by Joel Levin
It’s time to get back to a simple fact that life is more than misery, suffering or something to ‘get through’. For many years this was my starting point for all choices. I didn’t know that it was, as these things don’t change until you change your starting point and can assess the difference.
Having a starting point that is about suffering and getting through life meant that any choice was assessed in terms of its ability to move me away from these feelings.
This meant that things like overwork, over exercise and overeating or drinking made much more sense because it all took me away from that starting point. Searching for rewards, however small, also made sense, as they were a sign of another day survived. In some sense, rewards were like the carrot placed in front of the head of the donkey so it would keep moving forward.
It was too simple for me to consider that a new starting point might be love – and that love is something I already have within me, present and available. All I needed to do was to look beyond the carrot; actually not beyond the carrot, but within myself. When I did this I realised I was the donkey.
The possibility presented by Universal Medicine that there might be another starting point from which to measure choices, set in train something that is nothing short of a transformational.
Slowly over time I replaced ‘getting through life’ with the hope, then the possibility, then the fleeting experience, then the emerging reality until it finally became a confirmed fact that at my core I am love and the joy that comes with that. More so, people at their core are that same love. Not an excitable love, emotional love, romantic love, impassioned love, needy love, unrequited love or any other misconstrued form of the simple, pure, delicate, playful, divine, ‘tears in the eye from the joy’ kind of love.
When I use this as my starting point my choices feel very different. Any choice will either confirm what I already feel, or take me away from that feeling. Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy? The concept of reward doesn’t enter into the equation either, as nothing can replace or be better than what I already feel.
With each choice I rebuilt and continue to rebuild a love that had been untarnished but untouched. With each choice I accept the effort I have expended to cover up a simple fact… I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.
Inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon and universal Medicine
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
I agree Joel, we do create our own suffering, it is a hard pill to swallow. Many people rely on this to get them through their days or lives. And like you’ve already shared, in everyone of us, that love is within us all, ready to burst open.
This love is so much different to these rewards that fulfil us temporarily. When we come to this realisation, it is only a matter of time and a journey (without making it arduous), that we can return to this love. We just need to make the decision to how we want to live from, then the rest will unfold in its own time, just like a toddler learning to walk.
“With each choice I accept the effort I have expended to cover up a simple fact… I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.” – this makes us realise how powerful we actually are – powerful enough to ignore or deny or forget about the very Love we hold within, but yet with that same power comes the power to be able to embrace this love and learn to live it day after day.
When we start with the premise that we are Love, then it becomes ridiculously easy for us to begin to see what we do/choose that takes us away from the very love we are, or what we do/choose that holds us close to the very love we are.
It is ridiculous that we stray from love, it is quite painful, arduous and tiring to maintain. It is the thing that causes our exhaustion around the world. One day we will wake up to this.
A very powerful blog Joel, and one that reminds me of the yoga Sutras of Patanjali, who also starts with the premise that we are a Son of God and nothing less. When you have such a starting point life and our choices begin to make much more sense.
It makes sense that if our belief system is that we are not love and life is tough then the trajectory is do the best you can til you can retire. If we reconnect back to the truth that we are love then every moment is in preservation of that, or understanding and then healing why we can’t live connected to our love, and experiencing the great daily joy that comes from being our simple, divine, loving soulful selves. From this perspective it’s not about life but who we are in life, either with or separated from our soul. Retirement is then just another aspect of separation from ourselves.
Beautiful confirmation Joel, ‘With each choice I accept the effort I have expended to cover up a simple fact… I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.’
Understanding what Love can bring has never been so simple but it does take dedication and consistency..
This is so True Joel, and may I add another version of Love that is touted as being Loving and that is unconditional love, as the new age would have us believe. As True Love is unconditional that it holds us all as equals as you have shared.
We think we are working hard to escape the misery, but we are working hard to maintain the misery and escape the love we innately are. This is life on planet Earth as a spirit. Serge Benhayon’s work is establishing life on Earth as a soul, which can be chosen by anyone via their free will and their commitment to be love, whether they know Serge or not. It’s a free choice we each make every day – spirit or soul.
Your opening sentence in your comment Melinda is so true, instead of just embracing the love we are, ‘It was too simple for me to consider that a new starting point might be love – and that love is something I already have within me, present and available’.
Spot on Melinda, we are super powerful and we are the ones that work hard to maintain the misery we created. This sounds crazy to say but it is so true that we are the creators of such things. And then when we surrender to the Love within, wow does our understanding change and we begin to blossom and see the love that we are and that we are held in, eternally so.
Lightbulb – how can something so simple be so far away from our conscious awareness?
I can feel how lost we would be if life was about survival and battling through all the obstacles – we would just be moving through motions, but that is how most of us experience life and it would seem inconceivable that it can actually start from a place of love, I was that too. But like you, I started to give it a go, and I now know it is actually more than a possibility, it is our birth-right.
It’s always amazing to feel when I choose to come back to myself how simple it is to do so.
And yet when we are disconnected it feels like the hardest thing to do!? But Leigh you are spot on, for coming back to ourselves is the greatest gift we can allow for ourselves.
I can so relate to what you have shared in seeing the misery etc in the world as a starting point. Yet we had the starting point of love within us from the very beginning. A poignant point that we need to come back to this.
Since we are love, it is wise to have that as a starting point, ‘it finally became a confirmed fact that at my core I am love and the joy that comes with that’.
Love as the starting point for how we live every aspect of our lives, the relationship we hold with ourselves and with others – now that is something worth investing in especially considering that love is the vibration that represents who we all are in essence. In honouring love as the foundation of how we live, we cannot but raise the standards to support us all to live in a more honouring, unified and harmonious way.
The pain of loss that is caused by us not living who we truly are is far greater than anyone can treat us by. For we are forever in the atma of God, so we are to return to who we are anyway. But until that time pains and struggle can only exist by our choice to not move by who we are. Him.
The point we choose as reference point to walk in life is important not only since we map ourselves always in relation to it but also because we construct from it our mental maps of references that then use to map our journey.
Our choices are incredible, they can change how we feel about our life, our day, how we feel about ourselves – we think we are just making a choice but we are determining our whole life.
I spent most of my life searching for love outside of myself, what a joy it was to discover that this love lived within me and all I had to do was reconnect to this and feel the grandness and joy that this bought to my life and relationships.
Our foundational understanding and perception of life and our purpose here makes such a difference to all the choices we make…
And it’s only when we change ours can we then see in others how powerful perception is in influencing our choices and the life around us. If everyone holds the same view then we don’t see it because we are in it.
