What is Love?

Timothy Freke, bestselling author and internationally respected authority on world spirituality, explains what Big Love is and describes how to experience the FEELING OF LOVE any time you want. 

What is love?

That is such a big question and so important. For me, my understanding of love is that love is how one must feel when we see through the veneer of separation that seems to divide us and connect with somebody (or with some thing or place or activity) as one with that person or thing. We experience this in our body - there's chemicals, there's good feelings, it's an embodied thing - and it comes from this recognition of oneness. 

I have a child, a little girl of 8 years old, and I love her to bits. Although she's separate from me and she has her own life and is a different person, and that's important, I also connect with her as one. So her joys are my joys, her suffering is my suffering, her dreams are my dreams... I love her. And that's what it's like for everyone that I feel that love with. So me for, love is how one must feel, and where it comes out - particularly with my work as a philosopher - is around a big sense of oneness one can have with life itself. You can come into a state where fundamentally you recognize that we are all one, we are all one with this moment and with the mystery of life itself. 

When you find yourself at one with All, you find yourself in love with All. Suddenly the teachings, that you'll find at the heart of every spiritual tradition from the beginning of time, around oneness and love, start to make sense. 

What the message is, is that if we can see who we really are, we can come into a state in which we are one with everything, and we find ourselves in love with everything. And then that expresses itself through our individual personalities in the way we live, because we live with love. Which means we feel connected with life, we feel embodied, we feel a love of what happens, but we also feel we want to be of service and ameliorate the suffering of life. Because love is much more than just a good feeling. Love is also suffering with others. 

In my own experience, this has made me want to step out and work with people who are dying, and to try and find areas where people are suffering and you can reach out and touch. So for me, love is oneness. "Oneness" on its own can sound dry - but it's not because when it's embodied, when it's a real realization, it comes with a feeling, and it's that feeling that makes it worthwhile. I call it Big Love. That's the word I use, because I love the word love so much. Big Love unites us with everyone and everything. And that completely changes the way that you live your life. 

How can we go about getting that feeling? Maybe some practices or some techniques?
Well, there's lots of things you can do to wake up to oneness and Big Love. One that is coming in through Love itself, is a technique that I use with people when we have our seminars, which is: 

Come into a stillness, come into a state with meditation, and focus on where you do feel that love quite easily. 
I mentioned my little girl, I could also mention my boy or my wife or my friends - people that when I focus on them, and I think about times that my love of them has been very obvious, I can focus in on those particular thoughts. And then the feelings start to arise from that and I can begin to recognize that feeling of love, that is so sweet and so powerful. I would go into Hell for this person because of that! That's how much I love them. 


That's a very powerful experience and as you focus in on it, you start to invoke it, as it were. And then having done that for a little while, once you start getting those feelings, then it become interesting to play... what if you try and expand that. Don't just stay where it's easy but start with somebody I have no feelings about. What about the postman, somebody like that. Someone I walk past in the street. A colleague at work I never speak to. Someone I'm completely different to because I don't have a relationship with them. Could it be that I can extend that feeling of love to embrace them also? I think it's possible. 
If you look at a person, here's a human being, they are full of joy and suffering just like me, they've got a journey just like me, and they are essentially the same mysterious being, their essence is also our one shared essence. If I connect through that, I can start allowing that sense of love to arrive. Now, it's a different sort of love because it's not personal, I don't know them as a person, it's a kind of impersonal compassion, but it's love nevertheless, and it's powerful and very beautiful. 


Now if you allow that to arise for a little while you can ask: what happens if we take this another step? What happens if we try something much more difficult which is to say, could I embrace with that impersonal compassion, that Big Love, somebody that I really find quite difficult, or even someone that I've exiled from my heart, somebody who's hurt me or I've fallen out with? This is a difficult part of the practice but very rewarding - to look at what's holding me separate from this person, really. And I can see that everyone has their side of the story, this person has had an experience of life which has lead them to behave in ways which I may find offensive or difficult. But you can reach back into the person - to the little child that's inside everyone, who could be innocent, who's gone on this life journey and ended up in this mess, perhaps. 
I don't have to approve of them and what they've done or any of that, I just need to connect through everything which is in-between us, in love. And then you can love your enemies, as is said in the Christian tradition. Which is an incredible thing to say, a beautiful thing to say, "Love others as yourself," even to your enemies, because we're all one Self. That's the Oneness. So you can see through it now. 


