by Sarah Davis, Goonellabah NSW
A lovely and wise young woman recently said to me that “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. This was in the context of a group discussion of how we ‘hold back’ expressing love, our true essence, in life.
When the young woman said these words it was like I had a ‘high speed download’ – or what some may call a ‘moment of revelation’ – where my understanding in one moment expanded. I immediately felt how the nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.
From this I then connected to the deep understanding and feeling that love is our essence, it is what we are made of and therefore it is everyone’s right to feel it and receive it. I felt how if I choose to hold back my love and natural expression (often through beliefs and ideals, i.e., ‘I am not enough’; ‘it is not safe to trust’; ‘fear of rejection’; etc) I am not only denying myself – I am denying others love, which through reflection can inspire them to re-connect to that same love which is within them.
Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?
To be honest I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to. I have placed many conditions on sharing love. The other person needs to do something for me first, then I will open to them or share with them. I have wielded this in many cases where I would be open and ‘loving’ to one person, but not to another. How would I pick and choose this? Generally I would be ‘loving’ to those who please me, or whom I want to please; ‘unloving’ to those who displease, annoy or threaten me. A note here that my being ‘unloving’ did not often look horrible or mean – it was usually in the form of ‘politeness’– for this is considered socially appropriate behaviour and is a way to ‘play it safe’. Though how ‘safe’ is it truly to hold back something which is both our essence and our right to feel and express? In the attempt to hold back or ‘protect myself’ from, I was not aware that I was hurting myself through being separate to the love that I am. I had the commonly held belief that I could love myself and not another – ‘be selective’ in other words. For me, politeness in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships whereby I always felt alone – however, in reflection I was creating this separation in the first place by not first connecting to the love that I am and expressing that to another. A world without love does not make for a common or inspiring vision, however we must be honest about the fact that politeness does not replace love. On a superficial level politeness can help a system function – turn taking, sharing, listening to others, etc. However, on a deeper human level, politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.
True, we have free will which allows us to choose our expression; though what part of us thinks it is ‘ok’, ‘fine’, ‘justified’, ‘normal’ or perhaps even ‘good’ to hold back love?
What part of us (belief, ideal, energy) allows ‘politeness’, ‘tolerance’, the ‘holding of grudges’, right through to the ‘us and them’ beliefs which justify atrocities – to be considered acceptable forms of relating? And furthermore, what part of us falls for the belief that we can live our lives holding back love, and then press some ‘on’ button for our friends and family? When the truth is felt, that love is for all equally, none of our loveless actions can be justified.
I imagine if I were in a desert with humanity and we were all thirsty – I carry an endless cup of water. I know that everyone can find their own cup of water, however many are not aware of this. When I offer my ‘cup of water’ to someone else, it can firstly be a reminder that they are thirsty and even need a drink, as well as a reminder and inspiration to seek out and claim their own ‘endless cup’, which is no further than right there within them.
However, I share it only with some, leaving others thirsty.
When I feel and connect to the truth of love, it is absolutely without a doubt for all equally – the ‘idea’ of holding it back seems totally out of place, however all too common, as under certain conditions we ‘pick and choose’, rather than sharing freely what is in endless supply and naturally for us all.
Words on Serge Benhayon 
Serge Benhayon and family live and emanate true love, it is so amazing to finally be reminded, to see, and feel, what true love is.
This is really deeply touching to read, we could even replace the word ‘love’ with ‘ourselves’ and ask if we are bringing the fullness of ourselves to everyone equally? I was observing something in group work recently and how people can seem open and ‘loving’ with those that support their work or support them directly, but not have that same openness with others who may not endorse their work. I can see it in myself how the ‘love’ switches on and off based on certain conditions being met or not, which I have to say is really liking or approving of others, not truly love.
” the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” Wow this just puts it into perspective – our responsibility to be all we are.
I love the analogy of the endless cup. When we offer it only to a selected few, it is no longer endless, we can feel the leakage of a sort, and we leave ourselves very thirsty and constantly having to look for those who would offer it to us to make a mutual deal. If it is lesser love, it is not love any more.
‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?’ Such an amazing question. I can feel the truth of it. When I hold back it feels like I’m just making life all about me and it feels like holding back the universe and how arrogant am I to do this. When I am transparent with whatever is going on this brings me closer to those around me, we all get permission to be ourselves. We can share this in lighthearted moments or sharing something deeply personal to them or however it is.
We are endorsing the individual when we make life all about self; who am I to choose to hold back something that is given for All.
Even when we say unconditional-love it comes loaded with our ways of living and it is not until we reconnect to our inner-most and live from this most sacred place do we start to get the depth of what you have shared Sarah.
“For me, politeness in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships whereby I always felt alone”. As this is true for you, I wonder how many other people this is true for? And could it be a contributing factor to the current levels of loneliness?
Politeness has always felt devastating to me when it is a functional nicety. Devastating because it’s meant to be the highest accolade within a civilised society. But when there’s nothing beyond it, it serves as a barrier to intimacy, a silent protection. At least with rudeness there’s at least an honesty there, an opportunity for greater intimacy when we say, hey, what’s going on for you?
Is it any wonder so many people are lonely when we still have much politeness in society, ‘For me, politeness in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships whereby I always felt alone.’
“In the attempt to hold back or ‘protect myself’ from, I was not aware that I was hurting myself through being separate to the love that I am.” That is really not a very common way to look at holding back but I like it very much as it showed us very clear that most of us can love so much more. How would the world would look like if we all would love without holding back or being polite!
“politeness in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships whereby I always felt alone” it is a very isolating place to be to not share all the love we are with everyone.
Now it has been called out, how politeness is so superficial and blocks the way for love, we can all feel the truth of this, so how evil then is ‘politeness’.
Politness is a way to manipulate others so no one will attack you. It is a strategy to buy safety.
Wise words Eduardo, as always. It may be time to start a bumper sticker company for all your gems of wisdom! 🙂
Absolutely, but at what cost?!
This is such a great blog to read as how many of us were brought up with the belief that we had to be polite no matter what provocation, not to show any feelings or emotion as this would give other people the upper hand. This seems to me to be a very robotic way to live as it completely disregards the fact that we cannot stop feeling, we can numb these feelings, but we cannot stop them as they are as natural to us as breathing.
I love the analogy of offering a drink of water and how we pick and choose who we offer the water too, it helps to see how clearly we select those that are worthy of our love and those that are not based on ideals and beliefs, (the lies) that we have bought into.
Politeness feels like control it crushes another’s natural expression to conform and fit in a box.
Yes, and here we find that our love is endless. Because we are from it, an forever supply that we know inside out.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. And the cup of love that is held within us is one that never runs out, in fact the more we express the love the more substantial it becomes, because it is not our own, it is the Universe.
I can so relate to what you have shared here Sara, especially this paragraph which describes my recent behaviour “However, on a deeper human level, politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.” Holding back love to protect myself in certain situations is not a game I am willing to play anymore as love is for all.
We are love, and are here to share our love equally with all.
When we truly connect with someone politeness suddenly feels insulting.. like a facade and a front that we’re hiding behind. We have access to so much truth and wisdom, and when we can express that to one another why would we ever want to settle for anything less? Politeness might feel safe and comfortable but if we allow that to be the limit of our expression, it is stifling and stunting of our evolution.
Politeness is stifling and stunting of our evolution; it stops the love flowing, and feels horrible, false, and more.