When our starting point is struggle and misery, but our truth is joy, love and harmony, we need to constantly pull in issues and create dramas to keep validating why we have that starting point. No wonder we have so much dis-ease and exhaustion in the world.
I am starting to get a sense of this for myself, that my life is actually amazing and I can enjoy it, I don’t need to keep bringing in challenges or issues but can live in a way that doesn’t involve or give air to these things. That there is a consistent quality and joy I can come back too.
Life certainly transforms when we choose true love as our foundation, we get to experience and understand so much about life, relationships, the Universe and the Oneness we are all truly from.
We come to feel that our emotional way of existence was actually never truly existent, and that our love from inside was always at call, for us to either jump with and in the love we are or (pretend) walking away from it (by the separative illusion of thinking that we are not that love). For us to take it some steps back, and truly see that we have never been able to change the origin (love) that we are, only push it away to a certain extend that tried to hide away the untarnished love that we are. It always failed in that, good so.
Having spent most of my life thinking I was never enough and life was about getting somewhere and becoming someone, it was hard to accept the possibility that ‘love is something I already have within me, present and available’. Funny how I resisted the possibility of that being true, coming up with the reasons why I should not be that, even though that was what I truly ever wanted.
I find when I connect to love, my need for rewards is not present because I feel full instead of not empty. I now pay attention to when I search or even remotely think about rewards, then I know I have disconnected from love. To me, love has no starting point or ending point, it forever expands and I have a choice to align to love or not.
beautiful, so opening to read and I trust many will feel this way.. It all requires us to open up our heart and mind for a new starting point and realize that much if not almost all was actually a creation, an illusion away from our truthful-reality.
Where do we choose to anchor our movements in life is a crucial choice. What is the default we choose to walk in life? What is our frame of reference? Misery? Or Evolution?
The quality of our intention or starting point is one of the greatest indicators of the quality of what comes thereafter.
Great point Suse and wisely said. This is always a quality of energy that precedes the way we live and move and it already present in any situation that we find ourselves in.
Life is amazing when you wake up in the morning and feel that love that is within. It makes the misery stand out which for most (and me a few years ago) the dullness was only broken up by the occasional highs/excitements. But I wonder what’s next from here? What depths of love have yet to be externalised?
This is brilliant Joel, a huge expose of how we set ourselves up, and having it presented today so starkly that if we start from an aspect of suffering then anything that gets us away from that is considered ‘good’ so hence our search for recognition and reward, and around and around we go. And in this we miss out on who we really are, love and that if we start from that point then any choice is very different for as you put it we either confirm the love we are or not. Very very different, thank you for a deeply profound sharing.
This is a great stop moment being offered. A chance to be honest with ourselves and really feel where our starting point is. I can clearly feel how I am sitting here identified with life being a struggle, so now I can change that. Thanks Joel.
As you say, we are so much more than our self-created dilemmas, the suffering and the misery. It requires taking responsibility for our choices though to come to that realisation – and then it is about making different choices thereafter.
“at my core I am love and the joy” A simple and Divine appreciation of the truth.
“It was too simple for me to consider that a new starting point might be love – and that love is something I already have within me, present and available” Yes I know this feeling, our whole life is set up to overcome struggle and then we realise actually it is not needed at all and that we are whole already – I can understand it is a bit of a shift to make!
” In some sense, rewards were like the carrot placed in front of the head of the donkey so it would keep moving forward. ” Also I find rewards a jester of ” you got through the day you desire something for all that effort ” a prize a reward a pay off.
What a beautiful conformation of the truth, that the only starting point that is truly worthy of investing is in the one that represents the truth of who we are. Embracing the irrefutable fact that at the core of who we are, we are love, is the foundation from which our lives can be lived knowing that who we are is already everything. And from here we can explore how to reflect more of our love in life.
Suffering is a way of life for many many people, if not all of us at some point. There is another way, a way of being that is not hidden from the suffering of those around us, but also knows that there is another way that is not a life of misery, and through living that, we offer that way to all.
POWERFUL ‘ I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.’
Which , if all truly consider and be open for, invites us to clean up all the misery created – in and with all our love that we choose and got. Now that is more a celebrational clean-up than struggling work.
“Slowly over time I replaced ‘getting through life’ with the hope, then the possibility, then the fleeting experience, then the emerging reality until it finally became a confirmed fact that at my core I am love and the joy that comes with that” . . . this is put in a way that makes it very do-able, so reachable for all. This is what is so beautiful about this blog. Thank you Joel I love your work.
A new starting point from love brings us a new marker to know if our choices come from love or not, and when we make life about love it opens up new connections from a deeper expression which makes every choice worth all the love we are.
Why on earth do we always look at what won’t work or focus on the negative before even considering what’s on offer? I’m doing this at the moment with a situation I’m faced with. Sure, I need to be practical and consider everything, but my focus is always on what won’t work rather than what will.
It is wise, and what has truly changed my life, starting from and knowing who I am. I am Love or I am a Son of God. It is also very very insightful to know who I am not or my separative way of being – my spirit.
What you share is so true and lovely, what if we had a starting point of love, which we have already inside us as that is who we are, ‘With each choice I rebuilt and continue to rebuild a love that had been untarnished but untouched. With each choice I accept the effort I have expended to cover up a simple fact… I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.’ Very beautiful.
At your core you are love and joy, as we all innately are, so why indeed would you make choices to take you away from this, ‘Any choice will either confirm what I already feel, or take me away from that feeling. Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy? Worth reflecting on this why.
What I so love about the starting point you describe Joel, is that it’s always refining itself, always becoming a more pristine starting point than I realised today, and that I had realised yesterday. Because with every gesture within myself to let go of the old way of believing life is hard, that the day will have a struggle to it, that life will have its ups and downs and that I will inevitably go up and down too, I realise there is a way to start my day, a way to start my every single moment that is none of that. In accepting that within me and through me there is an endless well of love and joy to express and to share, that becomes my starting point and the quality I can bring to all that I do. The key is the acceptance of that fact, and the willingness to let go of the old in celebration of what has been rediscovered and what we now know is true.
Acceptance is so key here Katerina. With the surrender into acceptance, appreciation arises within and is expressed which deepens our surrender into ourselves and the space of the universe within.
A great blog to read at the start of my day. I love the simplicity of having a new starting point that is not about a struggle to get through the day, but a connection to the absolute fact that we are love and that this is within us all.
We can make our lives so complicated and so dramatic, but all of this is just surface stuff, just interference and distractions that take us away from feeling that joy and that deep love, every day. Sooner or later we get bored of the games, drop them in exchange for simplicity, and life starts to become more joyful, as we realise that that is the true purpose of life – to live each moment with and in joy.