So you play with that for a while, then finally (and this one is often even more difficult for people) do the same with yourself. What happens if I include myself in that big, spacious unconditional love? OK, there's a whole load of things about myself that I find really difficult, that I don't like and give myself a hard time about, but to reach deep within myself to that innocent child inside, to the essence of a pure being, and say there it is. Connect as one with it and hold "myself," just as I am, in a warm embrace... in that feeling of Love. 
That simple, four-part exercise, starting with something you find easy, then something which is a stranger, then someone who may be exiled from your heart, and then yourself. I find that a very powerful way to open from the love that we find easy to this Big Love. 
Actually each step is like a relief. Anything which you're pushing away, anything that you can't love - the barrier breaks down. And let me make it clear here, I don't mean like - liking and disliking is a different thing altogether - but love, in the sense that I mean the word, which is that which embraces everything just as it is. It's just unconditionally embracing things, because they are, or because a person is. 

The Greek philosopher Socrates said it way, way back. He said you come through personal love, through individual instances of love, until you expand and expand, and eventually you come to Love itself. And I think that is one way of describing the spiritual journey of awakening. 

Is that something you can do every day?
You can do it any time you like! I'm a great believer in integrating these things into your real life. So it's not something you necessarily have to make a practice of, although you can and I have done that, but it's something that if it's part of you, when you need it there it is. And the more you do it the easier it gets. But the key to all of this is that you're constantly moving beyond your separate identity to this deeper Self. 

I had my first awakening experience when I was 12 years old, and I'm now nearly fifty. During that time, my understanding of spirituality and awakening has changed completely - but the one thing that has stayed the same is that I know it's all about Love. That to me is the center. 

If the love isn't there, it's not right. When love's there it will be. It's as simple as that. It's the most important thing and it's the thing that everyone can get. Old and young... yeah, it's love. There's a lovely line in John Lennon's song Mind Games, "Love is the answer and you know that for sure." It's so audacious to say to people, "you know it for sure," but there's something in me that says, yes we do know that for sure. Actually it's the one thing we know. If we are connected to ourselves, then the one thing we know for sure is that this journey is about love. So how we can move into that, is such an important question. 

"Love is the answer," is an old message, it's been there since the beginning of time - people have been saying it, "Love is the answer, love is the answer," and it is, but also though, love is the problem, in a sense. It's important to get that too because so many of the terrible things we do to each other, in our everyday lives and around the world on a global scale, we do because of love. We love our family and want to defend our family and so we're willing to hurt somebody else's. We love our tribe so we're willing to hurt somebody else's. We love our religion so we're willing to hurt somebody else's. 

A love which binds us to separateness can actually limit love. There's something about love that must keep expanding and have no limits, because when it becomes caught in separateness it can actually become it's opposite and it starts to be destructive. There's so many examples but one which pops into my mind right now is the gentleman who was in a wheelchair, Amas in Palestine. He was loved by the people of Palestine and the Israelis bombed him and killed him. He was loved because he set up schools, he cared for the homeless, he cared for the disadvantaged, he loved his people and gave his life selflessly to serve his people. But he also killed Israeli babies and was able to do that because of how much he loved his people. 

That's the contradiction we get stuck in with love: when we limit it there are problems. The love of self, when limited, is selfishness. It all comes down to the question, is our love limited, or is our sense of who we are so expansive and so open that we can love everything and everyone, even with our enemies? Then, Love is the answer. 

So I'd say, Big Love is the answer because it frees us from a limiting, self-orientated attachment that could actually stand in the way of what Love truly is. 



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Holding the Light in Times Like These

Andrea Lee Avari, Ph.D.

“The times they are a’changin”, words by Bob Dylan seem as apropos today as they did years ago. But back then we were under the impression that all that was happening was outside of ourselves. There was a sense of “us” and “them” whether it was the Vietnam War, drugs, feminism, or living the hippie lifestyle. We knew ourselves by the length of our hair. And we knew who to blame for our discontent.

