Love is Always Justified: Demonstrating Love in the Face of Fear



“Love is always justified.”

-Akashic Masters

This article is lovingly dedicated to Veronica, who reminded me of my choice between love and fear–

and thus guided me gently back to choosing love.

In a personal session with the Akashic Masters this past January, I asked them what the most important thing in life was.

I asked because I was feeling especially focused on living up to my potential, crafting a purposeful and beautiful life, and creating good in this world.  Okay. I was also feeling a little lost and unfulfilled.

As a shaman, I ask the Akashic Masters dozens upon dozens of questions a month on behalf of myself and other people.  I had never before thought to ask them this profoundly simple one.

What is the most important thing in life?

Since the Akashic Masters always communicate to me with such raw and poetic honesty, I curiously awaited what I would get in response.

The answer came.

“DEMONSTRATE LOVE”

Demonstrate Love.
Okay.

Demonstrate Love?

A-ha!

Demonstrate Love!

I got it.

It’s the most important thing in life.  It’s the key to happiness. It’s the formula for how to handle everything.

I will choose to Demonstrate Love.

I will choose to Demonstrate Love wherever and whenever it is hardest to do so.

I will choose to Demonstrate Love to people who are hurting, because they need it most.

I will choose to Demonstrate Love to the people who hurt me, because I need to lead by example.  Through these actions, healing of the self and another occurs simultaneously.

I will choose to Demonstrate Love in the face of fear, because love transmutes fear back into love.  This is spiritual alchemy.

Love is the anecdote to suffering.

All real truth is based in love.

Fear masks love.

Fear that is overcome returns to love.

You do the math on that.

If you triumph over fear, you will live happily ever after…for real.  After all, love is exactly what happily ever after is made of.

It is not easy for most of us to understand and accept these truths about love.

It is deceptively difficult to grasp what massive positive change our actions born out of love are capable of bringing into our lives.

But we can choose to accept this rush of good stuff.  I can.  You can.

You can reap the maximum benefits that the Universe has to offer.  You can experience as much happiness as the human heart is capable of holding. You can literally push…then reach…then surpass…the self-imposed limits of how much happiness you’ve got in your life.

These are the benefits created by the experience of love.

The experience of love is not even limited to the mantra Demonstrate Love.  There are lessons to be learned in receiving and welcoming love that is given to you.  There are growth opportunities in acting from love in the face of unkind actions or words by someone else.

The Challenge

Demonstrating Love isn’t always the obvious solution…but it is always the solution.

Love-based action is not always easy to identify or take, and fear is not always marked by actually feeling afraid.

There are myriad disguises and opportunities for us to choose both love and fear, and it is truly up to us to blaze a life trail that is paved with love.

There is love in the choice to sweetly kiss a child’s knee when she falls.

There is love in the effort to generously tip a struggling waiter who stands on his feet all day to deal with ungrateful customers.

There is love in the decision to remain professional in the midst of somebody else unleashing immaturity or dishonesty at you.

There is love in the action of extending kind words instead of critical ones when you are feeling testy, hurt or frustrated.

Look at the ways in which the Love/Fear polarity presents itself in your life.

How can you reframe your choices to become a better expression of love?

It may not be instantly natural for you to behave out of love when someone triggers a personal button inside you.  Suddenly, you feel your whole head aflame with agitation, frustration, and all those negative feelings want to consume you.

It is in this very moment—the moment when anger or something ugly is stirred within you—that behaving out of love becomes most critical.

It is not a matter of personality or character that you either “have” or “don’t have.” It is a conscious choice, a learned behavior…a life skill that each of us can master.

Mastery Leads to Happiness

If you can master the world’s single most important life skill—to choose your actions out of love, not fear—your entire living experience will open up to new forms of happiness and fulfillment.

Fear is a wrecking ball to your happiness.

Its disciples are anger, depression, anxiety, judgment, pride, selfishness and ego.

Allow too much fear to seep into your psyche and your behaviors will rot away your soul’s light.

These are not lightly acquired statements, either…they come from the same Source that teaches us to love first and put all else second.

How easy it is for us to give in to fear!

How simple, how fast-acting that knee-jerk reflex is to attack instead of comfort, to break down instead of build up, to lose sight of the natural challenges inherent in the human experience.

When we remember that all of human experience is an open opportunity to choose between love and fear, it becomes infinitely more reasonable to consistently act out of love.