What I can feel is how I try to place a line of acceptability in all those shades of lovelessness but what you share here clearly indicates what is not love is not love in no matter how well presented/disguised as something else, and ‘holding back love’ brings something else forward.
Surely anything that is not love is a form of abuse?
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody? ” That there is an arrogance here if we hold back is shocking to re-read. “When I feel and connect to the truth of love, it is absolutely without a doubt for all equally – the ‘idea’ of holding it back seems totally out of place, however all too common, as under certain conditions we ‘pick and choose’, rather than sharing freely what is in endless supply and naturally for us all.” So true Sarah.
Love is the word with more pictures than any other. In the world it seems to be something exclusive for a selective group of people, for your partner, for your kids…depending of who you are I would give you less or more. It has been sold as something that can be controlled, measured or even exchanged. However not many people live it or have it as a foundation of their life. Serge Benhayon, his family and many students of the Livingness are for me an inspiration because they makes me see what true love is about, it is about us, it simply is who we are.
Love is Truth and sometimes this Truth is not comfortable to see. It exposes how much we have separated from our essence seeking recognition and acceptance or playing safe instead of being honest or how arrogantly we performed believing that we are less or more…However Love is greater than any of that. It never punsih or demands us anything just presents us where we are at in a very simple and clear way. It is up to us embrace it or not.
Being selective in expressing love shows that we are holding ourselves not consistently in love. The moment we have ‘out‘ moments in our daily movements, we actually insult our being, as there are no breaks in being you and the love that you are.
Politeness is worse than someone telling me harsh words. As the truth is hidden behind being good and nice. It is not honest, as it only fulfills a certain picture instead of expressing in a true way.
“To be honest I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to. I have placed many conditions on sharing love.” I have lived like this too Sarah,…. you show me love first then I will show you love and within this I created so many conditions that I rarely showed love, it felt too vulnerable and exposing and it never lasted. I am now allowing myself to feel what being open and vulnerable feels like and it is so much more enjoyable, there is less tension and feels so expansive in the body that it seems crazy that I would want to choose anything different.
When we hold back our love for ourselves and others we all miss out on the potential that love can bring and initiate in each other.
Holding back love affects all of us because we are holding back what and who we are by divine design.
Being the one living the love you wish the world to be first. Instead of putting out a constant demand of how the world should be for you. What if you are there to show the way?
The moment we react is actually simply selfish. We think we only react towards one person, but in fact everyone around us gets a lesser version from us. The irresponsible part loves to reduce it to one person, but in fact we are holding our love back for everyone in these moments.
I have deepened my awareness and understanding of these words Sarah
““the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”.
The more love I reconnect to in my body the more love is expressed to others, it is not something we can hold back and only give to family and friends, everyone is blessed. It seems that love is like the ripple effect of a pebble being thrown into a lake, all the ripples continue out and eventually touch all parts of it. In years to come we will all live this way.
Yes Mary. Loving myself more now than I ever used to I naturally want to connect and be open and loving with others. The ripple effect becomes tangible.
‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?’ I had an interesting experience recently.. I had a really bad toothache and I noticed that when I held back in conversation with others my toothache would get stronger and when I was expressing myself in full I could not feel any pain at all.
To me it seems we live in a world without love towards ourselves and other people. We seem to have given up on love and given up on God. Is it possible we have given up because we know that the way that religion over the centuries has represented God is a false way, the truth has been hidden under so many layers that what was true is now a lie and we are like the sheep in the fable that are lost in the wilderness.
Falling deeper and deeper in love with myself and to realise what it means and looks like, is the most beautiful lovestory I‘ve ever had in life.
I love the analogy of the desert and the water that is on offer, if we choose to share. In my experience there is no greater joy and true settlement achieved in life than through expressing love and inspiring others through that. No success, no achievement, no relationship, no labels ever truly satisfied me, but the path of coming back and sharing myself to the all. Recognising and honouring and through that feeling the purpose of your own beauty and qualities will let it look very ridiculous to hold back this treasure because of any hurts or comforts.
Reading this I can feel how selfish it is to hold back love. It is a stop to everyone’s evolution. You can feel the great responsibility we hold to offer the cup so all remember they are thirsty and hold an endless cup to share also.
We are here to support everyone to evolve, if we hold back love that does not support evolution.
When we open ourselves up to receive our own love once again, it is not something that can be kept to ourselves it is for everyone to feel and receive and they do whether they realise it or not.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. I find this so inspiring as reminds me that there is more to this world than just me and how incredibly blessed I am and that if I hold back from expressing my love and joy it goes stale and sour.
This blog is a life-changer, if we let ourselves feel the massive Truth of what is being shared here and get honest about how much we love selectively in life. – Personally, I can feel just how much I have allowed myself to hold back my love to those that I felt were mean, cruel, bullies, or corrupt in some way, and turned certain situations into a mission to expose these people in a way that would bring positive change to the situation. But now I can see how there was not true love and understanding in this approach, and if I can just feel that endless amount of love inside me as Sarah expressed here with the ‘endless cup of water’ analogy, then allowing others to make their choices and eventually come back to their own love can be the way forward.
“The love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. Great to read this again. On first reading it, whenever that was, I found it tremendously inspirational and had ‘written it on my fridge’, so to speak. It has been great support for me open up to be and connect with love and with re-reading it it brings an awareness that there is another, deeper level to unfold.
When you look at the sun or a flower they’re not selective of who they touch, who they shine their rays on or tilt their petals at. And so true love is naturally the same – it’s us emanating a quality that everyone gets. Anything less is just a intellectual trick designed to sweeten our hours of emptiness. Thank you Sarah for emanating and bringing it here.
I love the example you offer here Joseph! Can you imagine a flower would have conditions in blossoming and closing their petals, when some people walk past and with some they would stay open?! We feel the ridiculousness in that perfect example. Everyone deserves the beauty to be seen that is in everyone uniquely . No matter if someone actually looks at it and appreciate the blossom or not. It is there to be shared as it remind everyone else also of their own beautiful flower.
For many years I had a reckoning sheet of who I felt deserved my love and who I chose to withhold it from. The arrogance of this is totally exposed in your amazing blog Sarah and how love is there for all equally and we are there to reflect it to others regardless of how they may or may not have behaved towards us.
‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?’ What a brilliant question. It immediately connects us with a much grander vision of the world, one that has no borders, rules or restrictions. It is a confirmation of our equality and brotherhood and a further embracing of what we are here for.
Beautifully expressed Sarah, Love is Love and is for all. When we suppress and don’t express Love we are resisting our true nature.
Love is for all, ‘When the truth is felt, that love is for all equally, none of our loveless actions can be justified.’
This is another gem of wisdom being shared for all to read
“However, on a deeper human level, politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.”
This is so true I know I have spent my whole life ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’ in order to get by under the radar of life a box ticking exercise. Now if something is said that doesn’t feel right in my body I express it and my body feels so much lighter when I express what I’m truly feeling.
This really stood out for me today:“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”.
And as you say Sarah who are we to withhold this beholding love as this is what everyone is seeking and if everyone is holding back through fear of being hurt or rejected then no wonder we are currently living in a loveless world where it seems we think nothing of abusing each other rather than holding each other in the love we all come from.
It makes so much sense… when we hold back love, the first person to be affected is ourselves.
Another aspect is the fact that retraining ourselves from expressing love causes damage to the body and manifests in illness or dis- ease .
It is beautiful to know that true love is unconditional and that it actually lives in us all. With that we can work on getting all that out of our way that hinders us to let this love flow.