In present time as we are growing our spiritual perspectives every day, we can see that all changes really occur within ourselves. The duality of “us” and “them” was and is an illusion. The global crisis is a reflection of our own inner natures. Self-responsibility asks us to observe how we know our power. How do we see money as a tool of power? How do we see ourselves as the locus of abundance? Do we still see ourselves as undeserving of abundance in some degree? Or do we see that as we are Divine in nature, so are we abundance itself?

Or do we react in fear using only our linear mind to try to figure out how to protect our money. Do we feel victimized by the “crisis situation”? Do we feel as though something has been done to us? Do we look to blame others for our fears? Do we think that our safety lies outside of ourselves? It is important to remember that our power lies in our remembrance of our connection to our soul and therefore, to spirit. Power lies not in the paper money, the gold, the stocks and bonds, the bank but within our own beings. External power is a reflection of that internal process. If we don’t like what we see, we must look within ourselves.

We can know that we are safe by simply remembering who we really are. Zoom our perception out of the small picture of our egoic self ,“I”, that part which is worried about what to do about our money. Breathing the relaxed breath and focusing on our higher selves we begin to feel the loving energy of our soul. As this energy moves through us, we calm into a more peaceful state. In this vibration, we are much more able to access our intuition. This connection assists us in feeling what might be appropriate action to take in any situation, if any, resonates with us, giving us guidance.

Now is a time of the crumbling of the old structures of organization. Many of these structures were built upon unbalanced power, a dominating, patriarchal force that did not seek equanimity for the highest good of all. Because of the continuing influx of light upon the planet, the shadow of lower vibrations is losing strength. Death comes before rebirth and so the new structures are not yet formed. This process can lead to anxiety.

We are learning to trust ourselves in a deeper manner. We come bare and naked to the place of non-attachment and surrender ourselves to that which is. We have become comfortable and habitual around our way of living. We are being asked now to release old ways of being which can confuse us into fear.

As banks close or merge, corporations decline, our accounts diminish for one reason or another, our jobs may be at risk, retirement dreams are imploding, the stress of all the challenges can wreak havoc on our relationships. If we are stripped of all our assets, do we believe, in our hearts, that we will be still be safe? Security is self-love. It is not a fully packed IRA. A new learning for us is to know that we are co-creators of our lives. We are in school to remember to release any degree of thinking that money is power and security.

So what can we do? We can learn to be more present in our Now moments and use all of our senses to see, feel, smell, taste, hear the joy that is within and without us. You might have thought it would be a more grand solution but everyday joy lifts our spirits, connects with our souls, and lights up our smiles. Everyday experiences of joy zooms us out into the big picture of who we truly are. We remember why we are here on this grand experiment called life. It is to love and to live in joy.

Our perspective is our own choice: the furry caterpillar that is crawling across the road and rides to safety on our finger to find his/her fate among the grasses on the other side of the chosen path; the rainbow on the far off island that seems miles wide in its brilliant colors, shining all the way into the water at the edge of the shore. Have you seen the starlight reflecting on the still ocean at night? A beautiful shelf of mushrooms is growing vertically out of the moss on a side of a tree in the driveway. I can feel their peacefulness in doing what they were born to do. We can all have that peace.

But the ego says, how can I find joy in these things when I am worried about my house, my bank accounts, my job, my health insurance and all the other things that are swimming through my head? I need to not waste my time on silly caterpillars and it is important that I figure out what to do. The empty space of soul asks us to surround these worries with welcome. If we do not repress them, we can allow them to be as they are.

With an attitude of lovingkindness practice, we will find that the intensity of their demand for our attention diminishes. In that quiet growing peacefulness, we experience what we can learn from this “terrible” worry. Instead of misery, we can find a calmness in our hearts. In that calmness we accept what is.

We are not in control of all that is. We can be responsible for our state of consciousness. From that acceptance we can feel our perceptions shift into that place of knowing that we will be taken care of, we are safe, and we can find our way out of anything. Focus on the Divine within us and let it expand.

The Universe inside us will show itself to us through our own intuition and decision-making. Perhaps guidance speaks to us through a passage in a book or another person interacting with us. Something new will happen because we have loosened the reins on rigidity of things having to be a certain way. The Universal Energy of divine vibration is now free to create something new for us. The Universe wraps our gifts in surprising packages and perfect timing. What might it be?