Knowing you already have everything you need: that is a crazy cool new starting point.
When you experience the warmth of true love it is hard to fathom why we would ever settle for anything less.
Needing a reward in any way, shape or form is a sure sign of living in disconnection to myself. Rewarding myself can show up in many disguises, in fact simply switching off and not being present with myself can be seen as a moment to reward myself. When I feel the love I am and this equal love in everybody and in everything I am content, at ease and I feel complete… no reward of any kind is needed.
Looking for reward all the time is such a slippery slope and it is very distressing if we then don’t get the reward because of our expectations. I see this in children and teenagers especially as they also see their parents craving a reward at the end of the day. This is something I’m also watching with myself and if I clock off as I walk out of work or stay with the same consistency as in my day.
The steps are simple, yet the process to keep walking those steps can be filled with adverse events that we can choose to side step or stay stuck in for a long period of time.
This is a helpful way to look at life, it shows that if we do not change the way we see life to be we will never be able to make true changes as the basis we are coming from will remain the same.
‘I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life’… it could be said that we continue to create suffering in our lives because of the hurts we hold onto. The more I choose to be the love that I am and live with more honesty and responsibility for the choices I make, the more I am realising that it is my choice to hold on to suffering and not anyone else’s. My life will be what I choose and today I choose love.
Every single day what life is offering us is to live the love within me deeper than the day before, there is no perfection in this and it is a day to day surrender to all the pictures I have gathered, whether they have supported me or otherwise. Every day is a movement for me to feel deeper, to trust myself deeper, not blindly, but through experimenting and collecting data.
I love the ‘tears in the eye from the joy’ kind of love, that is so pure and beautiful. Those delicate tear drops like precious diamonds.
Beautiful Joel, we are so much more than the sufferings we create, we are pure love. That love is within us all. Pure simple and delicate love.
It is gorgeous to come to a place where you realize that you no longer need to be the donkey chasing the illusive carrots of life but can connect with and surrender to everything you could ever want or need within…. Recognizing that the suffering is all of your making and is no longer necessary when the love is embraced.
Such a powerful blog Joel. As we shift our awareness and re-claim a new starting point where love is the foundation, we then can embrace that our marker of how we are living is the magnificence we already are, and that choosing to live less that this is dimming and reducing who we are and are capable of living. It is our Divine right to live the magnificence of our love, in all its glory, joy and might. And from such a starting point, of the greatness of love, we are forever pulled to evolve to be more of this greatness through our every choice we make. Such is the grace and power of love that we are in-truth forever held in.
“With each choice I rebuilt and continue to rebuild a love that had been untarnished but untouched.” You are such a wonderful wordsmith Joel – very touching sparks of wisdom.
‘Not an excitable love, emotional love, romantic love, impassioned love, needy love, unrequited love or any other misconstrued form of the simple, pure, delicate, playful, divine, ‘tears in the eye from the joy’ kind of love.’ You have made it very clear what is love and what is not, I love the ‘tears in the eye from the joy’ kind of love, love is connecting us.
There can be such comfort in misery, but recognising this oxymoron can be very challenging.
A new starting point that truly starts with a knowing and then step by step a living that we are enough and do not seek outside to fill what we are already.
This was a bit of an ouch read for me at the moment, a good ouch I must add. We are the creators of all our woes and as such we are the creators of all our joy. A true starting point is the joy we already are inside. Love it, thanks Joel.
A new opportunity every day, and in fact every moment. Choices. Lovely blog.
Wow, such a beautiful blog. Bringing it back to the basics, what is the start point for our choices. It is so important to create this foundation to come from constantly. As when we set this bar low, the result will never be higher than this foundation. It is so so important.
A very profound blog Joel! When we change our starting point our whole approach to life changes. This makes getting up in the morning feeling my loveliness first so important and I am inspired to look at how can I deepen this starting point, setting the standard for my day and evolve it throughout my day?
“A new starting point”. This is interesting as, how you describe it, it makes it so clear that the point from which we learn to live is not the depth/the ‘beginning’ we could live from. It is like we live miles away from where our true starting point is and thus only live life half full. But as you also describe we are not aware of it because it has become so normal for us. So knowing that there is always more to life than we are aware of in this moment is a beautiful beginning to deepen our awareness with every step more.
When we use joy and love as a starting point all of our choices are simple because if they are not coming from that then they are not true and take us away from that love and joy. Then the question is why would I choose to do this- there is much for me to ponder here , Joel. Thank you.
Big point Joel – I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.” Showing us that the world we have created is not even real , and from our essence (which is energy) comes all there is, and if we put anything on top of that that is not real , we had created a fake reality. And so .. this is what I had found: A true love that is within me, even though I had made myself believe that it was somewhere else – this example is showing the illusion we can choose to create and fall for. So easy, yet also so easy to turn it around – if we are truly willing to see and listen.
Yes, a true starting point, to be real and aware of where you are and then are able to truly choose different. This starting point I had given myself at the first ever course I attended from Universal Medicine. By this new starting point, I was able to see my path so far and that that was not what I was going to continue. And so I made this choice to start a new, a great change in my life. Everything changed simply because I was offered another reflection: how to live life from our very essence (our inner-heart) connected to our Soul. I was back. And still am. And learning how to live this in life.
If we start from suffering then we settle for better. If we start from love better doesn’t exist, love simply expands into more love.
love it Lucy, so succinctly put.
When we live in the mundane of life and stop appreciating life then the focus does become on the suffering and the issues instead of the beauty.
Everyday should be considered a new starting point. A new point to observe life or to relate to people.
Another great blog Joel… It is true that when we feel our own love inside- nothing is greater than that love- no reward can beat that- as it just is and that is everything.
“It was too simple for me to consider that a new starting point might be love – and that love is something I already have within me, present and available.” Gorgeous to re-read your blog today Joel. My inspiration for today.
What if the starting point was way behind us and we are RETURNING to it having run very, very far in the opposite direction. Time to stop running away and return back to our true selves.
‘Making love’ as a starting point . . I love it. ‘Making love’ always starts with ourselves first; rather that identifying ourselves with our struggles, knowing ourselves as the love that we are and it all then naturally flows like a fountain. Then we can ‘make love’ with everything and everyone we meet. The thing is to build a consistency with this. This is a great reminder Joel.
Love is who we are and always there. Sometimes we have moved so far from love it can help to make honesty a starting point. From honesty it is not too huge a step to return to love.
Honesty and simply connecting to our body helps us get back to it. When I connect to my body I feel a lightness and an expansion that feels so different to how I feel when I’m in the struggle. It’s always there, but most of the time I’m forgetting about it, investing in the outward struggle of how I think I need to be in the world. When I let go and surrender it is right there, within me, tangibly felt.
Sometimes when we first connect to our body it can actually feel horrible because we feel the consequences of our past choices. We might feel heavy, exhausted or numb. Personally it took me quite some years to develop a loving connection with my body, but WOW has it been worthwhile and now my body feels gorgeous and I am still a huge work in progress or should that be play in progress.
When we have a starting point of struggle all we feel is the struggle. If we chose a starting point of true love then we can feel all the love. No carrot, no stick, no donkey, just the love that we already are.
Wow Joel you really unmasked the believe that we have to get “through life”. Thank you for not holding back and share your experience as they are very inspiring.
It seems important to develop trust and knowing that our bodies are divine, meaning that when we give them space, they align with the energy that allows love to flow through them. This happens before thought and well before we make a choice to act. So I agree with Joel, our choices confirm what we align to and the relationship with our bodies that embraces first principle of practicing love in our daily lives.
How much of the worlds population live their life trying to reach the proverbial carrot and looking for rewards, and only just getting through the day with the thought of a beer at the end. With so much suffering in the world, we all need to know what is there to be known if we come from that place of love and truth without looking outside ourselves for what we will never reach or find.
So well covered in this story of yours Joel. When we re connect to the real us, as you stated, “…. at my core I am love and the joy”. And reclaim it with our choices and actions. Then all things that don’t resonate to it are exposed and we are able to discern with clarity which will help or hinder this quality .
I’ve begun to consider this same new starting point as well, from just getting through life to starting with the premise I am love and that I can express that love ‘in’ life. With this awareness I’m also realising that there is in fact no ending point, but just an ever deepening evolution of the starting point (ie an evolution of the way I express love).
‘Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy?’ Such a simple yet powerful question to ask ourselves, what we choose either supports us and allows us to deepen our love or harms us by taking us further away from love.
As I read this I was reminded that the focus is not on surviving each day but the level of love that is expressed in each day- this totally changes it and then when your days are lived in this way there is no relief or reward sought at the end of the day.
Always poignant Joel, I love the fact that your blogs touch my heart. The moment of recognition that you were the donkey in your life made me smile. But, you know it is not, and never was true. You were always a great, loving man masquerading, for whatever reason, as a donkey, beating yourself with a stick in between reaching for unreachable carrots.
That you have re-discovered the untouched, untarnished love of your essence is obvious through the embrace of your words, their inspiration that allows us to know that we are all the same should we but release the false shackles of donkey-dom.
Thank you Joel for a beautifully simple blog, showing all the ways love is not that creates so much heartache and suffering in our world, and what true love is ” the simple, pure, delicate, playful, divine, ‘tears in the eye from the joy’ kind of love.” Simply worlds apart.
Thank you Joel, as this reveals to us that once there is sufferIng we have allowed ourselves to not love, not love and appreciate ourselves and each other – which is actually logic that this is a form of suffering by origin. As everything away from love is our suffering indeed. Beautifully said.
in this article, Joel really spells out what people have thought love is, and truly what it is not… It is Not an excitable love, emotional love, romantic love, impassioned love, needy love, unrequited love … None of these are the deep abiding all embracing felt through the whole body sense of connection that is possible as we connect to the deep and divine hearts within us all.
Love it, Joel. We’ve either chosen suffering or love as our starting point. So simply put. And from there every choice we make either confirms our starting point or takes us further away from it. It’s reward enough just to continue to feel and live from a starting point of love.
Beautifully put Cathy. The reality is that there are no victims in life. It is simply about where we decide to go – down the path of love,or down the path of suffering and struggle. Both give us a way forward – one way points to a whole lot of drama and complication that keep us forever occupied, the other path offer us an ever-expanding amount of inspiration and space.
Taking Love as my starting point is a simple choice that didn’t seem possible before attending Universal Medicine presentations because of the belief that life was about struggling and making the best of a bad situation. This simple choice changes everything. Thank you Joel for exposing the struggle of just getting through and how this impacts all our choices.
Thanks Helen, it is also true for me to say that I had no idea that I was not making love my starting point until I started exploring the work of Universal Medicine. In fact I would have defended the idea that I was already doing that!
” …the hope, then the possibility, then the fleeting experience, then the emerging reality until it finally became a confirmed fact that at my core I am love and the joy.” I have experienced something very similar to this with my experiences related to Universal Medicine. Coming from an attitude of “I’m doing the best I can under grim circumstances” – not personally as such but looking at how the world was as a whole – the amazing thing is that the world has not changed, if anything it has got worse, yet through having more trust in the core of myself that Joel describes, I have felt and began to experience a way of life that I did not see possible for myself, let alone for all mankind.
I can related to the “I’m doing my best” response to how life is around and within me Simon. It gave me permission to look with a limited level of honesty at how I was approaching life.
‘I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.’ Ouch it is not easy to admit that I have spent most of my life getting through and making it all about struggle and hard work with only fleeting moments of happiness and joy. Since attending Universal Medicine presentations I have gradually built a life that supports me to honour myself and creates a loving foundation. Thank you Joel for expressing it so eloquently here that we can all choose Love as our starting point and this will undoubtedly transform life for the better – what are we waiting for…
I love this. I grew up under the belief that somehow there’s fundamental defect in us and we have to work hard at pleasing others to be accepted, and from that place, the life is always a struggle as basically that’s what we deserve as our default. To make choices from a completely different place – that we are all in fact love in our essence is a possibility available to all of us, and it’s just amazing how many of us find it difficult to accept this as the truth and instead stick to the self-made sufferings, and some even attack those who are choosing this new starting point. Funny creatures, we are.
‘sticking to the self made suffering’ – great comment Fumiyo and yes we are strange, funny, beautiful creatures with nano’s worth of understanding what we truly are.
Thank you Joel, for your blog, looking back now to how I was living life with so much struggle, it seems crazy that, in life I would choose anything other than the love I really am.
The point made about “Having a starting point that is about suffering and getting through life meant that any choice was assessed in terms of its ability to move me away from these feelings.” not being the way to bring true and lasting changes in our life is also what I have experienced as the downfall here is that when I have done this I get to a point where I am not in the suffering anymore so am better than I was previously but am still nowhere near living a life from a foundation of love. Choosing love as a starting point brings a whole lot of different choices and life no longer has me managed.
“life no longer has me managed” , this is really powerful jsnelgrove36. The fact that we are managed by life when we don’t keep love as the primary baseline.
Thank you Joel… we are indeed more then the trials and tribulation that we take on, and that is the thing …. We take these things on, and we do have choices, and this is possibly the hardest thing to understand, that we do have a choice, and that every day can be a news starting point.
Thank you Joel, for presenting us with possibility of another way of living where we can break away from the illusion of life by choosing the love that we are.
Joel, you’ve done it again, captured the games we play, the suffering we create and yet we are indeed so much more that that, and when we change how we start and know and understand we are love and go from there life changes, it opens up, and we see and know beyond a doubt we are more.
‘Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy?’ Yes it is really that simple: why would we? Asking ourselves this question brings us the opportunity to get to the bottom of things.
I know, its crazy iljakleintjes, it is such a simple question but we don’t hold it closely enough to really consider its meaning and implications.
A great read Joel, when we make our Livingness about love it changes everything, our choices are then from love, and not from or about self.
‘a love that had been untarnished but untouched’ – a great line, capturing the state of play for many of us in relation to our starting point with love.
Love, a new starting point, or is it a starting point to go back to of how we were when we were very young, before we adopted all the many disregarding behaviours that we chose to take on as our way of being, and so started seeking love elsewhere, instead of reconnecting to the love we naturally are born with, but not necessarily born into.
It’s the sheer simplicity of what you are describing Joel. The love is there, at our core. There is nothing we need to be doing to prove it, make it bigger or anything…. it’s simply about letting it come out in all its original glory. Given that we have put layers of hurt between us and it over the years, some feel this as ‘hard work’, but your blog reiterates that we are already that love – so it can be as easy as letting those layers go, and living all that we are which expands as more and more of those layers fall away.
Our starting points are our foundations for which we build our future upon. If these foundations are based on us merely surviving each day and have no love or joy in them, then it makes sense that the life we build everyday is merely in survival mode without the sparkle of love and joy either.
Basing my life on that platform of misery now – when so much love is literally in my face (or coming out of my face when I look in the mirror) is just plain silly. But the fact that I can actually type that is amazing because from that misery place it’s as if nothing can change. The more that I open up to the starting point that is within me the greater life becomes which makes a whole lot of sense. Because how can we ever expect our lives to change if we are basing our lives on something that is unchangeable!?
Lovely sharing Leigh, this concept of being open to a starting point that doesn’t need to be achieved but lives within already is wonderful to contemplate and connect to.
Great point Leigh, a point that is often missed when we are trying to change from an unchangeable position. It really does need us to step off the platform we are standing on whether that platform is of misery, victim-hood or despair and onto the platform of understanding and love. . . and once we do that everything changes.
Thats beautiful Kathleen, the fact that even though what we stand on may have ugly patches, we don’t have to step off our platform of where we are to go somewhere else. Just stay, address what is around us and then we will have the loving platform. If our bedroom is messy we can’t just go buy another one, we have to clean the one we have and once done we can enjoy the space we have created. Same with our bodies.
Oh and just to add. . . . the platform of love starts with us giving our self a loving thought that turns into a loving gesture that grows into a loving way of being with ourselves and voila we have a loving platform to stand on!
Reading this sharing today I sat and could feel a wave of love both from your sharing and for the fact that the distance travelled since attending the inspirational work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon my life is no more of “getting through life”. Like you share Joel ” I am so much more than the suffering I created in my life” and for that I can now feel true appreciation and the love that I truly am.
After decades of struggle, challenges and constant wondering if life was ever going to get any better, it was so freeing and so joyful to finalise realise, like you Joel, that “I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life”. The foundation of love I am building now flows through every part of my life and has a most wonderful and natural ripple effect. Thank you for reminding me how far I have come.
Those dangling ‘carrots’ never last for long, you eat one and crave another, pretty soon your appetite is insatiable but you’ve had your fill of carrots, they taste old and rotten, you need to chase after something much bigger and juicier to fill the void. Whereas, is if we stop chasing and simply look within we find a glowing diamond ever naturally growing in ‘carats’, filling, and wanting for nothing but to expand and shine more brightly every day.
This is awesome Joel. SO many people, myself included have been that donkey and thinking life is allbout chasing the carrots (or rewards) because life being a donkey is pretty hard. But yes accepting that we have a divine essence and making love our foundation/starting point for everything (because we are amazing) is a true way to not live the misery that so much of what life is.
This is so beautiful, Joel. I have been on this same journey, but wouldn’t have explained it so clearly and simply. Thank you, it helps me to understand me better.
I am with you on this one Joel. It makes perfect sense to clear the table of all the suffering cards and start dealing out the love.
Love it Kathleen here’s to dealing the love cards from now on…
You bet, Helen love cards are the only cards worth dealing!
Beautifully said Joel, and absolutely transformational. It is easy to see how lost we inevitably become when love is not the starting point, yet having it be love each choice from there is another step closer to home.
Thanks Giselle, I love how you have also made it about ‘each step’ and how one step helps to determine the quality of the next step.
I love your premise Joel, that we have a starting point of Love deep with. Not long ago I realised this, something that had previously been so buried under layers of other stuff I was unable to feel or even imagine the concept. But through the reflection of those who shine with their own love I have recognised that is within me also – and now I can connect to the same within myself and firmly establish this as the marker from which to start to live. Now all that is not in alignment with that Love I can feel harming me, and so it becomes easier to make the choice to discard.
Joel you are my writing star 🙂 I love and inhale every blog you write… So beautiful and fulll of wisdom ..
Giving myself a new starting point and making my life about Love feels like an amazing opportunity and it is something that I have chosen to build on. I like the point you make about rewards, there is no need for this as there is nothing needed to sweeten up life – how true this is – my life has everything if it starts with Love.
“My life has everything if it starts with Love” – I love this susang, it is truly all encompassing and within.
Thanks Joel, I really enjoy reading your blogs and your pearls of wisdom always make me stop and ponder.
“I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.” This is beautiful and true Joel. I tend to get lost in my own self-created mess and misery. When I can come to a new starting point of love , then I don’t need to be the victim, just get some help with the parts of life that are keeping me in suffering.
This is very real Joel, and if it isn’t about ‘getting through life’ then it is about bettering and improving your life, both of these are in response to the way the world is rather than checking in with you and feeling what is of truth to you. Universal Medicine reminded me of this also and through that reminder a re-connection has taken place.
I love the analogy of the carrot dangling in front of the donkey which is like us always chasing something ahead of us to make us feel better. When this is the case, we clearly haven’t started from love we have started from the point of separation. Love is something that we are at our core and can therefore access at any point if we so choose. Thanks for the reminder to choose love first, not our hurts, not our issues. Make love the starting point from which we do everything and from there it can only grow as love has no ending.
