Don’t get me wrong, I love John Lennon and I love the Beatles, but their song “All You Need is Love,” a lovely sentiment to be sure, is also far from the truth.

The wild and wonderful state of “being in love” is natures greatest trick to get us to keep the species going, but it’s no predictor of a long term, happy, satisfying relationship.

We need more than just love to make love work.

I like to call being in love “the socially acceptable form of insanity.”

Feeling LONELY and feeling ALONE.

Any of you felt either of those?

The conversation that I wanted to have today is around the difference between being alone and being lonely.

Being alone means that you are solitary. You are by yourself. You are isolated, you are in a solitary space. There are no people around you. 

Being lonely is a feeling of sadness or abandonment or disconnectedness.

Sometimes people use a word that does not really fit what they are trying to describe.

Alone is being by yourself.

Lonely is a feeling that you have.

You can be lonely and be at a big party. You can feel lonely when you are with somebody that you love. My point is that loneliness is the feeling and being alone is the physical-ness of being solitary.

However, you are never actually alone.

We all have angels and we all have guides that are always with us. So, we are never actually alone.

So, if you are struggling with loneliness, that is something that is a feeling versus when you are feeling alone.

And I just want to make sure you understand that distinction.

When the shelter-in-place and quarantine mandates were implemented due to the COVID pandemic, I began offering Free BodyAwake Yoga sessions online to help people stabilize and ground the energies present during this uncertain and challenging time. Cooking

Recently this past week, as turbulent energies and upheaval are spreading across the United States, I’m even more dedicated to offering this sacred practice at a time when it’s needed more than ever.

In yoga, one often hears the phrase “Namaste” spoken at the beginning or end of each class. Namaste is a traditional Indian greeting, meaning, “The Divine Light in me recognizes and honors the Divine Light in you.” The term literally translates to “I bow to you.”

Another phrase for ‘squid’ is ‘energy vampire.’ 
“Squid is my word for people who seem to be missing their backbones but possess myriad sucking tentacles of emotional need.”  —Martha Beck

When your intent is to get love, rather than to be loving to yourself and share your love with others, you are a ‘squid.’ When you are not in the moment-by-moment process of learning what is loving to yourself, and taking loving action for yourself, you are abandoning yourself and creating an empty hole within. This empty hole needs love, and you will try to get it from others in any way you can.

The Neediness Creates An Energy Pull

Others might not be fully conscious of the energy pull from you, but they will generally back off nevertheless – as your pull unconsciously feels yucky to them. Of course, you might find someone who is such a caretaker that they stay and let themselves be drained by you, but you need to know that people who allow themselves to be drained and used by you have strings attached to what they give. They have a huge expectation – expecting you to love them and fill their emptiness as well. Both of you will inevitably be very disappointed.

I don’t know about you but lately it seems that everyone I know is totally stressed out – not just from their own lives but from the “frequency in the field.”

From the racial tensions and the horrific killing of African American men, women and children, to Covid-19 and the global pandemic, along with the economy and money worries, most of us are stressed to the max.

Even if you are safe, and your life is peachy right now, chances are you are picking up on the energies of those around you.

It’s almost unavoidable.

This is why I am such a big advocate for all of us to become daily “pleasure puppies” and find ways each day to consciously choose to reduce our stress levels and add more pleasure.

Today I thought we would talk about how to listen to your body and how to pay attention to what your body is saying. Or maybe the other side of that is … how to know that your body is saying something because you are not paying attention.

Have you had experiences where you know your body is trying to get a point across … and maybe you’re not listening very well, or maybe it just keeps getting just a little bit worse and a little bit worse and a little bit worse?

30 years ago, I read a book that kind of turned my mind around on the separateness between our bodies and our spirits. It was called You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay.  She talked about how all these different physical manifestations meant something on an emotional level … and that you could discover what the emotional level was … and if you worked through those things, then the physical manifestations would be released out of the body.

I've Been Thinking...

Just a few months ago, I was sitting at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service in LA listening to one speaker after the other talk about Bryant’s role as a “girl dad.” My eyes welled up with tears as I listened to them reflect on how his embrace of that moniker had affected how they viewed their own daughters and roles as fathers. In the weeks after the service, it seemed like everywhere I turned, men were proudly owning that title. 

I couldn’t help but reflect on my father at that time. He, too, was a “girl dad,” but when I was growing up, being a “girl dad” wasn’t a thing.

I grew up as the only girl surrounded by brothers, and the message I often got was to be like a boy. Be as tough as a boy. Be as competitive as a boy. Be as athletic as a boy. Be as competent as a boy. The "in thing" was to be a "boy dad." 

Even though I went to an all-girls school, dads weren’t applauded the way they are today for showing up and being present in their daughters’ lives. I say this not to bemoan or complain, but to celebrate this moment and to illustrate how much things can change in one person’s lifetime. I know we have a long way to go before parenting roles are equal, but I think it’s an awesome thing for men to be encouraged in their fathering—not just for their own kids, but for so many others in need of fathers as well.

Studies show dads who are present in their child’s life make a difference. Engaged fathers produce more confident daughters. Evolved, kind fathers show their sons a new way forward. Loving, nurturing, encouraging fathers show their daughters what manhood can look like, and what to expect in a man if she chooses to be with one.

Today, I am in awe when I see fathers pushing strollers, dancing with their daughters or doing their hair, standing with their sons while they cry and telling them it’s ok. I am moved when they proudly tell others that they took paternity leave or stand up and fight for it for others. I’m so happy that we have come to this place.

Who are you, deep down?

The Practice:
Know you’re a good person.

Why?

For many of us, perhaps the hardest thing of all is to believe that “I am a good person.” We can climb mountains, work hard, acquire many skills, act ethically – but truly feel that one is good deep down? Nah!

We end up not feeling like a good person in a number of ways. For example, I once knew a little girl who’d been displaced by her baby brother and fended off and scolded by her mother who was worn down and busy caring for an infant. This girl was angry at her brother and parents, plus lost and disheartened and feeling cast out and unloved. She’d been watching cartoons in which the soldiers of an evil queen attacked innocent villagers, and one day she said sadly, “Mommy, I feel like a bad soldier.”

“When you can meet yourself without expectation and just relax into who you are here and now, others are freed to do the same thing.”

When was the last time you got lost in a good book? Or baked an apple pie “for no reason” and then savored each hot sweet bite? Or spent time in nature … Or sat down at the piano … Or played racquetball … Or consciously did whatever it is that makes you feel a sense of connection and pleasure?

In all likelihood, you were not conditioned to make your well-­being a priority, to extend love and respect to yourself. You may have learned to give all your love and kindness to others, making their happiness the barometer of how worthy you were of that same love and kindness.

Love is not about having, needing, controlling, achieving, or getting something. It is about the direct experience of the Essential Self. When you access that internal reservoir, it can extend outward to others with simplicity, compassion, and warmth.