Perhaps even more importantly, when something happens that merits acting out of love and we instead find ourselves acting out of fear (including anger, insecurity, ego, pride, or the relentless drive to be “right”), this is a huge opportunity to self-correct!

Catch yourself in the act of being human. It’s okay!  The task is not to read this article and instantly become a perfect living demonstration of love, every second of every day. The task is to practice, learn, and build ourselves to a place of consistency in demonstrating love.

Demonstrating Love is valuable work with the highest payoff—happiness.

What Are You Spreading Around?

The most powerful motivator I find in choosing love is the realization that every time I interact with anyone, my energy imprints upon them and is carried with them.  It affects them. I affect them.

Knowing this brings a profound and beautiful sense of awe and power to mind. I choose to have reverence for the role I play in the lives of others who need me, want me, care about me, and love me.

If someone is hurting and I respond to her out of anger, I only succeed in deepening her wound.

If someone is hurting and I respond to him out of compassion, I actually help to heal and close his wound.

Given that each one of us possesses the power to hurt or to heal at any given moment in any interpersonal situation, what do you choose?

What am I choosing to spread around?

When I am confronted with a person or situation that challenges me, is it truly my wish to damage them with selfish anger, or to uplift them with generous love?

I would like to leave a glittering trail of good stuff—love, joy, kindness, compassion—in the wake of my words and actions.  When people walk away from a conversation with me, whether in person, by phone, or email, I’d like them to feel better for having interacted with me—not worse.

I am not always good at this. Sometimes I fail miserably.  But I am growing, learning, practicing, and improving everyday.

I believe you, too, would like to leave people better for having been in your light, your presence.

To wound someone we don’t know very well may seem inconsequential, but it isn’t. We never know how hurting somebody plays out later.

To wound someone we know and love is the deeper consequence of immaturity based in fear.  To do this means we are hurting someone whose pain will weaken their light, and perhaps if left unchecked over a prolonged time, will weaken the bond we share with them.

Love Vs. Fear in Relationships

No greater opportunity to Demonstrate Love exists than in the context of romantic relationships.

Naturally, this means that romantic partners bear the uncanny ability to really push our fear buttons, so that we can rise above our petty human instincts and embrace love where it matters most.

If love was always the easy choice, it wouldn’t be much of a choice. If there was no experience of fear in your romance, you would not gain the needed skills to actively choose love instead.

Making choices is our way of expanding and improving character. Everything in life is a choice. While we may not always have control over circumstances, is it our choice to respond to them with the best or worst we’ve got inside us.

The choice to Demonstrate Love exists inside every single one of us.

Our romantic partners, when well chosen, reflect our karmic needs back to us like mirrors showing us the images inside our hearts.  What comes up in the reflection process is absolutely everything—the good, the bad, the ugly, the “oh shit, I didn’t think I was going to have to actually work on this now” stuff.

That’s right, take just a moment to let this truth sink in:  everything that needs to come up to the surface of your life and be let go of will surface!

This means all of your pains, fears, weaknesses, flaws, and little dark spots will be stirred awake in the presence of your true love.

Of course, as “healthy and healing” as it is, this feels simply awful, like you’ve suddenly walked into the emotional equivalent of oncoming traffic.

Nobody wants the person they love to see their shadow side, their weaknesses, the things they aren’t proud of.  That’s why we bury these things so far inside our psyches and souls—we’d rather not examine them or deal with them, let alone expose them to somebody who we want to see us as their ideal mate!

Letting your beloved see your fears can feel like you are drowning in more fears—and anger, resentment, insecurity, disillusionment, internal conflict, negativity, and major resistance is likely to surface as it occurs.

When this happens, all hell can break loose—at first—but I assure you, it will pass!

The process of working through karmic issues with a beloved one is not pretty at first.

The more love that exists between you—the more powerful the bond—the higher the payoff is for Demonstrating Love.  Yeah, that means the harder it is to master, too.

Quadruple the messiness factor if you’re lucky enough to have found your Twin Flame/Twin Soul (subject of a future article)!  All your soul’s accumulated karmic slime and sludge and guck and ickyness seems to rapidly and alarmingly ooze out of your pores and make a bloody wild mess of everything.

The great news is that if you are determined and pure in your intentions to see it through, you will come out the other side of this karmic cleansing better, happier, and more capable of love and joy than you have ever been or imagined.

You will no longer carry within you the burdens that once weighed your life down.