Is the Practice of Positive Thinking a Distraction from Soul Work?

Andrea Lee Avari, Ph.D.


The soul is a vastly beautiful energy that surrounds and permeates our body, mind, and heart. It is the droplet of Universal Spirit that is uniquely each of us as each individual human being exists. If you were reading the story of it all, you couldn’t put the book down. And what an incredible story it is…….just look down at the complexity of one of your hands. Unbelievably amazing! Think of your eyes, your liver, your brain……..how it all works in a flow of atomic synchronicity.

Taking it all for granted is the poison of its demise. The soul wants to shake us up and help us to remember that we really don’t know how we got here; we don’t know what we are doing here, or at the end, where we are going. There is a grand mystery operating in our lives if we want to pay attention and not keep falling asleep.

We want to be happy. We don’t want to feel negativity. And so we learn to focus on positive thoughts. We set our intentions and then sit back. We think we know “The Secret.” The soul, however, is waiting for us to experience all of life. Whatever experience it takes to awaken us to greater consciousness is grist for the soul’s mill. If we are only willing to mine the positive experiences and feelings, we have struck shallow dirt.

We are missing out on soul growth. The soul says, “come on, feel the full experience of living. What are you being asked to learn in each and every experience?” Negativity as such is just basic fear which is the absence of light. If we allow it to be in compassion, follow its course, then it transforms itself into a higher vibration of love.

If we are only willing to focus on the positive and turn our heads from negativity, then we run the risk of not exploring our soul work. Soul work means that we are clearing the fears that block us from living in our higher truth which is love, acceptance and compassion. It is the inner work that moves us into the empowered position for the process of co-creation. We have to “be” that which we desire and intend. Just uttering positive words with feeling will not create manifestation. Co-creation evolves from the deep translucence of our….. “being” not our doing.

In order to avoid stress related to the global economic situation, some people prefer not to think or talk about the distress. They believe that acknowledging the situation is entertaining fearful thoughts. Maintaining positive thoughts will bring positive results. That is true but only if we combine it with doing our own internal work of transforming fear to love.

Suppression of fear (and we all have a measure of it these days as we realize how out of control the global economic situation might be) is not helpful
for our emotional health. Some seem to think that if you allow fear as an emotion, then you will generate more fear. But what we resist does persist. Allowing the emotion to be, allows it to be transformed. The fear moves into acceptance. An empowerment comes into being that moves us towards the intuited appropriate action to take, especially in times of crisis.

So how do we accomplish this soul work? In everyday life events the soul’s vibration shows itself to us. If the state of the economy distresses us, it is helpful to remember that what is exterior to ourselves is but a mirror of our internal process. We might ask ourselves what old patterns and habits exist in us that smack of greed, fear of abundance, elitism. When do our actions suggest that we have forgotten that we are all connected as one soul? How can we each be more generous in deed or word to ourselves and to another; how can we learn to live more in gratitude for all of life whether we agree with parts of it or not? How can we expand our hearts beyond what we know now and be more loving and accepting?

Through the mystery of our daily emotional responses or reactions to our relationships and circumstances we can observe our soul knocking on our hearts to expand in greater love. We can observe when we react in fear and instead of withdrawing from that fear; we can move forward to ask what the soul wants us to learn from this experience that we deem to be negative. By doing so, we connect with our soul in knowing how to align our assets, financial and otherwise, with our state of being as we remember who we really are. We are love and we are safe. The more we heal our fears, the more we realize who we really are.

A problem-free life is not the aspiration of the soul. We wonder why we suffer but doesn’t suffering serve a greater purpose when it focuses our attention on that which we do not want to experience? When we observe our lives we can see that our greatest growth occurs when we have stumbled and fallen. We can feel the soul vibrating in every relationship and event that we encounter in our daily lives simply because it provides the opportunity to bring us into this higher consciousness of love and connection.