Joel, such a beautiful piece, it’s like we’re this great shiny thing and we cover ourselves in the goo that is suffering say and live from there, rather than just wiping it off and seeing that that great shiny thing is there, it just needs to be aired. It really is all about perspective and intention, if we come from love, it’s different altogether, we’re coming from the essence of what and who we are, and we stop fighting ourselves. We’re whole approaching everything.
To change the starting point from one where choices are made to prevent, or limit, pain and suffering to one to support and enhance love IS transformational. It does not happen over-night but builds incrementally and as you say Joel, “Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy?”
So, so Gorgeous Joel. Set the bar at love, True Love that is and nothing less.
I love this kind of love; ‘Not an excitable love, emotional love, romantic love, impassioned love, needy love, unrequited love or any other misconstrued form of the simple, pure, delicate, playful, divine, ‘tears in the eye from the joy’ kind of love.’ And yes you could say I am the donkey because of my stubbornness to fully embrace I know love inside out.
Your blog has melt my heart Joel as all your blogs do, thanks again.
‘Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy?’
Joel, this statement is going to be with me today and guide all of how I am. I know the innate joy that I am, and the lightness that I bring. It is time to allow more of that out!
Thank you Joel this is beautifully confirming and inspiring to read and feel. You have exposed the capping paradigm that we exist in, that life is tough struggle that we all have to get through somehow. It is super empowering to realise that this is not true and come to this new point of truth; that we are in essence love. That we are much more than ‘getting through the day’ and that with each choice we make we can choose to honor our love as we are worth living in the celebration of the love that we all are.
The “ endless wheel of suffering” is a way of living that is so senseless, so bizarre, and so not what being alive in this age is about, it is so mediaeval, and yet is still held in the back of so many people’s thoughts. The only way through such a dense forest of old entangled paradigms, is to come back, as Joel says, to a renewed reconnection with whom we truly are, and this is what Universal Medicine always provides in the many courses and presentations that it presents.
Your blog has caused a shift in which I am still pondering. there is something about the wording or the way in which you have presented ‘how we set ourselves up’ for our lives to unfold. I am becoming aware that in the past I have made my starting point about life being ‘Hard’ but that if I work hard I can make a difference. But ‘Difference’ seemed to always be just out of reach. Your presentation that ‘Life’ or me as being love changes everything. Why would I ever want to ‘work hard to make a difference’, when the Love is already perfect. The comment – ‘When I use this as my starting point my choices feel very different. Any choice will either confirm what I already feel, or take me away from that feeling’ is very powerful and very true. Thank you Joel for exposing my old starting point and old patterns. My new starting point from now on is love.
Long live your new (and possibly very old) starting point.,
I just love your words Joel, especially “I am more, so much more than the suffering that I created in my life. ” Bring back the joy of who we truly are, and that is love.
What you share here Joel is gold!!! This has to be written with big letters in a newspaper so that everybody can read and feel what we all can do only if we chose to!
It really is a life-changing thing to change this starting point around. I know I need to keep bringing my focus back to this – as in where am I trying to go or what am I trying to do? Everything that is needed is already inside of me, it just needs the space and time to express itself by virtue of me allowing it to do so. This is a much more freeing, and hugely empowering way to live.
Joel, it’s all about the foundation and if it’s sand no matter how much we shore it up or shovel it again, we’re creating an uphill struggle for ourselves. It’s obvious and yet we cling to those old ways, and it takes time to let them go and to see that there’s a rock for us to stand on, and it’s love and from here everything is different, so all that stands in the way, what we choose. As I’ve allowed more love in my life, it’s changed and it continues as I understand that anything I allow in which is less than love cripples me and induces hurt and struggle I never needed – it really can be that simple.
wow, so simple yet so profound what is my starting point I have used to focus my daily activities?
So true, Joel. When self-negation was my foundation, life felt like an endless struggle, too much hard work. Getting to know my essence as love that has always been within was the greatest support in building a new foundation based on love, this choice has made life far simpler and more joy-full.
The endless struggle is precisely that, endless and exhausting, and this is commonly the human experience. How insane is that, and yet it is a paradigm that we all subscribe to. Yet all you have to do is witness kids that have yet to buy into this world view, and see that they are naturally and effortlessly love.
A good observation on life Joel and the importance of how things and choices change when we have love as the passage, and not the carrot.
Since reading your blog Joel, my intention is to make love my new starting point, not somewhere to get to.
Thank you Joel and Natalie, I agree, love is a great starting point.
I love the simplicity you bring with every blog! How powerful is it to realize that in changing your starting point everything changes. How everything in our life, every single thought, is about choices. Just like you wrote: ‘Any choice will either confirm what I already feel, or take me away from that feeling.’
Rebuilding the love that was untarnished but untouched with each choice you make, no longer giving your power to the suffering knowing that is a mere blip in comparison to the enormity of the what lies within, is just a beautiful starting point and as always from you Joel, deeply inspiring.
“With each choice I accept the effort I have expended to cover up a simple fact… I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life.” – A great summarising sentence Joel, and a great starting point.
Thank you Joel and Natalie, I agree, love is a great starting point and love is the point we are all from, so it should be easy to hold onto. The inspirational truths shared by Serge Benhayon examine in every detail why so many find love an easy word to say but not so easily lived. The students of Universal Medicine are now living more love to the best of their ability!
All humanity are saying things like ‘I love my family’, ‘I love my chocolate’, ‘I love my cat or dog’ etc., and of course the cruncher, ‘I love you so deeply’. At one time or another, we have all said these words. True love brings joy, harmony, stillness and truth. So when the word ‘love’ is spoken, we must consider whether there is truth, joy, harmony and stillness for all, equally so, otherwise it is not love. Love cannot be held for just one person or group, but for all of humanity equally. Love is from God and when we connect to that love we also then love everyone equally! If not, then what energy are we aligned to, because God is love and when our body truly allows God’s energy in, we are then living in a state of love, which equally shares stillness, truth, joy and harmony. The students of Universal Medicine are definitely being more love on a daily basis and therefore should be studied to bring a true understanding to the word ‘love’.
Joel, there should be a book made that has all your blogs in it. Every blog you write just touches my heart and leaves me with a smile.
So perfect for me to read your blog this morning Joel, especially, and a perfect reminder:
‘ I am more, so much more than the suffering I created in my life’.