It is such a gift to read your blog. We are all from that same bundle of love, that same source and to hold our essence back leaves the whole less but when we forget we are from that source of love having someone in our life to remind us where we are from and what we are made of is a gift that we should never hold back.
This really is such a revelation… That love is not an itemised account, but a conscious presence that is always there for everyone.
“For me, politeness in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships whereby I always felt alone.”
Could this sentence hold the key to why humanity as a society is operating as a whole bunch of separate people? Could this explain why so many feel lonely when we are literally surrounded by people? It certainly has been a way of living that I have experienced and yes I did feel lonely. This article has reminded me to never hold back on my love, no matter how uncomfortable this may be for another, as everyone deserves to feel not only my love, but the stirring of their own love as they meet mine.
When we think the love that we are is our own to keep, measure or do what we will with it, it only keeps us in separation.
Loved what you have shared Sarah, I have held back my love through life keeping safe while all the time thinking I was being loving by being polite and being there for everyone, using sympathy as a way of relating. Learning to truly love myself more and more over the last few years I am opening up to share that love with all equally,now knowing that this love is not mine to hold just for the select few but to share with all humanity.
It is a bit like we were taught not to be loving, we were taught to be the opposite of who we truly are.
Our endless cup is indeed within us all the time. We forget this fact and seek love from outside or keep ourselves “safe’ by hiding with our own love as if it were finite. We have a responsibility to express love in our movements and in our way of being, this love then is equally felt by everyone including ourselves.
Well expressed Sarah, a great way for us all to feel the equality that is for all. We can choose to continually offer our endless cup but never shall we feed another if they are choosing to drink us dry and not learn how to fill there own.
” it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception. ” this is so true for what comes from the all must be for the all and return to the all .
“I share it only with some, leaving others thirsty” – I can so relate to this and the way you have described it makes me aware how I think I have to keep supplying the water, not believing everyone does have their own cup and they do have the equal access, and what stops me from sharing the cup with everyone is that somehow I am holding a belief that there is a limit on supply. And the only way to smash this belief is to just give it a go.
When we hold back love we are placing a limit on love, to embrace love and then share it with others equally we experience a beautiful quality that enriches and deepens all our relationships.
I think most people could relate to this, especially in a situation where we have been hurt by another. It can be easy to then hold back from expressing your love with them instead of holding steady and remaining truly open regardless of what the outcome will be.
Are we truly being loving when we share our love with some, but withhold it from others? Surely this then makes our love conditional, which means the people we do love may not qualify for our love at some point if they no longer meet our criteria. Thank you for this blog which debunks this way of being.
“To be honest I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to.” This is gold Sarah. Most of us walk around like it is our right to hold back something that is God given. It is not ours to decide what to do with. Love is who we are and it is Divine. It’s not for us or from us. It flows through us and is designed to be a flow that emanates out of us.
Love flows through and out of us, who are we to hold back that love from God, and decide who has some, and who does not, ‘like it is our right to hold back something that is God given. It is not ours to decide what to do with. Love is who we are and it is Divine.’
In our world, we have the notions of private good (something I may not allow another to enjoy because I own it) and public good (something that all enjoy equally and no one can be excluded from). The notion of public good has a problematic aspect: if no one can be deprived from enjoying it, why do someone(s) have to pay for its generation? So, the cost of creating it rests upon specific ones, and the benefits are spread out. Thus, there is no real incentive to create it in the first place. Thanks God, God did not study economics and does not operate based in these terms! Otherwise, we would be truly condemned to be mere human beings living miserable lives with nothing true to return to and to make life truly worth it.
When we don’t express or live the love we truly are, we are not only hurting ourselves but everyone else too.
You have given me so much to consider this morning. This pick and choosing of love happens when we pick and choose when we will be loving to ourselves or not as well. What we do for ourselves we do for all others equally therefore when we drop self love in pockets of our lives we deem those areas less worthy of our love. The ripple effect is huge. A bit of a gulp moment for me today.
It is ludicrous to consider how much we withhold love when it’s on tap for all. Thank you Sarah for this reminder.
When one chooses awareness of their actions they start to feel how the many ways they are with others, are actions chosen to not be all the love they are.
With a true understanding of the nature of love, there would never be another war possible on this planet, There could be no separation between people or countries and we would know and live from harmony and equalises with all.
“I immediately felt how the nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception”.
We have so much certainty that the love we have is ours. It is ours to share, and ours to receive from another. But love is not a commodity for an individual to measure out. Love is a state of being, and the love is all encompassing, for it was never ours to begin with.
I love the reminder you bring to all of us Sarah that we are part of a vast whole, and that we each have a part of that whole to bring, so for each of us who’ve reconnected to and know the love we are; why would we hold back on expressing that love with any other, for the truth is once we try and own and direct love, it is no longer love; love is there to be shared with all, and if we hold it back we hold it back from all including ourselves. And that’s a waste especially when we are all intrinsically made of love.
What a great blog. We can want to hold on to or own love, make it ours and keep it special. But if we do that, it’s not love. Love is an emanation that can’t help but flow and pour out of us. We all have access to that Love as it is who we are.
So true Nikki, we can not control love or pick and choose who it is for. Love is love and equal for all.
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?” Great question, there is so much that we do hold back from and I have many times in my life asked why. The reason is that I feel that I wasn’t enough, or that I wasn’t loving enough, but each of these examples have the ‘I’ in it. I was always coming from a perspective of me as an individual, not thinking about the whole, everybody, that if I do hold back who I am, then that can and does impact on everyone. So when I feel I am holding back, I do bring my awareness back to this fact!!
It is certainly a different look at love and how we think we can turn it off and on or turn its attention towards one and not everyone. We create a version of love and reshape its physical meaning in order to leave the grandness and equal ness of true love in the shadows and play out the version that we then think love is.
To know love, true love is grand. To live love, true love is natural. Our bodies, and everyone else’s melts when we feel our love, sharing with others is something that we cannot hold back forever, as we surrender and embrace our love in full it simply oozes from us.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” this reveals our responsibility to live the love that we are in every moment and movement that we are.
When you mention movements, that shares how important it is to live love not just speak love or show love. It is our very essence and as such will ooze out in all our movements.
I adore every part of this article. It totally exposes that true selfishness is actually in holding back our love from ourselves, as this then means that we hold it back from all others. A moment to deeply ponder and surrender to feeling every where this affects my life as there is the deep inner knowing that everyone deserves to feel the beauty of love and to know that it comes from within themselves.
When we hold back any love that is there to be expressed we deny each other the opportunity to grow from that experience – and ultimately, we all miss out.
We cannot put boundaries on something that cannot be bound! Love is an energy, it is where we are from, who we are, what we are made of, so to hold it back is such an illusion yet is how we harm ourselves because it creates separation. Us and them, individuality – from where we can cause harm to another by acting in a way that completely denies the love we are from.
What you have shared here is about getting the small self out of the way and bringing the Universal self through. We kind of think of love as favour, and as reward and punishment (in terms of withdrawing it), it’s a game of give and take and on and off – but this is mostly emotional love. This is a great line Sarah that exposes the idea that we also need to receive love from others instead of it being who we are “I am not only denying myself – I am denying others love, which through reflection can inspire them to re-connect to that same love which is within them.” There are so many myths about love and we live these untruths to our enormous detriment. Thank you for putting this drop of truth about love back into the ocean.
