What Happens When You Live from Love
What Happens When You Live from Love
Moving through emotions, how the seen and unseen love you, the food that soothes me, and a recipe for Green Olive Salsa
It’s been a heavy week. Has it been heavy for you, too?
Well, perhaps as I describe what’s going on for me, you’ll hear something that pings how you’re feeling and, in that ping, I hope you’ll feel a little less alone through all the heaviness.
I want you to know that after all my decades on this planet, I believe that this human existence is about holding that which is heavy and that which is light.
I know that you and I have the capacity to hold them both, simultaneously, promise.
All week long, I heard a call from within to change my plans and share this as the next pillar of soul work: Live from Love.
Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure that I was brave enough to go there just yet.
I knew we would talk about love at some point because it’s one of the keys to coming into the fullest expression of yourself. It’s core to becoming your most integrated self, the one who is guided by the soul.
And while I kept hearing, “Now is the time to talk about love,” my body was not ready. It was not ready to share the deep vulnerabilities I moved through in order to live, as frequently as possible, from a place of love.
To share this pillar and its corresponding wounds with you would be an invitation to me to Tell the Whole Truth (which is another pillar of soul work that we’ll explore soon). I guess I wanted more time to get there.
But then, so much has unfolded on a global scale and a very personal one, that it felt like the right time to be brave.
I am ready now because the more I Live from Love, the less I tolerate hiding behind my fear. The more you Live from Love, the less you will tolerate allowing fear to hold you back, too.
So, I’m going to share more about this pillar of soul work. And then I’m going to share the magic that found me through death this week. And then I’m going to share how I held myself through it all, including how food and ritual nourished my sweet soul.
I will go into a lot more depth on this pillar of soul work, Live from Love, on this week’s podcast, which launches on Wednesday, October 11, at 6:00 am est. Subscribe here.
Many years ago, I made a choice to do the hardest work of a lifetime: to love myself.
This is beyond just healing my relationship with food or saying affirmations to love my body. This involves walking the path of learning to forgive myself. Forgiveness is the path to love.
And, in my case, I felt like there was a lot to forgive.
When I was young, I felt heavy responsibility for others. Hence, I developed traits of stubbornness, self-righteousness, and dominance—making some of my adult relationships very challenging.
My father and I were estranged for the last years of his life.
While we’ve reconciled now, I didn’t heal that relationship while he was alive. I tried. But I also figured that any faults of character resided within others, not within me.
Ultimately, these traits rose to protect my inner child who felt like she was never good enough. They rose from sadness and shame. They rose from fear.
But the more I awakened to soul, the more I heard the call to face my fears, to allow them to merge with compassion and love.
So I’ve spent the last many years moving toward, not away from, my wounds.
By facing my wounds, I could see how I co-created my circumstances; how I allowed my trauma to impact others; how I permitted my pain to persist.
With curiosity and tenderness, I examined my wounds so I could understand and, eventually, forgive myself.
My realizations helped me transcend the trauma.
My reconciliations helped me transmute the pain into power.
And then, these revelations helped me to see the gifts in my wounds.
All of this is wonderful and, of course, more than enough. Because this process has helped me feel more whole and made me a skilled mentor and healer.
But along this path, something else happened.
When I was able to sit with my pain, to allow me to transform that pain into love, I ceased making choices from fear.
I began making choices from love.
This shift has helped me make a life filled with new experiences, deep friendships, and work that feels immensely fulfilling.
I have even redefined success to center abundance, adventure, ease, self-trust, and magic.
As you make choices from love, you begin to live from love. You may still have fears but they no longer stifle your potential nor your desire for possibility.
When you live from love, you innately listen to your soul and, inevitably, follow your wildest dreams.
If you are on this path, I invite you to consider joining my Soul Mentorship Program to follow your soul’s guidance to embody your wildest dreams. Book a free call to discuss securing one of my remaining spots in 2023.
A couple weeks back, I received a phone call to notify me that a family member, the last living elder of my Honduran lineage, was near death.
Now I feel very connected to this human and to my whole Honduran lineage, living and passed, so much so that a few weeks prior to this phone call, I heard a call from within that said it was time to visit this person.
I spent five hours with them, reminiscing, talking about food, about my mother, about the corruption in Honduras that was molded by U.S. industrial occupation that began in the 1800s, about Mayan spirituality, about how we live in a modern time when we can drive and listen to audio books simultaneously without crashing into each other, and so much more. It was a spirited and sorrowful series of conversations.
I left feeling overwhelmed with all kinds of emotions and, as well, the reality that it was likely our last of these types of deep talks.
When I received the phone call that this family member’s passing was imminent, I also heard a spiritual invitation to deepen my practices and to specifically focus on my dream space and sleep hygiene.
For me, this means ceasing my food consumption at least three plus hours before bedtime. This means cleansing my bedroom each day and night—uncovering the sheets and opening up the windows to allow air to pass through them, to let the element cleanse them, and remaking my bed each evening with a spritz or two of this cosmic aura mist. This means lighting a few candles and whispering to whoever can hear me—ancestors, spirits, angels, or just the neighbors—inviting them to bring me any clarity in the dream space.
Over those couple of weeks, my dreams were the wildest they’ve been in a while, offering a clear bridge between the earthly and the spiritual.
