Yoga, Sufism, Buddhism, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Christ teach about love. All these great philosophies and teachers say there are only two ways to live our lives. One is in fear of everything, the other is in love of everything. I think everyone understands what living in fear means, but not everyone knows what I mean by living in love of everything. So I’ll explain. It’s not just romantic love, although that’s included of course. But what I am talking about here is “out of love.” Your heart is full of love for all beings, and all things. Even when you encounter something “bad,” you act out of the love in your heart. You never say to a child who is unhappy, perhaps needlessly according to you, “If you don’t stop, I’ll really give you something to cry about.” You act with the love in your heart and try to make things better for this child, for your friends, your neighbors, dare I say the world. Living in fear, in avarice, in lack has brought us to where we are at this stage in the world’s life. Living in fear. Not living in love, or gratitude, or inner peace or the sense of having enough. Living in fear. If this happens, I will die. If this doesn’t happen, I will die, this is fear. I’ll be fine no matter what happens: Love! Love for yourself, love and trust, not fear.
All the negative things come from fear, like greed, violence, hate, unkindness, depression, anxiety, guilt and judgment.
All the positive things come from love, like nurturance, care, generosity, passion, excitement, acceptance, joy, peace, serenity, and acceptance.
Just look at these lists, think of the emotions each of those words connotes and ask yourself what would you be feeling right now.
When we live in fear, we close ourselves up against the world. We are, well, we are afraid. We act as if something is after us, our belongings, so we act out of that fear and we act hatefully or violently or judgmentally.
When we act out of love, we are open to the world and all its experiences, therefore we act kindly, joyously, serenely, and generously.
Living in fear, we live like we have nothing, we want more and more. We are not generous or kind hearted. Our hearts are closed to the suffering of humanity, to the suffering of children, of innocent little animals.
Living out of love, our hearts are wide open, we feel as if we have everything we could possibly need and se we are generous, kind, patient, and yes loving to all people, animals, even plants.
So, if there are only only two emotions in the world, and you can only act out of one of them, which would you choose? And yes, it most certainly is a choice you make. It’s not random, no one else chooses for you, you make the choice. Which would you choose?
Bipolar1Blog 
I choose living in love!!!!!
XOXOOXOXOOXOOXO
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Good for you! So do I! XXXOOOXXXOOO
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What a brilliant post and thank you! I realize I live in fear. And its awful. I’m going to make a change ❤
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Thank you! We all live in fear sometimes, but what a huge step for you to say you realize it and you are going to make a change! Sending you lots of love 🙂
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love is life
~
thank you
for helping people
make this choice
~
keep shining
your light
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Reblogged this on Bipolar1Blog and commented:
Just been thinking about this, always and forever an ongoing and newly discovered issue for me! Just wanted to share it again.
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Thank you for this post, Samina. It speaks to a tension in my family life right now. Maybe. Struggling with love and fear, with secrets and privacy vs writing and sharing my story. My sister is furious with me for publishing my book, for hurting family members by doing so.
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Oh no Kitt, I’m so sorry to hear that. Your book is a valuable contribution for people who live with bipolar
I hope she’ll understand that and get over her anger.
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She didn’t like that I exposed family secrets of alcoholism and bizarre delusions.
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But weren’t they in your blogposts before you published the book? Hard to know what to put in your blogs and what to leave out because of privacy. Hope you two can come to some sort of understanding. 🌸💐🌷
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Yes. They were in my blog posts. She wasn’t happy about that either. She feels particularly exposed now that it’s on Amazon.
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We’ll continue to disagree about this point.
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My husband says it’s because she’s not a stigma fighter. That it’s about the stigma of mental illness and alcoholism.
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That sounds very true. So much shame and stigma attached to mental illness. And you are fighting it! Still hope you may have a good relationship with her in time. Xxxooo
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We still love one another, despite our differences over this issue (and others).
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That’s wonderful!
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