If you walk with joy in your step, you can’t make it so only some people will know. If you are angry or upset you can’t delineate who will be affected either – it works the same way. There are no barricades or boundaries where energy is concerned, so as you so beautifully ask Sarah which pool of energy are we contributing to? are we expressing and moving with Love?
Great point you make here Joseph. When you bring it back to energy, everyone is affected.
It’s very interesting to read the many forays of what it means to express love, or not. Certainly, starting and having this conversation is the start of love, as without the awareness how will you know the truth of love. .
“The love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. I find this a truly powerful and inspiring statement. Appreciating what you have elucidated upon here, Sarah, is truly profound.
Jstewart51 I agree, and to live this may give us some insight into the amazing life of Serge Benhayon! We have so many beliefs about love, that “love hurts”, and that people who “wear their heart on their sleeve” are more vulnerable to being hurt. We hold it back believing we are protecting ourselves but we are missing out on a truly beautiful, expansive and universal experience by being connected to and sharing love as it truly is. The false beliefs and ideals about love are what can hold us back from truly exploring and feeling what love is for ourselves.
So true, Melinda, and the reflection given by Serge Benhayon, his family and all that have been inspired by them to not hold back and instead share love is gorgeous to behold. This is an inspiration and so the ripple of love forever expands.
I recently attended an absolutely amazing expression and presentation workshop by Universal Medicine via webcast and one of the things that really stood out for me and changed my perception was how I used to see ‘holding back’. I used to think holding back was about stopping and holding back my expression, as in not saying what needed to be said etc. But what I learnt was that it’s not really possible to just hold it back because energy is constantly flowing through us. For something to look as though it is being held back, something else has to be running through instead. We are non stop expressing one energy or the other. So if I am holding back on love, I am letting something else being expressed. I have said ‘holding back’ so many times since I got to know the term, but this new understanding has supported me to see what is truly happening when I feel myself holding back, and offered me the opportunity to see how I cannot escape from responsibility.
Great realisation Fumiyo and something that totally makes sense, if a vacuum is created it will be filled. When we choose to hold back we are giving permission for something else to enter so what energy are we letting in and how is this then expressed?
Thank you Fumiyo for the distinction, we are either being love or not being love
How common is it to make our life about family, friends, the religion we grow up with. I sure lived in this way and I am letting go of these beliefs that separate and are never for the whole. Like you say Sarah ‘ it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.’
Thank you Annelies, yes life is set up to be very prejudiced towards some, to share a selective version of love, instead of the all encompassing true love that holds and shares with all equally.
This select few who receive our love is so normal! The so-called ‘abnormal’ is to feel love for all knowing the equalness of us all.
The honesty in which you share is deeply inspiring as is embodying the fact that we are the love that others seek… but they too are what they seek and they may only need us to be open to share our endless cup with them to reawaken to this fact.
Most of humanity is ‘playing it safe’ and sticking to old paradigms, even though it is blatantly obvious that these old patterns are leading to more and more mayhem, illness and dysfunction on our planet
Oh how I have held back love all my life and how I have rejected love….. however these days I am no longer rejecting love, but am embracing love and creating the space for expressing all the love that I am without perfection.
When we place love as a measure of how much we give in life to certain people and not all we cut ourselves off and hold ourselves back from receiving the copious amounts of love on offer. Holding back love in this way has a domino effect not only on our lives but on others too. It always brings it back to choice and the responsibility to bring all that we are into every moment. Love is abundant when shared with all equally so.
I can remember many times when I too “placed many conditions on sharing love”, as I was yet to come to the understanding that I have now that love is for all and holding it back was not just hurting me it was hurting others. No wonder my life was often a struggle, a lot harder than I suspected it needed to be. Coming to understand the ‘truth of love” has certainly turned that around; no longer is love a commodity to be bartered for or traded but a truth to be lived.
We are under the notion that we need to guard love as if it is ours to have or not to have completely missing the point that love is available to all equally so and it is just a choice to connect to it or not that makes the difference whether we feel it in one moment or choose not to.
‘Who am I to hold back something that is for everybody?’ I love this question for it puts everything into perspective and supports me to follow through with those loving impulses that I sometimes hold back on.
Thank you Sarah for a great sharing, holding back love has been a big part of my life for many of the reasons you stated, I too have thought that politeness was a form of love but when I feel into it, it is but a sham with no expression of the true me. Opening up to my own love allows me to open up and share that love with others knowing that they too are love whether they are connected to it or not.
Does it have to be safe to express love – or do we just do it anyway? If we wait for it to be safe we might wait a very long time. Perhaps it is the expression of love that will make it safe and we have to start somewhere – and just maybe, being and expressing love is the ‘safest’ of all expressions.
We are taught that love is for giving and receiving, like a commodity but love is who we are so we don’t have to think about what to do with love we just have to be who we truly are and live in the fullness of our natural expression. We may have lots of hurts and old memories that inhibit this openness and trust and free flow of love so it is our responsibility to address those and seek support in freeing ourselves from these impediments. In doing this we can focus on the impediments and that can be an excuse or justification for not being all the love we are. We are like birds in a cage with the door open but we choose to stay on our perch for the security it offers and yes we all miss out if we do not take up the opportunity to spread our wings and connect with the big wide world.
Wonderful analogy Sarah Davis, thank you. Yes, there is a permanent source of love within us all and it is for those of us who are aware of the fact to share what we have rediscovered so that others can rediscover it for themselves. Thankfully, this does not have to be a mission or a crusade – but just a simple way of living that reflects another choice to others. When we live in connection to the love in our hearts we naturally inspire others that ‘there is another way’ and then they too can choose it if they wish.
Gorgeous blog Sarah. Love has sadly been redefined and reduced to mean today that we can be less than who we are, disregard what we feel is true and hold back from expressing honestly what we feel. I have certainly been guilty of thinking that in being polite I was being a loving person. Yet if I was to be truly honest with myself I could feel I was I fact holding back what I truly felt for the sake of an amicable interaction, and to be more honest so that I was accepted, as such feel ‘loved’. Being nice or polite is not love, for love is truth and truth is love and holding back in expressing the truth we feel is holding back love. The love we are within is the love we all are in essence equally so, when we express from who we are we confirm the equal quality within us all, which is, the one and same love of our Soul.
What a beautiful honest sharing and truth about love and something that simply makes sense but this expressing love fully with everyone is so often held back in the world and the cause of most of the sadness harm and suffering we all endure.
If we can switch off and on love then to me it is not true love as when I feel connected to myself there is love for everything and everyone. Love has no rules and is for the all no matter what their age, colour of skin or religion.
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?” This is a very pertinent question that I will ask myself every time I catch myself holding back.
A most beautiful blog about the love that we all are and thus naturally the love that we have for all.
Reading this tonight is deeply inspiring, opening my awareness and offering me the truth of how and why I hold back love. Whilst there are some common reasons that many of us have I feel a pull to look a little deeper and honestly expose the reasons that are personal for me. In what you present I can fully appreciate the very real truth that the love we have inside is for all.
It’s such an illusion isn’t it that others need to supply something to us, when we are in fact everything by simply reconnecting back to and living from the love we are. All the conditions we place on others are like demands for another to be responsible for the emptiness we have chosen, to make it better “or else”. It’s such a game of reducing ourselves and others. I feel so fortunate that I have a real reflection of lived love in Serge Benhayon – he never wavers regardless of circumstances, and shows us all it can be done. He knows he is love and is simply being himself, whereas I still identify with love as a doing and choice and have yet to fully live this as who I am. The hurts and beliefs still rule whilst love waits patiently….
