Letting Love In

‘I love and accept the whole of me.’

That’s a big statement!

And on the surface, a seemingly simple one too.

But if you reflect a little more, you may begin to sense the complexity, insight and potential freedom it holds.

It is a statement that has taken me a lifetime to begin to know and understand, and I am starting to realise it may hold the key to true contentment and peace in this human life.

Deep down, all we want to know is what it feels like to be loved and to give love, wholly and completely. And there is a deep, quiet part of us that knows the way. This part is gentle, unassuming and patient, and its whispers are often drowned out by the drama, materialism and distraction of the world around us.

It is a deep knowing within us that is always calling us back to how this love can be found.

Calling us back to know love.

To be love.

We have been conditioned from a young age to believe that we are inherently deficient or lacking in some way, and these flawed parts of us need to be fixed, removed or hidden in order for us to be deserving of love.

But what if our perceived deficiencies are the portals for us to know the richness and complexity of life?

What if our perceived inadequacies are integral to our full expression of who we are?

What if they are opportunities for us to practice embracing imperfection, of learning how to love the whole of ourselves, so we know how to love the whole of life?

Maybe this is the only way that true love can be known and experienced.

By welcoming and accepting all the different parts of ourselves, our feelings, our circumstances, unconditionally. Just like the exquisite Japanese ceramic art of Kintsugi, where the broken pottery is repaired with gold to highlight and enhance the beauty of imperfection, it is only through practicing acceptance can we really understand that true love and contentment arises from embracing the light and dark.

That welcoming me is my personal portal to knowing what love really feels like.

That true love is known only when I accept the whole of myself.

That peace is found when we realise that love welcomes it all.

The light, the heavy. The tight, the fluid. The beautiful, the ugly. The joy, the despair.

By welcoming ourselves and welcoming life with open arms, mind and heart, we let the love in, individually and collectively.

And our home practice gives us the sacred refuge to remember how to find our way back to love.

Want to support your journey to know and love who you are through a sustainable and meaningful yoga-inspired home practice?

Take the leap with me and immerse yourself in my self-paced 7 day online course, Simple + Sacred: The Essential Qualities of a Joyful Home Practice.

This course is an introduction to seven qualities and their associated yoga-inspired practices that I used to help me cultivate a greater sense of who I am and what I have to offer this precious life: