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Love is the absence of fear. Two sides of the same coin called life. One exists in awareness, the other is ignorance. One is heaven, one is hell.

Depending on which state we’re in, that’s all we can invest. It can be measured by the energy in which we treat others, for ultimately, that’s what we’re giving ourselves. We can’t hide it from the world, what’s within leaks out when a wound is squeezed. Our energy is the currency we use in this life.

We hear the expression, I “fell” in love. No coincidence. We do fall. We fall every time. No matter what we do in life, to master it, we’re gonna fall first. We did it before we walked. We aren’t broken, we’re a little grazed, bruised maybe, and when we heal over, we try again using the awareness of the experience we gained through that fall to help us learn further. And we walk, fall, repeat, many times throughout life. There is no other way to gather awareness than through experience.

We don’t have to “do” anything to be loved and lovable. We don’t have to “add” anything to complete us. We’re already whole. All we need to “do” is “undo” the messages we received that told us what we needed to do or not do so that we would be loved and lovable. Love is not adding anything. Love is taking away everything that limits us from flowing. And we cannot flow from fear based emotions. We’re outside of what we authentically are. We cannot help but find flaws in others when we find flaws within.

Our only enemy is our mind. Fear is our minds way of controlling us. It knows nothing. Our brain, an information gatherer, a computer. It thinks for us. It’s our heart that holds our truth. It cannot lead us astray. It has an intelligence all of its own and a very different way of operating than the brain. Both are necessary, but our heart is our master, the brain it’s slave, not the other way around. All love comes from the heart, and the heart is all love. Fear cannot exist there. The moment we experience fear we’ve allowed our brain control our heart. So how do we know if our heart is guiding us? We feel soft, warm, gentle.

Love is the absence of everything that allows us experience our softness. The moment we think we’re right, we’re wrong. Everyone is doing the best that they can do with the information that they have. It’s only when we stop “doing” and begin “being” can we experience. The moment we hear ourselves judging “ I’d never do that”, we’ve just done it. A good tailor remeasures their client every time before he ever decides to cut that cloth. And judgement is very like that. We’re setting ourselves up for our own fall. It’s exactly what we need to do to develop awareness.

We can only bring to others what we bring to ourselves. It is not our duty to love others, it’s our duty to love our own self. It is not selfish to love ourselves, its selfish not to. Self love isn’t about falling in love with us, that’s where we get bruised. We get inflated or deflated by someone else’s opinion of us because we’ve already judged ourselves.

Just flowing is the hardest thing to do. It’s a process of breathing and observing our mind without judgement, it eventually just slips away. It only consumes what we feed it. Our heart knows best. All we need to do is sense what’s already in there that we’ve forgot to pay attention too. Loving ourselves means been kind, compassionate, forgiving, encouraging, patient, understanding, towards ourselves. We cannot give that to another unless we can give that to ourselves first.

All we are is energy. The energy that’s flowing inside of us flows from us. If we’re soft inside, that’s what we give to others. If we’re hard, that leaks out too. That’s all we have to share in this world. Our inner perception becomes our reality. We’re born soft. The mere existence of a new born baby makes the world around them smile. We don’t learn love, we are love. Returning to that place of love requires us all to fall a few times.

We need to be shaken to remind us who we truly are. We acquire some scars to remind us of that inner war. And when we can stay soft, especially when the world around us becomes hard, then we have returned to love. The war is over. We’ve surrendered to our self. And we won’t ever contemplate going to war with another when we’re not fighting with ourselves anymore.

”You need to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince”? Maybe if we could really accept the frog within instead of desiring the Fairy-tale created for us, we’d accept what love really is. No one can give it to us, we meet people with as much love as we can give to ourselves. That’s all we have to share. No one short changed us, we were thieving from ourselves to begin with. What we give to self, we give to others. Love or fear. That’s all we have to give. Love is everything that’s soft, fear is everything that’s hard. Returning to a place of love starts and ends with us.

When we awaken from the Fairy tale we grow to deeply appreciate the frog and understand what it really symbolizes – cleansing, renewing, rebirth, fertility, abundance, transformation, metamorphosis, life mysteries, and ancient wisdom. They can jump up to 20 times their height, some even higher. I’d imagine they took a few falls in their time. But imagine the view they had from that height? A height they’d never have reached if they allowed fear contaminate what they were designed to do. They’ve survived millions of years, and they didn’t even have a white horse or a castle? I’d imagine they were too busy flowing with their natural flow to cause themselves to self destruct.

May we kiss the frog within us this Valentines Day and remember what this day is all about. The calendar day marked for love. May it be all about self-love and may we remember to return to that place everyday. Our ability to self-love is essential for the survival of our species. Love is all we are, and it’s all we have to share. What a gift! In serving our own self, we serve humankind.

From all of us at Alethea… we wish u a soft day.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Sent in self-love,

Norah from Alethea.