When we understand that love IS our essence then our perspective on everything shifts… our world re-allgns
A most beautiful description of what love truly is. Thank you Sara.
Yesterday I was on my tour on work, meeting many people and talked to them. And I realized how I can talk to them, look into their eyes and be and give just a part of me into our conversation. OR I can open up, let them look behind my eyes and look deeper into them as well while we are just talking about anything. And I saw with that opening up I offered ‘the all’ to them and the world, letting come through what is there. No control over it. I have to trust in that connection we have with the Universe… To let go of control and being selective is a surrendering to my divinity. In that I am obedience, a servant to the universal laws. Question is: are we ready to truly serve and give up on control and self-creations?
As soon as we begin to calculate we have lost the love that we were about to share freely. We can feel this and need only come back to love knowing that that is our true expression.
Love does not have an on/off switch that works for certain situations and not others. If we switch off in one area we switch off in all areas. The same applies when letting our love out once again it affects all areas of life.
When we do not live the love that we belong to then when we look outside we will see the loveless world that is craving for love that no one seems to know. If we compare this to when we are connected in love and live that, we will see a world abundant of love and the simple fact that people are not choosing that as they have forgotten the simplicity and joy that it brings and instead are choosing to live their self created life in complexity and the misery of it.
one of the greatest services we can do for humanity is to not hold back our love, starting with our love for ourselves, and then letting that radiate forth in the way that is innately natural for true love.
Great sharing Sarah . . . .” . . the nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.” . . .love cannot be given or taken, it just is, and all we have to do is connect to the love we are.
We meet people for a reason and if we are not openly engaging with them, we miss out on the reason we met them.
We know the difference between what is love and what is not and it is a choice we make to be the love we are or to hold it back. The love within us is an endless pool of love and expands when shared. The superficial love you write of requires topping up from others and when that doesn’t happens we run dry and lots of other ways come in that are not loving. If being the love we are is expanding and building an endless stream of love why would we ever hold back or choose differently?
When we hold back the love we are, we are the ones who really miss out, because there is so much to share with each another.
We have become so versed at shining our light and opening/closing our hearts selectively in life, but there indeed must come a point, if our intent is to embrace the greatness of our own love and that of all, where we must be willing to see our own holding back, and deal with all that hinders a truly open heart. Dealing with our hurts is the key, as Serge Benhayon has presented for so many years now, for the hurts we yet harbour lead us into such protective and manipulative ways, don’t they… When the truth is, it is the greatness of our love and that of all that we do truly, all want.
Thank-you for sharing your revelations so openly here Sarah – supporting us all to drop our walls, and once again open the way.
From the wisdom of what you’ve shared Sarah, we could say that ‘conditional love’ is not actually ‘love’ at all.
There is so much that has been promoted in our society that brings separation and is taken for granted … here we have the opportunity to see and feel that true love is the essential ingredient in the restoration of our world’s harmony.
I know that what you share here Sarah is absolutely the truth, because I have felt it for myself. This has opened my eyes to the many, many tricks and masks that I have chosen to justify holding back my love, a miasma of beliefs that I am realizing, understanding and letting go of. As yet I have not mastered loving everyone equally, the grace I feel when I do fully love another though is all the encouragement I need to let the false beliefs be seen and felt, as I will not stop them until I feel the pain and loneliness that they have kept me in.
It’s such a trick because we hold and protect our hurts and work to avoid their repetition, this can result in any number of painful behaviours. Meanwhile whilst our focus is on this and outside of ourselves we fail to see the absolute damage done to ourselves by choosing our hurts over love. When I return to love the hurts diminish and evaporate like a flimsy puff of smoke, yet when I’m in the hurts they are convincingly real, justifying all manner of harmful behaviours. Avoiding hurts can feel like my sole purpose, instead of the soul purpose to be love 🙂
Well said Sarah, there is an endless supply of love for us to continually experience and share with others – why hold back expressing this immense joy and love with others.
Our greatest gift is the love we are. It is not ours to own, so it is not ours to hide.
Great drop of wisdom Liane!
What part of us feels that it is ok to hold back our love that is not ours to hold onto in the first place? And for me what I am feeling at the moment is – what part of me feels that it is ok to switch off from this love that endlessly wants to pour out non-stop? It doesn’t matter how it plays out it will just keep coming and yet I have lived life as if love can only be shared in certain moments, with certain people or in certain situations and yet it can and wants to be in every part of life. When I hold back love in the moments I think I am being loving are not actually loving and fall very far short of the mark because they don’t have all the other moments before that ‘loving moment’ as a momentum to back it up.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”, this is such a powerful statement, no wonder there was so much revelation in it for you. It makes us consider the currency we have placed on love – which takes it a million miles away from what is God given and there for all.
When we hold ourselves back from expressing the love we innately are everyone misses out.
Love is simply an emanation that you either align to or not. It is not something you can direct, nor covet, nor contain, and if you do, then it is not love that you are holding in your hands but a pretender to the throne.
Hear, hear Adam. Well said!
Very powerful blog Sarah – I just love your analogy of being in the desert and sharing your endless cup of water with humanity. There is no way I would deny anyone who was thirsty, not a single one.
The ‘picking and choosing’ game is so tiresome! I’ve been a player of this big time and I really appreciate your honesty in exposing what was behind that game for you Sarah as it’s allowed me to look at why I would choose that over the equality of love for all.
Holding back what is not ours allows the ‘individual’ aspect of ourselves (the spirit) to rein supreme as there is a false ownership at play that confirms us in this aspect instead of the equality, Love and unity that is otherwise present.
One of the lovliest ways to practice not holding back our love is to start letting in appreciation from others… it starts to open the creaky door which starts a wonderful 2 way flow.
I can feel the love in this cjames2012, the love that is in appreciation of one another and letting this in is a great way to explore how true love feels in the body and how it makes the body revive and comes to full expression.
It’s great to be reminded that love is for everyone, not just for those we want to give our love to. And perhaps those that do not receive our love are the ones that actually need it the most.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. This is such a profound appreciation of love. Since first reading it when first written I have often remembered it at times of ‘not feeling bothered’ and it has lifted me out of my self-indulgence and my whole energy has changed to one of engagement.
Great question you have asked Sarah, how can we deny the endless cup for others to drink when that same gift to us was the best gift we had ever received.
“The love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. I find this powerful awareness that I have felt inspired by since first reading it and re-reading it is a great reminder as I realise I have not always remembered it. As you say love “is in endless supply and naturally for us all.”
I love your analogy of the endless cup of water which exposes the craziness of measuring out our love and the arrogance of thinking that we have the right to ration what is available equally for all.
What I am recognising is the coldness in so much of my past politeness and how I have used it to hide behind and then blamed my feeling of separation on others rather than taking responsibility for the fact that it is caused by me holding back my love and measuring who deserves it.
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?” Beautiful to re-read. We need to love – and shine – so that offers a reflection for others to see, feel and be inspired by. Just as I was inspired by Serge Benhayon and his family, who offer us an amazing role model for how it is possible to live.
Sarah, such an apt and gorgeous blog to read today, and I’m struck by what you share on politeness, and it’s functions and that this is what it provides only – function – there is no deeper connection with that politeness as Love is the only thing that provides that. Politeness is no replacement for love.
“However, I share it only with some, leaving others thirsty.” The truth is we would never do this if we were actually placed in this scenario.
