excerpts from

Listening In: Dialogues with the Wiser Self

by Ellen Meredith
(written in the voice of her inner teachers)

HOW CAN I PRACTICE SELF-LOVE?

"Self-love deepens when you learn to acknowledge and work with your present experience, even when it is not what you would wish. You affirm yourself more deeply when you stop trying to change your reality by wishing things otherwise in your life. If you are sick, you are sick. There is no point in engaging in self- recrimination. If you are lonely, you are lonely. When you can address that sensation and experience it, rather than scrambling blindly to remedy it, you will find a way to authentically move beyond it.... When you stop wasting your energy fighting what is, then your self feels affirmed and can move through to a new state...." (p. 173)

WILL I FIND A PARTNER WHO IS RIGHT FOR ME?

"We want to enlarge the concept of love to encompass much more than what you do with partners or in relationships. Love is the activation of your spirit, reaching out to make connections. Love is the life force knowing itself. And in this broader view, love is your life work." (p. 161)
"You may find a person who brings you home again and again to inspiration and joy. You may choose to build a partnership or life with that person, if conditions are right. But the Great Love you are experiencing through that one person is possible with each person you allow into your heart and mind..."
"The reality is that you have many love partners. Can you validate all of them, on their own terms? Some of them you may live with, some you will work with, some you will have sex with, some you will help to die, some you will parent, some will parent you, some touch you briefly and then move on, others will teach you, mentor you, incite you to passions of the mind and feelings...." (p. 162)

HOW CAN I DEVELOP STRONG BONDS WITH OTHER PEOPLE?

"When you connect with a lover, a partner, a friend, an acquaintance, a pet, you strengthen your bonds by paying attention to them over and over again. You vitalize the bonds with your approval, recognition, warmth, joy, celebration, sharing....With each strengthening of a bond, it will feel more solid and permanent in your mind...." (p. 178)

HOW CAN I DEVELOP COMPASSION FOR PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE?

"When you learn to accept all the aspects of your physical condition--including and especially your discomforts--then you have a way to open to others in their physical conditions and discomforts. You can see with loving compassion (not pity) those who are differently-abled, who are hurting, or twisted in their own knots. You can recognize the difficulty many individuals have inhabiting this physical reality, and you can open your heart to that recognition, and learn to reach out, rather than draw back from such people...." (p.201)

HOW CAN I LET PEOPLE KNOW I LOVE THEM?

"One aspect of the love force that is not very well understood by some of you is that when you love someone you are taking them in, you are opening to them. You are recognizing them, receiving them, acknowledging them. How many of you think of love as an energy that you put out toward someone, like a golden ray of caring streaming out of your heart? ...In fact that image has some truth: when you open to someone, what comes out is warmth.
"But the goal is not to generate the warmth and put it out there. The goal is to open and take connection in. And that is the gift you give when you love someone. You receive them. When you love someone you are seeing them, you are hearing them, you are celebrating and cherishing them. And that is a tremendous gift...." (p. 183)

Listening In: Dialogues with the Wiser Self, by Ellen Meredith, can be ordered through bookstores, or by calling 1 (800) 442-6304(Beyond Words Bookstore), or through
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