This transformation that is upon all of us on Earth now is an opportunity for us to remember who we truly are. It was not created to be easy; it was created to challenge us to release old thinking and old patterns that no longer serve us. We can move through this shift into a new vibration by bringing our fears and “negative thinking” into greater awareness. We can hold the fears with compassion and lift them up to the light of love to be released. We can love ourselves for who we are and know that at our core we are the light of love.

We can learn from each other but we walk individually into the sea of universal consciousness. When we arrive we meet ourselves and we remember that we are already swimming in that pool of self-realization; we laugh with that knowing in our hearts. The enigma of the soul is continually drawing us, urging us to learn to expand beyond fear into a greater and deeper love.


Copyright 2008 by Andrea Lee Avari. Andrea is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” She is currently finishing her second book on creating soulful relationships. She will be presenting workshops in 2009. If you would like to be included in her mailing list for upcoming events, please email her at andrea@andreaavari.com. Her website is www.andreaavari.com.

A Marriage with Soul

Andrea Lee Avari, Ph.D.

No one ever said that it would be easy except the glossy beautiful pictures with happy faces running down the aisle. Even as a young girl as I was entranced with these images of married bliss, I noticed a certain jaundiced eye of mine glazing over at the idea. Sparkling bottles of coca-cola won’t bring me exciting adventures and so many good-looking friends as the ads suggest. I knew that. But could a ceremony filled with colorful flowers and a white dress bring ecstasy to my heart and mind?

The partnership equation consists of two people. They can be of any gender, it matters not. The equation increases in complexity with the addition of the history and psychological makeup of the ancestral families and traditions. Multiply that sum by the health of the model of the each partner’s parental relationships.

Hit that multiplication button again and again for any unconscious belief systems that reflect possible abandonment, not being good enough, feeling controlled and engulfed, possible boredom from lack of growth, any and all fears of connection and surrender. Then you multiply the equation by the number of unhealed wounds of both parties.

Use the exponential function key if there are addictions, patriarchy, and codependency issues sitting as a third party to the relationship. Now subtract the individual levels of self-awareness and insight into one’s process. Divide by any truly effective books or workshops on communication skills which emphasize listening, patience, and self responsibility. Divide again by any chosen factor from 1-10 for the highest level of motivation to figure out what the heck is going on at times.

Hit the = button and stand back. What does this answer mean? You have no idea. Excellent, you are on the path. Now take that numerical answer and factor in the concept of a soul, uniquely differentiated for each personality of the marriage. Hit the = button again and the word….MYSTERY ………..appears. Now what does that word mean? We all want a definitive answer for our relationships….do we not?

Acknowledging the presence of the soul of each partner changes the perspective of a relationship. What is the soul? Perhaps we can consider it to be that essence of all that we know in our hearts to be good and true. And that essence wants us to grow. The soul wants us to grow in ways we do not even understand. And we marry to explore some of the deepest lessons of our lives.

The soul is not interested in an ideal and perfect marriage. The shadows of confusion, doubt, anxiety are among the places that the soul wants us to explore. It doesn’t want to know if we are a “picture perfect” piece of a societal cutout; it wants us to grow in the dark places where we normally choose not to tread. And given our “druthers”, most of us would really rather not tiptoe into those dark corners of ourselves. Increasing our self-knowledge usually meets with resistance. Even those of us who seem to delight in self-discovery can be deluded into accepting surface reasons for our intentions.
We have been taught that in order to be “successful” in marriage there should be no rumples or wrinkles. But a soulful marriage is not interested in the polarities of good and bad, smooth as silk or confusing as buttermilk. The soul is not interested in labeling and categorizing. If we stay out of trying to fix the problem, find the solution, quickly make it better, perhaps we can observe what the soul might be asking of us.

By moving our point of perception into the larger picture of a marriage with soul, we are allowing the soul to show us the way. It is as Heraclitus said, “The soul is its own source of unfolding.” The soul, that highest vibration of our humanness, wants what is best for our highest good. Much of that “stuffness” of life may be in various states of unconsciousness within us. Our challenge is to observe the soul’s unfolding.

When we are able to hold that state of unattached seeing, we are more likely to peer more deeply into what is the soul is asking us when we feel doubt, anxiety, confusion, a sense of separateness in our partnership. Our human tendency is to berate ourselves with a “why?” can’t I get this right; what is wrong with me? Zooming out of our egoic self we are able to see the potential of a wide-open horizon of unlimited growth when we stand aside.