This beautiful analogy paints a very clear picture Sarah “I imagine if I were in a desert with humanity and we were all thirsty – I carry an endless cup of water. I know that everyone can find their own cup of water, however many are not aware of this. When I offer my ‘cup of water’ to someone else, it can firstly be a reminder that they are thirsty and even need a drink, as well as a reminder and inspiration to seek out and claim their own ‘endless cup’, which is no further than right there within them.”
I love how you raise politeness as a form of holding back. It is so true. I would add that politeness is actually killing us. We are hiding behind a facade that is slowly crumbling.
I like your analogy of the desert and the cup of water. It’s taken me a very long time to accept that I did have that cup, and it still is a work in progress. And what I have to remember is that it is just the cup, and not the water, that has my name on, and my job is to carry that with me all the time and take good care of it, and there will come a time when I have to return the cup to the manufacturer.
Beautifully expressed Fumiyo – an absolute gem!
It takes effort to hold back love and robs us of energy, at least that is what I am finding whereas expressing love by being love gives us more energy.
Beautiful to read Sarah an endless cup of water we all have within us, that we may thirst no more. sharing this love shows others that this love is equally within us all.
Being brought up to be polite and to be nice guarantees that we eventually disconnect from who we truly are and life “ becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression”. I remember this game well and also saw it being played out all around me. No wonder as children we lose the innate sense of who we are when all around us very few are living who they naturally are, but instead pretending to be someone that they are not, and in the process deeply burying their true expression.
It makes absolute sense that if we are holding back love we are holding back something that is not ours to hold back in the first place. Love is for everyone, it is everyone. Holding back love is like stealing love away from people, it’s a form of abuse.
Sarah, beautiful sharing – I’m struck by what you say on politeness, how it’s a sop and a poor substitute for the love we are, and can express, and how easy and comfortable it is to fall into this trap which just isn’t true, it is not who we are and we know it which is why we find politeness without love and connection jarring and false. We know genuineness and love when we see it and you’re right Sarah, love is not ours to hold, it’s to expand and be shared.
Two beautiful messages Sarah, love is not ours to own and it is in endless supply. Add to this that love bears no grudges or condemnation of past choices and we have a great philosophy to put into practice right now to heal all that old contraction and get on with sharing our love.
The truth of love is for all equally so and with that comes the responsibility to be honest and express what is there to be shared without reservations or fears of what may come next, as this way of measuring how much we allow to be shared can only hinder our evolvement in life.
I like the point being made about politeness, it’s a long second best to true connection.
When we hold back love, we are denying another knowing and connecting to the deep essence that we truly are, equally so.
Sara your first sentence grabbed my attention, ‘A lovely and wise young woman recently said to me that “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. ‘ It really made me realise the responsibility we all have to not hold back true love in any relationship.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” A powerful and revealing truth. If I hold back on love then that is what I am asking others to do so we live in an ever increasing loveless world but if I do not hold back the love then this is a reflection to others to open up and share the love so that love expands and is shared equally with all. True love in expression is a responsibility for us all.
“‘high speed download’ ” great words Sarah – it’s a great feeling where everything falls into place and understanding reveals the truth as so often our perceptions are skewed.
Thank you Sara for a great sharing, I have in the past used politeness as a form of love and held back my love to keep safe “however all too common, as under certain conditions we ‘pick and choose’, rather than sharing freely what is in endless supply and naturally for us all.” I love these words “endless supply and naturally for us all”.
We are so used to holding back our love that when we actually start to heal the old hurts and let the love flow through us, it takes a bit of getting used to !.
“In reflection I was creating this separation in the first place by not first connecting to the love that I am and expressing that to another.” This takes away all blame if we can see that it is us that separates from our own loveliness and that we are the ones that are responsible for the lack of love in our life. It has taken me a while to learn this, but the more I open up to the love within me and express that love the more I am open to this love equally in another.
When I hold back I am certainly holding back something that is meant for everybody;
“I am not only denying myself – I am denying others love, which through reflection can inspire them to re-connect to that same love which is within them”.
Simple yet profound, thank you Sarah
Being polite is so very common and engineers so much emptiness. It fosters the need for sweets because we miss our innate sweetness, feel empty and need a filler, or two. If we were taught the truth about politeness our consumption of sugar would drop immensely.
There is so much here to study, thank you Sarah. It very true about how we use politeness to keep ourselves safe, and to fill the gap where love normally is, and that “….life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.” Not only are we not truly expressing the love that we are, we are also missing glorious opportunities to speak the truth that is there to be expressed. Politeness is such a societal norm. We have so many reflections of this around us, which confirms the normality of holding back and the level of self protection and selective “love” we live in. By making the choice to be love with all we are offering another reflection to choose from, and restoring our true normal.
As I read towards the end I felt the true flame of Christ ignite within me. It is both the claiming of the truth we are love, and that this love belongs equally to all – true brotherhood.
“From this I then connected to the deep understanding and feeling that love is our essence, it is what we are made of and therefore it is everyone’s right to feel it and receive it”.
It is therefore our responsibility to share all the love that we are with all equally.
Beautiful blog Sarah, thank you.
It is ridiculous what we allow to get in the way of expressing all the love we innately are, denying this to ourselves and others and delaying unnecessarily a way of being we all crave to be and live embraced by.
Love the analogy of the cup of water Sarah! An inspiring example that we can have our own endless cup – knowing it will never run out – and offering this as an invitation for ALL others without exclusion, leaving them to choose and/or be inspired to connect to their own endless cup.
A profoundly revealing blog, particularly in relation to that social malaise, politeness, which leaves people thirsty for love and keeps us separate and in our own arrogance.
Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody? This line stood out for me Sarah, a great reminder that I will take with me into my day.
We hold back for so many reasons, it’s almost like we hold the world to ransom, the world and those around us… But it is always us, ourselves, who miss out the most when we do hold ourselves back.
Living like this brings a depth to relationships that is heavenly profound, I had never dreamed that this would be possible to live on Earth. It is like bringing Heaven to Earth.
I loved your example of the cup of water Sarah, I could feel how if we hold all as equal we would have no judgment of them for where they were at, we would just continually offer love to them with a reflection of all they are.
Picking and choosing where our love goes is absolutely all too common in our world. The revelation that you shared is one that is forever running through my mind and felt in my body, it’s a great space to come back to when I’m holding back to feel that this love that flows through me is for all equally so and it’s my responsibility to reflect it to all.
Thanks for the wake up call Sarah. Love is not owned yet we are made of it, every particle in our body responds to and expresses it to each other. There is no discrimination between particles and they do not hold back from one another as they know themselves fully by the reflection of their brother. So perhaps when we ‘hold back love’ we are actually not in love at all but being subject to and choosing an energy which is far less than true love thus we identify with this and think we can do as we please with it? As soon as we go into a form of measuring our expression of love we have dropped the ball and allowed this lesser energy to pick and choose for us in the name of protection and so called safety. Like you have said Sarah, true love expresses to all equally as it knows itself through one another so there is nothing to guard against and nothing to protect.
Rachael, using the particles as an example is beautiful, it clearly states what we are made of, particles, and how if we moved to our natural rhythm we could be nothing but love because that is what our particles are made of. We would reflect the completeness of everything we are because our particles know no other way. Which then comes to your other piece of truth, what energy are we choosing when we step out of rhythm and stop moving to the pulse of our loving particles. We are choosing to not be all we are, as we choose to forget we are made of loving particles that know no other way to be but love. Love it Rachael.
