The Most Powerful (and easiest) Spiritual Practice I've found
Sending LOVE ❤️
Stumbling on LOVE
A few months back I shared the story of how a minor career setback led me to ask the question “how do I have a high consciousness response to this?”
I asked that question over and over again. To myself. To my partner. To “the Universe.”
What followed only a couple of weeks later was the start of a journey towards understanding that the Divine is a LOVE and a PRESENCE beyond our wildest imaginations.
And the kick-off and early guide for that journey was a book by Tara Springett on the levels of consciousness and how we identify where we’re currently at on the scale of consciousness; and based on where we’re currently at, the steps we can take to continue to evolve along that scale.
As I identified the general level of my own consciousness development I was provided with a simple exercise to continue my spiritual growth.
Send LOVE to others.
What kind of new age, woo-woo practice is this? might be the first question that enters your mind.
I’m not sure I had that strong of a reaction at the time, but I certainly would’ve had it five or ten years earlier.
But I was now at a place where I knew there were many things about reality I didn’t understand and the book was so amazing that I was willing to invest a little time trying the practice out.
How to send love
You can do this very simply by just imagining the person you want to send love to, and then wishing them to be happy and healthy with all of your heart.
Or maybe you just send the person you’re focusing on positive loving energy or vibes from deep within your heart.
It might sound silly but I personally imagine myself beaming dozens and dozens of heart emojis ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ out of my chest and to that person, wherever they might be in the world.
And that’s it. That’s all you do.
And it doesn’t take long. Maybe 10 to 30 seconds max. Maybe less once you get the hang of it.
Wow, that was quick!
Within a week I felt a greater sense of peace and calm in my life, even though the practice is about sending love to OTHERS. I felt more joyful. I felt lighter. I found that individuals who’d previously bothered me (because I couldn’t stop ruminating over them or their behaviors) suddenly had less power over my life.
I found a deep connection through sending love to my partner and my child, even when they weren’t in the same room, and especially when I was away travelling.
Within a couple weeks I was sending love to everyone I could think of: family, friends, foes, and even strangers. The more love I sent the better I felt.
My entire way of interacting with the world began to change.
Hacking Forgiveness?
Forgiveness was never something I found easy. Not that I was an unforgiving person, it’s just that I felt that there are some people who go around hurting others all the time so forgiving them seems dumb. And after all, they probably don’t deserve my forgiveness.
I realize my justification makes little sense and goes against just about every spiritual teaching in the world, but I’m just being honest about my lifelong experience.1
But I did suddenly discover that even if I couldn’t forgive someone, I could send them love. And in doing so I was understanding that if that person was able to receive and feel more love in their life they would rise in consciousness, and their behaviours might change and reflect that growth.
And so anytime someone I didn’t like or couldn’t forgive popped into my head I would send them love. I imagined dozens of little heart emojis ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ shooting out of my chest to that person, wherever they were in the world.
And weirdly, within a few times of doing that, I was able to completely release that person and anything bad they’d ever done (real or imagined) to me.
Is that forgiveness? Sure seems like it.
And these days I have trouble finding anyone to hold a grudge against.
Send love to everyone? Even that person?
But what about our enemies? Why should we let them get away with what they did to us or to someone we care about?
Tara Springett has this to say:
[Sending love] does not mean condoning the wrong-doing of others or simply forgiving and forgetting.
Sending love to our enemies means wishing someone to be happy in the knowledge that a truly happy person would sincerely regret what they have done.
OK, but what about the really bad stuff?
Some of you have suffered tremendously at the hands of certain individuals, and so the question arises of how do we send love to someone who’s abused us?
Tara responds:
Sending love to someone who has abused us does not mean we must like this person or forget what they have done, let alone condone their behaviour.
It simply means we are sending positive wishes to this person in order to heal them from their inner negativity that has caused their wrong-doing.
Sending love in this way will produce complete, deep and lasting healing from the effects of abuse and trauma.
