I Love You!

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

I love you! Yes you! Whoever you are, reading this, and everyone else for that matter. This may sound strange and it may be judged and I love you for that. My mantra lately (word or phrase repeated, internally or out loud, as if a prayer) has been "I love you." The idea for this stemmed from a video by Tommy Rosen that I had the pleasure of watching the other day. He had a different mantra and I played with it for a day and started losing the words after a while and questioning if I was saying it right (I had achieved my first concussion a couple days before while practicing yoga too close to a table lol and so I think I may have still be shaking that one off). Instead of going back to the video to check, I changed my mantra to something that I knew. I love you! I was internally repeating it to myself and to everyone and everything. I played with it in a few classes that I taught, offering it to others to try on, and it continues to feel stronger and stronger for me as I breathe it in and out. 

It feels good to say it. I love you! If you don't agree, try it. Comment all you want. I love you! I want everyone in my life to know... I love you! Sure I sound sappy and any number of things you can think of to call me, but I don't care... I just love you and I'm happy to hear what you have to say.

To everyone who loves me... I love you! To everyone who dislikes me... I love you! To everyone from my past... I love you! To everyone in my present... I love you! To anyone in my future... I love you! To anyone I felt hurt me at some time... I love you! To anyone I hurt... I love you! To anyone I passed on the street... I love you! To anyone who has ever smiled at me... I love you! To anyone who has ever frowned or made any kind of face at me... I love you! To the guy who insulted for me for no apparent reason as a teen... I love you! To anyone who has complimented me... I love you! To anyone who feels less special because I love everyone else... I love you! To anyone who would rather I didn't... I love you! To anyone who has ever made eye contact with me... I love you! To anyone who has avoided eye contact with me... I love you! To those who know it already and those who don't... I love you! To the deer that just walked through my yard... I love you! To the cat asleep in the other room... I love you! To the earth and all inhabitants... I love you! I really could go on, but I'll keep that to my mantra practice.

I want you all to know this is not the romantic or the conditional kind of love we may know. This is the unconditional, universal kind of love that has me realizing our shared qualities, our uniqueness and all the complexities that come with life. For judging me, I love you for being human. For smiling while reading this, I love you for letting it touch you. For not reading past the first paragraph, I love you for having your own mind and ability to choose. For deciding you want to read more, I love you for your spirit. For arguing with me, I love you for your ability to speak up. For agreeing with me, I love you for your ability to open up. For laughing at me, I love your humor lol. For shedding a tear, I love your sensitivity. For any reaction you find, I love your ability to feel and experience. For deciding you know why I may do this or anything I do, I love your ego or your ability to reason or make assumptions. For leaving it up to my interpretation or questioning it, I love your curiosity and wonder. For thinking I'm on some kind of good drug right now, I love your ability to fantasize and create stories ;) (I may be high on this love mantra, but that's all). For believing me, I love your faith. For giving me the benefit of a doubt, I love your compassion and understanding. For thinking me a goody-goody I love your ability to categorize and label. For seeing that I'm human, I love your clarity. 

I love our shared humanity. I love our ability to love and our ability to fear. I love that we can share "good" and "bad." I love that we hide and that we expose. I love what we share and what we don't. I love that we trust or that we doubt. I love that we are all one whether it seems so or not. 

Core assets.... Love. I love you!

PS. I'm nervous as I go to post this and so I love me for my comfort zone lol