Sarah, this is an awesome revelation: ”I immediately felt how the nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.” It is the nature of love, it is how love operates, and it is how god operates, to show no favor and to love indiscriminately with no holding back. I get it that we are very much mistaken when we think that our love is ours to own or to choose where to direct it and that it is our right to do so. Thank you Sarah for making it clear.
I’ve had this play out Bernard when I sabotaged feeling full of me one day and chose to close it down to someone – then when I wanted to bring it to someone else I realised that I can’t pick and choose, that is not love at all, I’d already closed it down and this awareness really hit home for me about how I was behaving.
Sarah you mentioned coming to the realisation that holding back love, not connecting to all freely and equally had you feel in separation and alone. For years I had this feeling I was different to most people and I was better off in my own company and only needed a few friends. Now I see I was in protection of my hurts and definitely living a measured life, once these shifted I no longer feel alone I find a friend in everyone, without exclusivity and often feel I have met a Soul mate even after a short interaction. Opening up to love has definitely allowed my ‘cup of water’ to be full.
Merrilee that is a very powerful comment about friendship. How often do we hang on to a select few and categorise others as less than friends? I have also identified ideals and beliefs about friendships that create real havoc in myself because of the pictures I have about these relationships. Love certainly simplifies things by creating an equality with all. A very powerful comment, thank you Merrilee.
Gorgeous Merrilee, it just goes to show when we shift our way of being, living and seeing the world how our choices are reflected back to us in this way. I can see how making this daily choice to see the truth of love – equally in all changes the way we relate leading to the opportunity to truly connect with another. Just beautiful!
So true Sarah, what a great analogy, very powerful. We mustn’t hold love back, it’s not our right and we all miss out on, “sharing freely what is in endless supply and naturally for us all”.
It is amazing how we come into this world possessing everything we require to just be love. We are guided to leave our childhood ways as we grow till they have been relegated to a dark room somewhere within us. When we rediscover our true self we left behind, at first we try to hang on to it so we don’t lose it again… forgetting it is for everyone. When we let it out, it shines for all to see and feel, and offers others a chance to remember where we all came from.
This is so true sjmatsonuk : “It is amazing how we come into this world possessing everything we require to just be love.”. So why would we choose to let go or bury something so wonderful? Could it be that the expression of this love from a child is just too bright for some to handle and so the child begins to calibrate the love and the accompanying light, eventually turning it down so low they forget it is there? What a joy it is to finally rediscover that light again and to let it shine.
Sarah, I was struck by the way you have described ‘politeness’ in your blog. It has opened up my awareness of just how often it is used as a form of keeping others out by just doing enough to get through but not actually treating others as equals. It isn’t that politeness is wrong per se, but it is definitely worth checking the intention behind the behaviour. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
So true Helen, ‘politeness’ can be loaded with control or inequality, it all comes from the intention.
Yes great point – I think politeness can be a silent killer in this world because it can hide a multitude of sins when used as a weapon to ‘pretend everything is OK’. I would rather someone be rude to me if they are upset with me than on the surface be polite to me. It is more real.
I agree Helen, it’s worth checking to see what the intention is behind the politeness. I for one have been brought up to be polite and it’s a work in progress to now feel if I am being loving or polite. I find that being polite a lot of the time isn’t loving at all but a way to hide in the shadows and not allow another to feel the truth in a situation which may cause a reaction that I don’t want to feel.
Love your example of our love being an “endless cup’ and we all have one. Sharing our love costs us nothing but is priceless to all that receive it.
Yes sjmatsonuk, I too enjoyed this analogy. To even realise we are thirsty is to wake up from the heavily descended illusion, yet to accept the endless cup from another and find that with oneself is living as God intended.
I love this sjmatsonuk ‘Sharing our love costs us nothing but is priceless to all that receive it.’ how true this is. The more we open up to being ourselves with others the more they naturally express the love that they are and quite naturally relationships shift and change.
Holding back that what is in all is indeed a way to not take responsibility. It is only inspiring for others when they are held in love. And your blog inspired me to look at my reservations with love.
I hold back on certain things in my life as well Benkt van Hasstrecht. It feels sad and empty on the inside. I know exactly how to heal myself, yet I continue to stand at this line and look for excuses to not cross it and live the life I am designed to live.
As we all do in some way Lindellparlour, when we feel the responsibility we hold to all one can not help but feel how there is no other way but to move forward in our expression towards all that we are.
Yes I feel this too Benkt, what are we holding back from when we hold back from expressing love to all equally? Definitely more to feel into and explore here.
‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody’. This person was very wise indeed to express this. The emotional love allows you to pick and choose who you will love. The energy/essence of true love is there to be felt by all and as we cannot hold onto energy neither can we keep this love to ourselves, for it is not ours to keep.
Lindell that’s very clear emotional love versus the energy of true love…. Emotional love is often exclusive and can soon change whereas the energy of true love is a constant that flows freely to all equally. It’s an experience we can all participate in and is our responsibility to not hold back.
Emotional love is such an arrogance, believing we can pick and choose who is worthy of our “love” and who is not. It’s really anti-brotherhood!
With emotional love, do we truly know what brotherhood really is? For if emotional love is only for people who we choose to give it to, then how could we know brotherhood, when we are not living it as a whole.
Beautifully expressed Sarah. Love is to be expressed and shared equally with all, this is something I am still working on. Reading your blog helps me see how arrogant I have been holding back and picking and choosing who I choose to express and share my love with and whose love I am open to accept.
I had not seen this as arrogant before but of course it is. Holding back love in any way shape or form is a controlling act . I used to think I didn’t know how to express my love either. I have since realised it is not MY love and I do not have to worry about expressing it because if I allow myself to be love, I express naturally. I had been caught up in how my love would be received rather than staying with the present moment and feeling all there is to be felt with no judgement and no reaction and enjoying the love that is always there. At the moment this sometimes feels like a coat that is too big for me but I know I am growing into it – and beyond.
elainearthey I love and can relate to your comment ” At the moment this sometimes feels like a coat that is too big for me but I know I am growing into it – and beyond.” My expression of love equally to all is, comes with responsibility and the choice to consistently checking in with myself and bringing myself back to my body, being present with myself and opening my heart sharing my love unconditionally and to accept the love of others unconditionally which sometimes means for me to let go of the exterior layer of what is not love they present on the outside and connect with the love deep within the essence of all. Sometimes I struggle with the presenting behaviours of others thinking I need to shut them out when really connecting with their essence supports them to express from the love that they truly are.
One thing I had not considered is that the control we exert by picking and choosing how to express love with, is first put on ourselves. By denying our own body the natural expression of love, we create an emptiness which is then filled with an energy that is quite harmful. Whilst we focus on protecting ourselves from hurts we do not see the fact we are profoundly hurting ourselves by controlling the expression of who we naturally are. It such an illusion that’s the love we are can even be hurt. What a game we play, at our own and humanity’s expense.
Holding back our natural expression of Love by placing condition on it is to our expense of our evolution. We have a responsibility to humanity to be express the truth of love equally to all.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”.
Indeed the person who shared this gem with you Sarah is very wise. Thank you for highlighting this all important fact.
It is very lovely and freeing to feel the truth that our love is not ours to be guarded and shared in a measured way but to be shared equally with all.
When we start to heal our old hurts nurture ourselves, and return to our connection with our hearts and with God, then our natural essence, and that is love, starts to shine forth, and all are lifted by this light.