Releasing the need for perfection of ourselves and our partner, learning that our soul is teaching us important lessons about a deeper knowledge of our inner life and standing back in observation rather than running for a quick fix to an assumed problem, we are beginning to learn to live in tandem with our soul in relationship. As we deepen our practice a natural appreciation for our partner’s soul becomes evident. This state of consciousness invites the divine to dance with us in our marriage.


Copyright 2008. Andrea Avari is the author of "A Hit of Heaven: a soul's journey through illusion." She is currently writing a sequel to that book on creating relationships with soul.

How do you manifest your creative vision?

Are you having one of those days when you feel like you are spinning your wheels? Maybe you have a lot of ideas floating through your head but somehow they don't manifest into actual substance. Here is an interesting exercise in strengthening your intention to create your purpose that is summarized from an article by Robert Gass in Utne magazine, Jan-Feb 2006.

1. Write a short statement that is presented in the positive nature of what describes your personal vision, what is important to you, what you truly want for yourself. Practice makes it better when working with refining the statement. The words need to drop from your head into your heart so that you can feel the resonance. Of the few choices Gass suggested, I chose "In everthing I do, I am guided by love." That is the vision I want to live.

2. This second statement required patience and practice as I tend to rush into things and forget to center. After taking several deep, relaxing breaths, say your phrase quietly or out-loud at least three times. Take a few moments and really feel this relaxing energy moving through your body. Slow your roll and just allow the energy to vibrate through all your cells. Gass says to "remember what is most important to you, why you do what you do." Just stay with that reflection as the words settle into you.

3. Now you are ready to translate the feeling of your vision and deeper purpose into a specific action you want to take. Perhaps you are considering a significant communication with a face-to-face meeting with another or others, an important phone call, a writing that you considerable valuable to your process. Taking the action step consciously. Your relaxed body and focused heart and mind are accompanying you in moving forward.

4. Gass suggests journaling daily about how this practice is affecting how you experience your day. Thoughts and feelings which might lurk beneath the surface of consciousness, may appear on your page of writing and assist you in growing from the daily practice.

5. As with any practice, we tend to fall asleep at times. Gass reiterates the importance of not criticizing yourself or allowing analysis of your lack of focus to become a distraction. Acknowledge and release. Surround yourself with compassion and return to your practice with a relaxed breath and a re-envisioning of what is most important to your purpose.

This process can be a simple loving practice and gift to ourselves in the present moment that empowers us to live our creative purpose at a deeper level.

Can There Be More to Being Present?

These days the focus in many spiritual teachings is to be present in the now, bringing yourself into the present, living in the present. In this way we are encouraged to realize the consciousness of Oneness, consciousness becoming aware of itself.

We are asked to remember who we really are when we have a feeling of separateness or as some have called it, an out of body experience. We are told that many of us spend most of our day out of our bodies living in the past, living in the future rarely grounded in our bodies and fully conscious of what we are doing and where we are.

Awareness of our surroundings would include using all of our senses, our thoughts quiet, allowing us to be what we are doing rather than feeling separated from it as an act of behavior. If we pay attention by observing our daily process, we can see the numerous opportunities available to us to travel in time, living in places other than the Now.

But what if that is only part of the picture? What if there is a cart before that “present moment” horse? What if the mind has to fall into the heart into order to be present? And what if that heart is constricted by the limitations of living in the past or the future? If one looks to the concept of dimensions of consciousness, we are now healing the fourth layer of vibration, that of heart integration, before we move into the 5th dimension of soul consciousness.

What if the energy of fear covers our heart like heavy overcoats in winter? We keep trying to “be present” in our layers of long underwear of past and future fears. We try our best to do what we have been told……calling ourselves back out of the past and remembering the essence of who we really are. But we can only be partially present unless we are working at the same time to heal and integrate the fears of our heart that fell from our minds. No one can heal them but ourselves. It is our choice.

The sense of realized consciousness has to be felt not with our thinking minds but with our loving heart. Simply working to be alert to the present moment is not enough. When an isolated part of the wounded heart gets our attention (and it definitely will as we live in relationship with one another), then we know we have work to do. We can feel it throughout our body……an upset stomach, a stiff neck, etc.

