Today,
In the darkness of this winter solstice,
A passage from A Course in Miracles settled into me with a quiet clarity,
A kind of invitation for the coming year.
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.
Finding the barriers within myself that I've built against love.
What an assignment.
This isn't something we knock off in an afternoon.
We're talking about uncovering limiting beliefs,
Often tucked away beneath our awareness.
The judgments we carry about ourselves and others that reinforce these walls.
Ron and Mary Holnick added four words that transform this from an observation to a practice,
And to dissolve them.
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 dissolve them.
So once we've found these barriers,
The harsh self-criticism,
The old stories we tell ourselves,
The places where we've decided we're somehow unworthy,
How do we actually dissolve them?
Well,
It turns out we do it with love.
I mean,
We may as well call on the most powerful force in the universe,
Right?
In practice,
This looks like slowing down each day to notice when a barrier appears.
That moment when your inner voice turns judgmental.
Can you catch it?
That's not self-indulgence,
That's the work.
Asking,
Is this thought loving?
When you hear yourself thinking,
I always mess up,
Or I'll never be good enough.
Pause and ask,
What would love say instead?
Making choices that honor yourself and others,
Not from obligation or people-pleasing,
But from genuine care,
For the highest good of all concerned,
Including you.
The barriers didn't appear overnight,
And they won't dissolve overnight either.
But each time we meet them with love instead of reinforcement,
Something shifts.
I'm sending you light on your journey.
May this coming year bring you closer to the love within you,
And that's been there all along.