My grandmother came through to remind me of her presence, to offer me wise counsel. A group of people I’ve never seen in my dreams came through to alert me that they were waiting for “them”—and I knew that they meant the elder who was near death.
And then, my parents came through repeatedly to echo and re-live what was happening in real life, as a signal that they were ever present, likely also waiting for “them.” I haven’t felt this close to all of my ancestors in a very, very long time.
Over this past weekend, as soon as my home was cleaned from top to bottom, I heard a call from within to light up all the candles. Fire is the most sacred element in Mayan spirituality but it’s also used across communities and lineages. As I lit each candle, I expressed a lot of gratitude for having a clean home in which I could now be still and listen.
Once the candles were all lit, giving a divine glow to my space, I sat down and almost immediately received a phone call.
Before I even looked at the screen or picked up the phone call, I knew that the last living elder in my family had passed. In fact, as I was told, they had passed just moments ago, perhaps even, as I lit the candles.
I cried for a moment and then smiled widely, feeling so much gratitude for the space within, the space that my soul has cultivated, the space in which I could be held by my own soul, but also by all those seen and unseen, the space in which I now had the capacity to hold both the sadness of all situations and the love, simultaneously.
That was just one of two deaths in my immediate circle. I also heard about someone’s good health news and another’s recent engagement ceremony. And then Guatemala. And then Israel.
In the last week, this human existence has presented an overflowing pot of bleakness with some occasional moments of hope. This is what it means to be alive and we persist, whatever that means to you, because we choose to.
I choose to persist. I choose to love, to Live from Love. I choose to nourish myself.
When the elder in my family passed away, I tried to sip on a short Margarita in their honor. But the tequila tasted too aggressive to my tongue in that moment so, instead, I pan-fried some carb-rich vegetable dumplings and tossed them into a spinach salad, eating it a bit mindlessly in front of the television, probably, ironically, watching Love is Blind.
I used to think that mindless eating was an affront to the sacredness of the body but I now believe that there is a bit of magic in mindlessly nourishing ourselves.
To eat mindlessly, especially in the mad moments of our times, is to witness the body persist, to feed itself, to sooth its soul, to seek to live, even when there are so many dying around us.
The top dish I turn to when I’m feeling a jumble of emotions is a thin omelette. I wrote about a great version here last week. But this weekend, I made thin, crepe-like omelettes, with only two eggs, and tossed in whatever green vegetable was laying about in the fridge, almost roughly and reluctantly, forcing myself to eat something that is indeed nutrient rich and not just chocolate.
I did, however, eat a lot of chocolate, mostly milk chocolate. I also warmed up some meatballs in red sauce from a few weeks back and defrosted slices of zucchini bread and banana bread—both studded with chocolate, mostly milk chocolate. :)
But I promise, as I integrated all the news, my meals improved in texture, effort, and flavor. They didn’t have to but the ritual behind increased effort can be so healing.
Just last night, I roasted a spatchcock chicken over onions and carrots. It was coated in olive oil, chopped rosemary, and onion salt. I doubled up on the onion flavor, to allow its intensity to remind me that I was alive, with a body and a palate that could still detect the onion’s raw earthiness, that could still detect the difference between numbness and aliveness.
To take my chicken dish a step further, I also made a strong green olive salsa to spoon on top of each bite of roast chicken. My impromptu version was a melding of my Honduran and Italian heritage, and while I would love to give you precise measurements, something is saying to me, perhaps my soul, that this recipe is an invitation to trust your own intuition and body.
You know what tastes good to you so chop and stir and taste as you go, until you find the perfectly soothing bit of strong flavor for your own soul.
The final dish will be entirely dependent on your choice of olive. The Castelvetrano olives I used are mild and buttery; if you use a saltier olive, add less sea salt to the salsa. I like to place the parsley stems under a chicken while it roasts in the oven, but you’re also welcome to add it to the salsa if you appreciate texture.
Before we get to the loose recipe, I want you to know that we can talk about how to follow the signals and messages of your soul to change your life or just move through change in person this Fall.
I’m hosting two live sessions with limited spots at The Estuary in Essex, Massachusetts very soon.
The first event is a free women’s circle that is almost sold out. Next week, I will share stories on the sweetness of life and the magic that unfolds when you listen to your soul. It’s perfect for those wishing to trust their inner voice. I’ll also share a bit about Ceremonial Cacao as a heart-opening, sacred food that helped me trust myself. This is on Thursday, October 19 at 6:30 pm ET. That’s next week!
The second event is a two-hour Sacred Cacao Ceremony during which I will guide you through an experience of softness, connection, and remembrance in order to hear vital messages from your soul and allow your next best steps to surface. In addition, you will enjoy the Ceremonial Cacao in ceramic cups made by and infused with my Tijax energy, the sacred energy of the warrior-healer that I carry in this lifetime. This is on Sunday, November 12 at 10:00 am ET. Grab your spot as there are a few left!
I share the links to reserve your space here.
Green Olive Salsa
Makes about 1 1/2 cups
Ingredients:
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves finely chopped, stems reserved for another use
1/2 cup pitted Castelvetrano olives
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and finely diced
2 tablespoons lime juice (from about 1 lime)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt, to taste
Directions:
Place all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir, taste, and add additional ingredients to suit your taste. Add extra olives to give it more heft, extra jalapeño for more spice, extra lime juice for more zing, or extra sea salt for more aliveness. Do what feels good to make it taste good to your sweet soul.