The heart wants to be whole and resonate with the healing energy that is the glue of the universe. It will continually tap on our consciousness, asking to be let in, nurtured and to come Home. All it asks is for our embrace rather than ignoring it or trying to cover it up with some distraction or another.

It takes a lot of energy to walk around bundled up in piles of constricted clothing that we don’t need anymore. In this state of consciousness we are less likely to give voice to that which needs to be spoken. We tend to give our power away (remembering that no one can take it; our power is ours to give if we choose). It is hard on the heart.

What if our present moment work is simply to be the process of acknowledging that fear that triggers an emotional and bodily reaction of anxiety and pain? What happens if we practice showering it with compassion and love, embracing it with acceptance?

With each gathering in of a fearful part of our heart, the ability to be more fully in the present moment increases because another heavy overcoat of the heart is dissolved into light. It doesn’t matter whether it is a feeling of being not good enough or a fear of abandonment, or any other fear. Love is the ultimate medicine that heals all.

We watch in amazement at how quickly the transformation occurs; how quickly love dissolves the fear into the whole. The heavy overcoats fly off into the ethers. The heart then takes a deep breath and expands with a renewed passion for living and loving. Our senses are revitalized. We can feel more where we are and what we are doing, whatever it may be. We know who we are because our heart is resonating with our own Being.

A healing integrated heart leads us into the present moment. Empowerment becomes us. Our voice is freed to speak our truth. Our power center is active and open and balanced. Our intuition flowers with guidance and connection. Attempting to be present in the Now without doing our heart work can keep us knocking at what we think is the door of self-realization. Our integrated heart is the doorway.


Copyright 2008. Andrea is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” She is currently busy writing her next book on creating soulful relationships which will be published early 2009. Her website is andreaavari.com.

A Spiritual Level of Conversation: Between Higher Selves

Andrea Lee Avari, Ph.D.


Most of us have never had any lessons to assist us in sharing with another person how we feel about something in a respectful way and how to ask for what we need. And most of us are just skating by on the time-tested skills of our parents and their parents who most likely had less opportunity for skill-building than we have had in our lives. We may have passed algebra (or not) but most educational organizations never taught us the art of effective communication. We try to get by on whatever communication skills we have picked up along the way.

Even if we have had exposure to proper training in communication skills, how many of us become blank slates of knee-jerk reaction when conflict comes into our lives?

Effective communication skills point us toward:
· Observing as a witness (not a judge) as to what we heard the other person say or what we saw them do
· Stating how we feel when we observe the behavior (a feeling word not a dissertation)
· Asking specifically for what we need without being attached to the outcome.

We know from practice, practice and more practice that this method does connect disparate points of view in many circumstances…..if we remember to respond from a sense of centering rather than to react. But then real life steps in and sometimes we fall down. It may be a challenge for all concerned but the personal growth in learning to take responsibility for one’s observation, feelings, and needs is well worth the work.

Are there other tools that would help us to connect with the energy of the other person in times of conflict? If we are to visualize the other person’s Higher Self or essence of the Soul during the exchange, we can come into a special connection with the true sense of that person. And in doing so, we join more deeply with our own Higher Self.

In conversation we can see each personality working the needs of the ego and masking the luminescence of the inner Self. But if we look with a softer eye we can see the protection that surrounds each heart in hopes of shielding it from being wounded. With this new awareness we honor the truth of one another with compassion. At our essence we are all the same; we are costumed in different wrappings but we all want the same thing: love.

What can we do? We can focus our awareness on our own light, breathing it in and out, expanding our inner beauty to radiate all around us. We strengthen our connection with our own Higher Self by focusing our attention on that which is our essence.

We can visualize the other person’s Higher Self as a similar beautiful light, a blossoming flower, a vibrant color, or an energetic feeling of knowing. We ask our Higher Self to assist us in speaking words that enhance connection with the other person. (Although intuitively we know that there is no other one. We are speaking to ourselves.)