Thank you Joel for expressing about the starting point of love in this way. This is a really simple way to look at it, and I love simplicity so it is definitely something I will take with me into my day to day. It is such a trick that we are fed – and reinforce ourselves – to think that life is a struggle or ho-hum. Starting from the fact that we are innate and divine love opens up so much more joy in life, and really makes me wonder why I’ve ever lived from anything less.
Well said Amelia, starting with love, the real meaning of love which Joel so beautifully describes, is a game changer, and really simple, it just takes a clear choice.
I agree with what you say here Amelia. Love absolutely opens up so much more joy in life and I experience the magic of life instead of misery. So how come I do find myself back in pattern of making choices that are less than the love I know I am. It is time to choose to really get rid of the carrot.
You write so well Joel! and this blog is super inspiring, from it I have the idea that maybe I should assess where I make my starting point. Thank you
So well said Arieljoymuntelwit. And I agree. What is my starting point? Is it Love?
It was a huge turning point for me, when I let go of my addiction to misery, and took responsibility for what I was creating in my life. Carrots are of little interest now, since choosing love as my new starting point.
Mccannelizabeth it really is an addiction to misery when we actively choose suffering and worse we then we’re clever in managing it, and somehow besting it and yet, we are just kidding ourselves. As you’ve found out and Joel notes here, there is but one choice to choose love as our starting point. Otherwise we’re just managing in the suffering and misery soup.
I really like how you describe that Monica, ‘managing in the suffering and misery soup’ it took me a while before I realized that I was in a soup and that I created the recipe myself. Trying to hold my head above the soup not knowing where I was going and not considering that the only thing I had to do was to stand up and step out of the soup pot.
Diana1975, ouch we create the recipe for our own soup, of course we do, and more we love the drama of both creating the recipe and dealing with the consequences of being in a soup rather than just getting out of the pot as you say. It’s funny when you describe it like that, but it’s crazy really we create our own misery and we don’t need to.
Letting go of my addiction was a huge turning point for me also, except for me the addiction was mostly drama, control and martyrdom (not saying I’ve totally kicked the habit but am well out of the dependency stage!). Whatever we have given up or working on giving up, the key is on taking responsibility for our choices, and as Joel clearly states, making the starting point about love.
Lovely to re-read this, and give myself — ourselves — permission to connect to the abundance of love we have within us and let this be our starting point and not the wanting to avoid a repeat of a hurtful or negative experience from the past. How different would life be if we came from the love that is within us every single day?
Thank you Joel – I just realised I too am a donkey… Thank you for reminding me that it is fruitless to chase carrots… fruitless (I crack myself up) 😀
You crack me up too Leonne!
Thanks SimpleSimon888 – so much fun to come back to this comment. A moment to appreciate and a reminder to be playful.
Now to be completely practical, it’s veggieless 🙂
Most un-satiating!
Knowing that we are more, living the love that is always inside of us is truly the most beautiful thing. In my own experience like you, nothing absolutely nothing feels as amazing as living in connection with my heart and my body.
Another beautiful blog Joel, turning on its head the notions that life is full of ups and downs, the good and the ugly and the inevitable suffering and misery. That is not who we are — perhaps it’s because we don’t tend to use this truth as our starting point that then life can become flat at times and even miserable?
Well said Joel. Our starting points, an expression of what is natural for us (even if there is nothing natural about them) also are the lenses we use to assess the world and how we we doing in it. That is why evolution requires re-framing, that is to adopt a new starting point that structure our life around the evolving-loving coordinates. Beautiful.
‘nothing can replace or be better than what I already feel’ I can feel that one.
Thank you Joel, the simplicity and the wisdom you share with us all is a joy to read.
I am more, so much more than the suffering I have created in my life – this line stood out for me. Even though I am not fully claiming myself as yet but I can feel this is so true for me – I am more than the suffering I have set up thus far in my life. It’s finally time for me to first see this for what it is and then connect to that more part of me and make different choices to bring more joy to my life. Thank you Joel this was beautiful to read.
I have just come back to this blog Joel having just read Love As An End Point. They go beautifully together. ‘Searching for rewards, however small, also made sense, as they were a sign of another day survived,’ – this sentence stood out for me this time since I do remember feeling that each day was just about making it through to the end so I could have a break. Its incredible how with a change of focus I too experience life differently. Same job, same people, same location etc, but now with much more joy.
Hmmm… love as the new starting point, because love is who I am and who we all are and we all deserve nothing less than love.
I agree in every point you shared !
A common problem that can arise in accepting the fact that the love inside is more than our suffering is this: the drama/struggle/misery is a long term investment that most have put a substantial amount of effort into. Love on the other hand is and has always been complete, untouched as you so eloquently stated. It does not require effort or investment to make it what it is… only the ability to let go of identifying with the struggle/hardship as being who we are and that means coming to terms with the choices and starting points we have all chosen for as long as we can remember. I say love is a great place to start but I have a feeling that there may be no end point, I have a feeling the possibilities are endless. Thanks Joel.
Loved this blog Joel and loved your comment Sarah, and yes and I agree Sarah love is a great place to start but there may be no end point. . . the possibilities are definitely endless.
They are endless and so the sooner you start the less regret you will feel for not starting earlier.
I agree Sarah but the funny thing is that you always feel that you are just starting to get it! This is because there is so much depth to uncover.
Very true, its endless really.
Beautiful and simple Joel. If we change our starting point, any change is possible.
Starting from Love and moving forward with daily choices from this starting point is the only way to be. And what a beautiful confirmation of self this way offers.
I agree Toni, how different life becomes when we start from love, it takes any drama or struggle away and confirms us.
The clarity and simplicity is magical Joel. Thank you.
Again, beautifully and simply expressed Joel, my starting point is love – a forever deepening love.
A great reminder to celebrate how far I have come. I can relate to being “that donkey” once before, but not any more!
Beautifully posed questions Joel. We are all far more than the misery we create in our lives.
Thank you Joel, most of us live like a donkey following a carrot until we realise the illusion that we are in.
The reward is inherent when we choose love as our starting point. The reward comes from being love and no external reward is needing as nothing beats it!
The reward is inherent when we choose love as our starting point.
I loved the clarification given for the word ‘love’. It’s amazing how loosely I’ve used that word in the past to encompass such a broad cross-section of emotions.
So simple Joel yet as you say ‘transformational’. Love the carrot and donkey analogy.
Same for me Joel. When I use love as the starting point my choices feel completely different; they have an innocence, curiosity and lightness about them.