You will no longer be confined behind barriers to true love, true happiness, or true success—because you will have seen these barriers to their death in the fires of karmic transformation.

Ultimately, your life will shine.

You relationship will fulfill and reward you beyond human measure.

You will, for the first time, be able to see your life through the eyes of Divine Love.

It is nothing short of a complete metamorphosis of the self. You will shed all the darker parts that bound you to suffering, and embrace the positive qualities that were hiding underneath such heavy wounds.

You will be happy.

Really, truly, honestly happy.

These are the gifts that Demonstrating Love in your soul-level love relationship can bring straight to your doorstep.

If this sounds good to you, well, yeah—you’re going to have to work for it first. But at least you know the result is unquestionably worth it!

Perhaps that is one of my biggest hopes in writing this article: to inform and remind you that when the fear-based questions come up, it is just a part of the natural process of healing and bonding with your soul’s partner.

You may be asking yourself any number of fear-based questions.

Is this the right person for me?

Is this going to work out?

Why am I feeling so totally in love and so totally pissed off at the same time?

Why am I making such a big deal out of this when I know I love her/him?

What’s wrong with me?

Why is everything so intense?

Why is so much stuff coming up at once?

What the hell is going on here—I love this person beyond any love I’ve ever known but s/he’s driving me crazy!?

These, and many other questions, are the ego’s way of trying to remain in authority of your life. The more love you let into your life, the more your ego will buck the system and try to regain control.

And just like fear is the polarity of love, control is the polarity of surrender.

Surrender is the most appropriate and painless way to resolve issues of the ego as they surface in your relationship.

Surrender to love.

When we surrender the need to control, to be right, to have things go the way we think is best, we allow room for Divine Love to enter.  Only then will the highest outcome of good happen in our relationships—because we allowed ego to dissolve and love to take center stage.

Your task is simply to let fears surface, notice them, and let them GO.  Rather than assign them value and meaning and give them power, simply choose to let them go.

Let love in. It does not ask that you control circumstances, outcomes, or another person. Love asks only that you create more love, honor the love you have, and accept the happiness it brings into your relationship.

The Modalities of Love:  How We Show It

There are infinite ways to Demonstrate Love. Here are just a few to get you started!

-Tone of Voice.  Your tone of voice can be a way of Demonstrating Love.  Saying “hi” like a cold dead fish on the phone is not the same as a soft, sparkling “hi” that transmits love through the sound of your voice.

If your voice is normally sparkling and you let it down in tone, this can be a non-verbal outreach, a sign letting someone know you are feeling low and need to be replenished. If you hear this in your partner, friend, or colleague, answer the call: Demonstrate Love in your tone and see what happens over the course of your conversation!

-Words.  While much more complex than it initially seems, selecting words to express love instead of anger, hurt, or fear of another sort is a tremendous gift to anyone you speak to.  Combine the words “I love you” with the tone that backs your love up, and you’ve got one helluva powerfully positive cocktail going!

Besides the obvious “I love you,” here are words that carry the vibration of love in their very deliverance to someone else.

Of course, the most powerful words of love are the ones you generate on your own, from the heart, without concern about whether they are pretty. If they are from your heart, after all, they are music to the ears of your beloved.

These phrases are powerful starting points.  When you are in an emotional pinch and cannot come up with something loving in the moment, come here. If you feel compelled to say something hurtful, try quickly glancing at this list and choosing to speak out of love.

Your relationship will bloom from this type of practiced and consistent selflessness.

After all, underneath the fear and hurt that your old angry words convey, you probably really mean the loving things anyhow.

You matter to me.

I support you.

I’m here for you now.

You are my priority.

I always have time for you.

What can I do to help?

How can I make this better?

I’m listening.

I will help you through this.

You can get through this.

You are beautiful.

I am grateful for you.

I will not hurt you.

I never mean to hurt you.

I am truly sorry.

I forgive you.

Thank you for your forgiveness.

Thank you for your patience.

Thank you for being you.

Thank you for accepting me.

You are remarkable and special to me beyond words.

I can make this right.

I can show you how much I love you.

You are not alone.

We can tackle this together.

It’s okay.

-Gestures.  Taking a moment to create a gesture of love is always worth it.

Anybody can Demonstrate Love through a simple greeting card, note, a mixed CD, personally meaningful trinket, a smile extended in place of a scowl, blowing a kiss (or sending a hug), and gifts (of any price at all, including the best gifts—handmade/handwritten always sends extra love because your energy is literally imprinted into the object you’ve created).