Tara goes on to say she’s seen this happen with every single client of hers who’s tried it.
Sending love to our abuser may seem like a very harsh advice but all spiritual teachers have told us that ‘loving our enemies’ is the solution to all our problems.
I have worked in this way with all my clients (and also with myself) and I can say with confidence that it produces genuine, complete and lasting emotional healing even in cases of the most abusive and neglectful upbringing.
Tara’s not saying we shouldn’t also seek other ways of healing such as therapy or even other non-traditional approaches; but only that sending love can be an important aspect of our ability to heal and move beyond life’s worst traumas.
The Longer Term Results
It took me 2-3 months to clean up my past with this practice. What I mean by that is it took me that long to find everyone in my history I’d ever had an issue with and continue to send them love until that issue dissolved within me.
Today I don’t really have an issue with anyone. And if I’m wrong (probably) and something does pop up, I now know how to handle it.
Almost a year into the practice I often feel what I might describe as an electric joy flowing through my body; in my chest, my arms and hands, and in my throat.
Other Applications
Once you get the hang of sending love to the individuals in your day to day life, and anyone who pops into your mind from your past (in a good or bad way), there are many more applications.
Here are a few:
Send love to yourself.
Send love to your negativity.
Send love to your childhood self.
Send love to that part of you that’s anxious.
Send love to that coworker or boss that drives you crazy.
Send love to that part of your physical body that’s in pain.
Send love to that part of your physical body that you don’t like.
Send love to someone in the public eye who might not be receiving much love these days. I asked ChatGPT for a list of ideas and some of the milder names were Hunter Biden, Rudy Giuliani, and Alec Baldwin. Can you send each of these guys love?
Can you send your least favorite Presidential candidate love?
I dare you to try it and see what happens next.
Too good to be true?
Some of you will dismiss this exercise because it seems too simple.
Some of you might think the whole thing is nonsense, and whatever positive benefits I’m experiencing, such as the total forgiveness of others and a general sense of total freedom in my life is all in my head.
Maybe so.
I’m infinitely more joyful than I was a year ago, so even if it’s all in my imagination I’m fine with that. But I strongly suspect there’s something much more powerful at work.
I believe at our core we’re each somewhere on the spectrum between fear and love. And as we’re able to love more, we become more and more loving.
This snowballs over time. We clean out all the gunk of unforgiveness and grudges and pain and resentments until more and more of the DIVINE LIGHT shines through us.
And as this process of becoming more loving continues, we grow more and more in love until we literally become LOVE.
Easy & Powerful
How is it that this most powerful and effective spiritual exercise is also so easy and accessible to us anytime, day or night?
It’s a simple reminder of how loving and inviting the Divine actually is. How a simple practice can allow us to tap into and access tremendous love and power. And how over time we can allow the Divine to shine through in all we do.
And so I’m sending each of you LOVE today ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I hope you’ll pass it along.
And if you found this simple exercise helpful you may also enjoy another simple approach to living with higher consciousness that was shared recently.
The book by Tara I mentioned above has changed my life. You can order your copy here. Please invite any friends or family members who share interest in these topics.
Reorder: Deconstruction & Higher-Consciousness Christianity currently has a small audience of only a few hundred readers. If you feel this topic is helpful or important please join our mailing list as we explore these important insights.
What questions do you have about this topic? Let me know in the comment section so I can reply…and so we can cover them in future posts!
Hope you all have an awesome week ahead!!❤️
It’s sort of like the word “fail.” I don’t connect with that word. But I do connect with the idea of “hey, I tried doing it that way and it didn’t work; so now I can try another way.” Same process, different semantics. And it works.
https://www.lionsroar.com/jack-kornfield-metta-loving-kindness-meditation/
I find this account from Luke to be a powerful expression of Love sent by Someone seeing the need in a human being for it.
Luke 5
Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” 11 When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.