Joel, of course if my starting point is struggle then I will do anything to move on from that, be it reward or distraction. But if my starting point is love, then each choice is either a confirmation or denial of that love and it’s a totally different premise – it becomes why would I leave love rather than how can I manage or get away from this in the struggle, simple and super profound. So it’s not about the behaviours so much as looking at our starting points.
The picture you paint is so true to me Joel. Humbling to feel that we’ve been leading our lives this way. An awesome reminder here that there’s no incentive that I need to chase. To live this way would just be to make a donkey out of myself!
Donkey visual. Love it. I love your ability to paint the truth with words Joel. A great read.
Thank you Joel, I can relate to chasing the carrot at the end of a stick and having the thought to change my life in order to feel better, but in fact only changed the treat on the end of the stick. Great reminder that we have everything we already need and that it is futile to chase anything outside of ourselves.
I love that you are aware that you are ‘so much more than the suffering’.
We as a society so often start without this knowing, and it is sad to see that we really do assume the worst outcomes to keep us small. Starting with love feels like a refreshing, powerful and supportive place to come from, and an amazing measure indeed!
Joel, love how you write. Your last line sums it up perfectly we are indeed so much more than the suffering we create. We are always that love within.
Inspiring read, and I can relate to what is shared around the starting point being from ‘struggle’ or ‘to get through’. It was recently I realised so many of my choices in life have come from this place and therefore I have created situations throughout life to confirm these beliefs! Making Love a starting point as presented by Universal Medicine is life changing 🙂 Thank you, Joel.
I just stumbled across this blog again tonight and realised I have read it very differently to the previous read. Pure gold and divine timing, thank you.
A starting point of love takes us to the heart of the matter. Beautiful. Returning to feel the love I truly am. Eye watering. Thank you Joel.
Love as a starting point with no end to reach. How simple and yet considering it as a way of being is very profound and as I’m experiencing, life changing. Thanks Joel for this.
Thank you, Joel for a beautiful blog. A great reminder that if we choose Love as our foundation, our starting point, then everything is taken care of.
Joel, I really like your “tears in the eye from joy” phrase. It clearly defines the type of
love which is expressed here.
As always I love your very insightful blogs Joel. What you have expressed here is a beautiful timely reminder to one who has chosen love as their starting point but gets caught out still seeking the rewards at times. Goodbye carrots!
….and sticks!
What a beautiful way for my day to begin, Joel. Reading this was pure confirmation of where things were, how things changed and of where I am now. I am so much more than whatever I may have suffered. Thanks be to the profound and playful love I have within me, along with the inspiration from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Thanks, Joel. I got caught up chasing the carrot today, and your blog helped me come back to the donkey!
Hilarious Natalie…only the donkey turned out to be a beautiful woman.
Love it Natalie and Rachel. Laughed out loud at your comments and remembered that indeed it’s not about that carrot, it’s the truth within, and it’s always there.
Beautiful and true, Rachel
I also read this blog again, one year later. A beauty full reminder:
“Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy?” This adds it up for me. It is time for me to create a new foundation based on love and not hurt. And I need to hold myself with love and understanding and everybody else equally. And with deep appreciation of myself as a living Son of God. Thank you Joel.
Thank you Joel. A new starting point, great choice. I’m inspired.
I have just read this blog again, one year later….still relevant and powerful. I still love the analogy of the donkey – we treat ourselves so appallingly until we recognise that deep inside is something so precious that NO carrot on earth can possibly bring a reward greater than its light.
Great blog Joel, so simple, playful – yet delivering a very important message. I really enjoy reading the way you write these!
Joel, this blog is fantastic. It’s so all about the starting point and if that starting point is love then it changes everything. Simple really. I laughed when you mentioned you realised you were the donkey, I’ve so lived like this, have a reward / carrot dangled out in front and really we can choose our starting and as you note later our end point too. Start with love and allow it to deepen and develop, that’s all there is.
Beautiful and simple Monica.
This blog is brilliantly simple, a chance to just stop and question our start point. Is my day going to start off with love? With me being the love that I am? I know from experience that has not been my conscious, everyday thought as I set out to go to work. But throughout my time reading these blogs I feel inspired to make the choice to make love my start point. And if I forget in the morning before work I know that NOTHING is stopping me from making that same choice to start again and be love on the train, in the staff room, behind the coffee machine at work or ANY part of my day for that matter! Thank you.
Great point Leighoflight we can always choose to make love our starting point at any time of the day.
This is an awesome revelation Joel and a real truth that so many would benefit from. The simplicity and tenderness you write with is beautiful, thank you for sharing.
I love how you’ve made the choice for true love so simple, and also absurd if one would choose anything else. Concise and profound at the same time.
Beautifully and simply expressed Joel. Thank you.
Love your clarity and simplicity Joel. Speaks to the heart.
Bravo Joel – we have to keep exposing this paradigm used by the misery / suffering consciousness, that keeps us imprisoned by the dangling carrot – ever going out, out, out, away from the innermost where true love and joy reside. I love the way you word, “Any choice will either confirm what I already feel, or take me away from that feeling. Why would I choose anything made me feel less of that love and joy?”.
Thanks Joel for your amazing contributions to the blogs.
Wow, Joel another great read… always so simple, playful and a joy to read. Thank you.
Oh yes! I am only now starting to appreciate that I am so much more and can be more than I have ever settled for. I like the idea of having love as a starting point, that way I won’t fall for anything less and go back into old habits! Thanks.
One of the things I’m noticing is that love as a starting point is the start, but then it’s about NOT making it an end point either… there is always a deeper level to experience. I’ve found I’ve used my current experience as an end point too often as well…
So true Joel I can relate not only to your blog but your comment here, this is where I have stumbled many times before, making love the end point and thinking I have made it…… I am there now. This caps me rather than seeing it is only a starting point to another level of awareness of the love that is within me. Thank you Joel a magical blog.
Awesome Joel. Yes, we are all so much more than the suffering we have created in our lives. I too, thanks to the presentations of Universal Medicine allowed myself to feel the glory and joy with-in and now have my starting point as love. It’s a delicious and beautiful feeling to feel the fullness in my body and not have the body crave something that will take it away from itself.
Thank you Joel, I love the way you express in words in the articles that you write.
Joel, I can relate to what you are saying, especially so after the last two Universal Medicine events.
“Why would I choose anything that made me feel less of that love and joy?”
So true! Why do we choose less, especially when choosing love supports those around us to connect with love as well.
If we ever wanted confirmation that this stuff all comes from the same place, this was written about three weeks before last weekend’s workshops… indeed… why would we choose anything less…
Joel, what a beautiful truth, very inspiring!!
Joel, when you write it is pure magic.
I agree