We ask our Higher Self to speak to the other’s Higher Self in acknowledgement of our true intention, that of compassion and understanding between us. Our intention focuses on working together for the highest good of us all. We visualize ourselves emanating a beautiful energy of light and ask our Higher Self to facilitate sending this light and the high vibration of love to the other’s Higher Self.

We do so without attachment; if the other chooses to accept our transmission of energy and meet us in the middle ground so much the better for both. If not, we have taken responsibility for our intention to be in connection with the truth of who we are. We continue to shine our radiating light and move on.

In times of conflict and anxiety coupled with this increasing rate of vibration in our world, it helps to remember that there are ways of communicating with people that are nonverbal and telepathic. In times of email, twittering, and blogs we can get lost in our pursuit of the art of true, direct communication: soul to soul.

The next time you find yourself in a conflicted conversation, consider asking your Higher Self to assist you in connecting with the other person on an energetic level. The results may surprise you.

Copyright 2008. Andrea Avari, Ph.D. is an intuitive spiritual coach working with clients to balance and integrate wellness, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. She is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” Her next book, “Letters from a Lunatic in Love: creating soulful relationships” will be available at the end of the year. Her website is andreaavari.com. Email address is andrea@andreaavari.com.

Look in the Mirror: Your Teacher Awaits You

It is time to stop looking for others to guide us to inner peace. It is time to look in the mirror and see our teacher. It is us; it has always been us.

We have been looking for signposts to guide our way and somehow we tend to get caught up in another’s story and their interpretations. The bookcases full of books we all have may have been helpful and uplifting in some cases but after awhile we realize in different ways and in different words, they all say the same thing: inner peace is within us.

There are self-proclaimed gurus and spiritual teachers everywhere and a new product to buy to help us find enlightenment at every turn. They all hold the hope that we can make it; we can get where “they” are. There is no ‘where’. We are the ones we are seeking.

It sounds so simple as we put down the books and discuss it with our friends, but then life happens and we are challenged to respond in non-attachment and allowance rather than falling back into the same old thinking and reacting patterns of lower vibrations. How do we actually create and sustain the process within ourselves?

Look in the mirror. There is the person who knows, who contains the essence of inner knowing and always has. This person knows by an inner resonance. There is a felt sense of knowing what is true in the heart and the body. When this person is quiet and calm, the inner voice can be heard whispering the way. This person is each one of us.

A life has been lived by each of us and continues to evolve from fear to love if we make a higher vibrational choice in every moment. Our entire life is a meditation. Each one of our lives is continually pointing to that which yearns to be gathered into love. Sometimes we are embarrassed by choices we have made in our lives but these points of shame are the very points of healing for us, if we are willing to hold them in the transforming light of acceptance.

Sometimes we may feel victimized by relationships or events in our lives. In order to be a victim there must be a persecutor for us to blame for our troubles. And then we hope for a rescuer to ease our pain. That ‘saving grace’ may come in the soothing form of another person, approval, chocolate, sex, TV, drinking, something to smoke, shopping, anything that suppresses the painful feelings for a while.

If we can see the distressing event as a gift for our growth, a doorway of opportunity to learn how to love ourselves more deeply, then we create our own process of healing. We can learn to observe the distress within a state of mindfulness, bringing our full attention to it. We learn to hold the circumstance with compassionate awareness as it dissolves. By allowing the highest vibration of compassion, we transmute the fearful thoughts into light. We take responsibility for our lives rather than turning our attention outward to temporary external solutions.

The life that has been living in fear keeps knocking on the door of healing which is our heart. Our stories contain every bit of wisdom we need. And then we realize that we are not our stories. We remember that the earth is a classroom for our learning. Our own particular stories were created by our souls to help us transform the places of fear into places of awareness and acceptance. And in that way our human opaqueness becomes translucent and luminous and the world becomes brighter because of each individual process of courage to open to what is.

It is our job to hold those points of blocked light in an embrace of compassionate awareness. We know those areas of resistance better than anyone else. The old proverb says when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. So often we thought it meant someone else was coming to help us find the way. We are the way.

The signposts on our path are the circumstances and relationships in our life. We become our own best friend who will never leave us as we continue to act out of that place of self-compassion. We are not our life stories. Our lives are not something that happens to us or is done to us. Our lives are our most profoundly creative meditation.

Copyright 2008