Though gestures are actions, I categorize them separately here with a focus on the mostly tangible nature of gestures that can be given. There is something remarkably powerful about having something in your hands to hold, feel, touch, and cling to as an object of expressed love. Especially in the absence of a loved one, gestures give the heart a big lift.

-Actions.  Actions include anything that demonstrates your love.  This can be as simple as opening a door for your girlfriend, to going out of your way to change a hurtful habit.

Spending quality time together alone with one another is one of the most important actions you can take on your journey through the halls of true love.

While words are beautiful, they are empty unless used as the blueprints for our actions.

Show up. Go out of your way. Prove that you mean what you say.  Look for windows of opportunity to demonstrate your willingness to be a loving, supportive partner. Actions are the flesh and blood of expressing love.

-Touch.  If you are in a romantic relationship, the act of physical connectedness can be one of the most important expressions of love you will ever share with your beloved one. What type of message are you communicating in the way your hands brush across her skin, or the way your arms wrap around her when you first embrace?  When you make love, is it hurried and out of raw desire, or slow and lingering out of intense soulful connection?

Touch is a language unto itself.  The way you reach for and touch your beloved—and how frequently you touch your beloved—is a tangible communication about the way you love him/her.

Holding hands demonstrates love. A soft kiss on a rough cheek demonstrates love. Physical connection demonstrates love.

For a non-romantic relationship like a parent and child, friends, colleagues, a gesture of touch can also be meaningful. A hug, a pat on the back, the playful tousling of a child’s hair…these things allow loving energy to travel from your fingertips to your recipient.

-Self-Care.  Taking care of yourself is a way to “prime the canvas” so-to-speak for the brightest picture of love you can possibly paint.

Self-care does not imply or involve selfishness.

Unlike selfishness, which puts your wants and needs stubbornly ahead of those of your beloved partner, self-care is generous in nature because it includes actively becoming your best self in order to serve your partner with the highest degree of love.

Taking care of yourself and having your needs met can be beautiful.  It can also be a slippery slope leading to too much focus on the self, so it’s important to safeguard against selfishness by consciously choosing to put your partner’s needs upfront.

When you do this, when you put your partner’s needs in a place of deep importance, your life becomes a daily expression of love.  Your partner feels inspired to put your needs in the spotlight because s/he sees his/her own needs being met with your actions.

Self-care may include time alone for meditation, eating things that make your body strong and healthy, enjoying hobbies and habits that uplift and rejuvenate you, and pursuing a life path that fulfills both you and your partner’s dreams together.

Self-care is an ongoing creation process—not something you do first, then bring to your partner when you’re “finished.”

Because of this, it is critical to identify the difference between self-care and selfishness as early on as possible in a relationship.  Otherwise, you run the risk of appearing—or becoming—so self-absorbed in your pursuit of your own needs that you let your partner’s go unfulfilled.

The trick is to balance the two together. Your needs should be in harmony with what really brings you happiness, but not at the expense of your relationship’s needs or your partner’s needs.

You may not always want, like, or need the same things at the same time. This is okay…this is very, very normal. Self-care means that you are not neglecting your own needs, but you do not have to neglect your partner’s needs in order to take care of yours.

The Commitment to Love

You are ready and able to Demonstrate Love in your daily actions, beginning now.

By saying the following words out loud or to yourself, you can mark today as the beginning of a personal era of love-inspired living!

“I now choose to live my life as a Demonstration of Love.

To do this, I need not be perfect. In fact, I accept that I will sometimes find myself swayed by the allure of the easy, fearful choice.

But it is not my intention to live or act in fear.  As soon as I catch myself getting off track, I will quickly forgive myself and move forward with Demonstrating Love.

If I have hurt someone in my attachments to fear-based thinking and behaviors, I will apologize and make it right to the best of my ability.  Once I have replaced my fearful actions with loving ones, I can breath a sigh of relief that ultimately, I chose love.

Beginning today, my life is on course to Demonstrate Love.”

I will always be here to Demonstrate Love with you, my dear readers, friends, and loved ones.  When I fall, when I fail, please forgive me, as I am learning to forgive myself.  It is my wish and intention to Demonstrate Love.

After all, love is always justified.

Jennifer Abeles is the Founder & Editor of Soul Candy, and she wrote this article as a Demonstration of Love for you.