Love goes hand in hand with comfort and joy. Most of us have been blessed to have experienced true, unconditional love at one point or another in our lives. And if we find a quiet time and place, and close our eyes, we can reach inside our memories to find at least one time when we felt 100% loved.
Try this meditation. Sit or lie down in a quiet place. Close your eyes and get your body relaxed and still. To achieve this, start at your head and go down to your toes tightening and then relaxing every muscle. Once you are fully relaxed, think back to a time when you felt 100% complete and unconditional love. Once you find one, go over the sights, sounds, tastes, touch, smells of the event in your mind. Experience the feeling of that love as it spreads throughout your body and expands your heart. Your body will be completely filled with the memory of being loved. Isn’t that feeling yummy! Bless this feeling and let it wrap you with comfort. And in times of stress, loneliness, or doubt, revisit the memory of that time you felt 100% complete love, and those loving feelings will bring you comfort and peace.
Here are the lyrics to a John Denver song titled “Perhaps Love.” I think the first stanza of the song expresses the power of love so sweetly.
Perhaps love is like a window, perhaps an open door. It invites you to come close. It wants to show you more. And even if you lose yourself and don’t know what to do, the memory of love will see you through.
Oh, love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel, for some a way of living, for some a way to feel. And some say love is holding on and some say letting go. And some say love is everything and some say they don’t know.
Perhaps love is like the ocean full of conflict, full of change. Like a fire when its cold outside or thunder when it rains. If I should live forever and all my dreams come true. My memories of love will be of you.
Words and music by John Denver
I invite you to reflect on meaning of these words to discover what love means to you. In addition, I encourage you to do the meditation that I described above. And when you need comfort and courage to speak your truth, to speak from your heart, fill yourself with love evoked by your memories of love.