within myself to letting Love flow to me?
What walls have I erected to keep myself safe?
And are they keeping me safe or keeping me separate from my fullness and the fullness of life unfolding?
We can use these questions as journalling prompts, as intentions for our spiritual practices, or as guiding lights for navigating the world – what we do with them is far less important than how we are with ourselves as we explore them. This is an opportunity for us to be in honest and loving relationship with ourselves – so when the self-criticism and judgement creeps in, let it be just another opportunity “to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against” Love.
I’ll be over here cheering for you 🎉.
Sending you Love,
Tawnia