Two Kinds of Love Advice

I believe there are two kinds of advice in the world. One kind is for human beings to live and die and is usually based on actions and aimed at everything that appears in our lives; people, things, circumstances, etc. The other kind is eternal advice, the kind that is eternally and universally relevant. The second kind is advice for the soul and reaches beyond our human identity. There was a time when I was hooked on the advice given by human beings for other human beings. Often I didn’t agree, sometimes I felt offended and other times the advice was contradictory, even stupid. Eventually I realised that spiritual advice aimed at the eternal part of who I am worked for everything in my life, and it usually focused on what is happening in my inner territory. It turned out to be the best love advice too.

As you give so shall you receive, multiplied. My desire for a loving, intimate, peaceful relationship filled with integrity would only come about when I give that and not while I sit and complain about not finding it.

Act as if. This one should actually be first because of the impact it has on my life and how often I fall back on it. I have learnt that one of the most powerful ways to change yourself is to imagine how you would act, what you would say, how you would feel, what it would look like if your desire were to show up and then start acting as if it happened already. I had to start acting like woman who deserved only the best treatment and eventually I experienced it.

Stay in the moment. It’s so easy to get lost in the pain of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow that beautiful, heavenly moments slip by unnoticed. My man once said: ” You’re so focused on not getting hurt again that you forget something wonderful is happening between us. I don’t know where or how this will end or if it will, so I can’t tell you. All I know is this amazing.” Then I remembered that he doesn’t have any special powers that I don’t possess. The lesson for me has always been don’t worry about the future you can only create it by making each moment as you wish the future to be.

Keep the heart happy. I am one of those people who thinks with her heart, when my heart says no it’s a no-go. Yet, like everyone else I was taught that things had to make sense to my head first. I have learnt that my heart is never wrong. When the heart speaks I listen, it knows things that I cannot even articulate and it will never lead me to a place where I should not be.

The best counsel is the small voice within. I once read a book by a very well respected spiritual teacher where she highlighted all the ways in which we sabotage our relationships. That was one of the instances where the advice seemed good, but went against everything that I knew and had experienced at that point. I ended up feeling so confused and lost after reading her book. Then came the small voice and said: “The best counsel is your own. What you are told from the inside is immeasurably more important than anything you find outside yourself. Your inner guidance is based on the totality of who you are and what your truest and deepest intentions and desires are. The writer of the book means only well, but nothing supersedes your inner knowledge.” Now that was dodging a bullet.

Good advice is normally simple and makes you wonder why you didn’t come up with it yourself because it seems so right and so practical. Universal truths are like that.