Thank you for sharing this so beautifully Sarah – “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” – it’s obvious when I read it and it makes absolute sense but this is not something that had really occurred to me until now.
Thank you for sharing the wisdom that ‘the love that we hold back is not ours to hold back because love is for all equally’. I can feel how I am opening up to this truth.
Beautifully expressed Sarah, what true love is. True love doesn’t ask somebody to do something first before he can be loved. Love expressed unconditionally – purely divine and healing for all of us.
You have a beautiful understanding of how to share your love with everyone Sarah, however this may look. Love is such an important and healing quality for us to bring into our daily lives.
Wow this blog said it all. Love is not for us to keep and share when it feels right. It is an expression from God to be shared to all. Thank you Sarah
Sarah, I agree. I too have measured the love that I offer to some and not others. This is how I thought Love was and to be honest I never could get this Love thing. I remember asking people what was the meaning of love and their explanations never rang true. On reflection I unknowingly knew the truth of Love but no one was expressing the deeper love that is within us all. Love is a beautiful thing once you reconnect to the essence of who you are and this love is naturally shared with everyone.
So beautifully expressed Sarah. If we do hold back the love or truth that we know we feel we are indeed choosing to live less than who we are and reflecting that this is ‘ok’. When we choose to protect ourselves from being hurt, to play it safe and we are choosing to isolate and separate ourselves from humanity. With this we are essentially living a lie. Love is for all, this is who we are equally so. The more we bring and share the truth of the love that we know we are the more we will break down the walls of mistrust in our society and re-build a true and loving foundation – ‘sharing freely what is in endless supply and naturally for us all.’ – so very true, thank you.
Very poignant blog Sarah. I know these traits too well from holding onto my own judgements and grudges. I know that it is true that if I am needing someone to be a certain way, that is me holding back my love, but it is hard to let go of these ideals. They are ways of controlling others, or trying to anyway to prevent getting hurt. We get hurt in the past in we allow to poison our present and thus the future. We’re waiting for love to come to us, and make it safe before we come out of our shells. But has this ever worked? It keeps everyone hidden and protected. The antidote to this is claiming the love within and expressing it willy nilly, no holds barred. It’s stepping out first and risk not being acknowledged, not being appreciated – but would we really need those things if we are expressing love and confirming and appreciating ourselves for it? The only way to heal those hurts is by connecting to the love and expressing from it.
We learn about manners when we are young and so we act in a way that pleases others – surface level stuff – but we miss out on expressing love. The amazing thing about Love is that when it is expressed truly, it is received by all and not just a few.
Sarah great question to ask oneself. All of them pointed out just how crazy it is to hold back our love. I loved the glass of water metaphor, it made me see that I would never give water to some and not others, why do I do it with love when it’s just as equally for all?
Totally agree, Kim, the glass of water metaphor is very useful in assisting to realise that I too would not hold back from sharing or providing a life-sustaining substance for another brother and, as love is essential for life, then there’s no holding back left to maintain. And I’m also learning that sharing love with another does not mean moving towards the other (ie, leaving oneself) in order to perhaps rescue or fix, rather it’s about holding oneself in love and responding from there in openness and connection to oneself and to the other/s.
Awesome blog Sarah, beautiful image that we all have the endless cup of water within us and we decide who we share it with. We need to share it freely with all, starting with ourselves, and not feel that this is selfish and not just keep it for those who please us and make us feel pleasant. It is within us all to be shared for all and once we know this and begin to do this others will be inspired to also share their true quality and fullness.
Indeed Sarah, ‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?’. I love your analogy of carrying an endless cup of water and how we can choose to share this water with some or hold it back and not share it with others. In truth, we all have an equal thirst for this water and an equal ability to share it – if we so choose.
Every time I read this blog I’m inspired. It’s funny we think we have it worked out and yes we do indeed trade politeness for love, and it’s lethal as we feel safe and comfortable, but it’s far from the truth of the love we are. That politeness is numbing and keeps us away from who we are and yet we think we can get away with it, we don’t, as ultimately we actually hurt ourselves more than anything that is done to us. When we fully embrace and embody the love we are, we do indeed offer a beacon to others to remember, often it will be jarring initially as they are jostled from the comfort of their politeness, but it’s love to offer that, to shine brightly while many (and often us too!) are busy walking around dimmed down with lampshades hiding the love we are.
I read some sentences again and again, because I feel there is so much wisdom and truth shared in your blog. What I realize more and more is, how much it hurts me to hold back the love that I am with every person. I wouldn´t escape into politeness so much but produce thoughts, struggles, distractions, that would disconnect me to my partner for example. It is all an illusion, yet so “real” in those moments, having the effect to not go deeper with my love in myself and with another. What a horrible game, which I will never “win”. Enough of holding back- I can feel the effects will be tremendous!
Such a wisdom is shared here, it really made me stop and think about sharing my cup with all and not just the few.
This is a great expose of the games we play as a humanity – compartmentalising our lives, loving only this person for this reason, another for a different reason, and not loving another – no wonder we have such atrocities in the world lacking love for everyone. The holding back of love creates a lack that everyone feels and yet love that is true is what we all naturally crave.
“The love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back”. Sarah this sentence brought a tear to my eye and resonated with me on a much deeper level. I have been holding my love back and the consequences of this have been I live a lonely life, keeping people at arms length in fear of being hurt. This in turn has taken the fun out of life as I have no one to be playful with. I live in my head fantasizing about Mr Right etc and all of this creates sadness in my body. However when I attend Universal Medicine events, the love and support I receive allows me to let my guard down and allow myself to feel true love and express it back. It makes me feel alive and vital with boundless energy. These events have inspired me to drop my guard and start living from love. It’s the only way and everyone benefits from it.
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?” Great question. We can keep ourselves small and in control, deciding to give so much love to one and so much to another depending on how deserving we think they are. Doesn’t this feel ugly? We ARE love. Allowing ourselves to connect to our true essence, and feeling the truth of that, the grandness and spaciousness of that there can be no measuring or holding back. Love is equally for all.
What a great exposure of the games we have all played by holding our love at ransom from everyone unless they met our conditions. When you just read that statement it feels silly to hold onto something that was never meant for one person. Love grows when it is shared. Until we stop ‘pick and choosing’ who gets our love, we and everyone around us are less because of it.
“Until we stop ‘pick and choosing’ who gets our love, we and everyone around us is less because of it”, this shows how much of a responsibility we have to be the love that we are.
Sarah your words ‘To be honest I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to.’ resonate strongly. It exposes exactly how unloving an act holding back love for any reason really is. Much for me to deeply feel and ponder here.
Why are we concerned when someone dear to us dies, but not when we see the masses die in regions of war? That’s exposing of what we know about true love.
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”
Very wise indeed Sarah; as was your ponderings on what this young woman said.
What you reflected spoke volumes to me, much for me to ponder!
I agree Shirl it’s a pretty big revelation.
“the nature of love is unity, equality” and so then how can we have preferred love, it is not love, and yet this is how we use love in the world, rather than in it’s true form as described eloquently by Sarah. Love is meant for everybody, us included so why would we hold it back?
‘From this I then connected to the deep understanding and feeling that love is our essence, it is what we are made of and therefore it is everyone’s right to feel it and receive it’ There was a time Sarah when all I wanted in life was to meet someone special. My yearning was ‘ to love someone and be loved in return’. This false belief could never be fulfilled. When I connected to the love within me, thanks to Universal Medicine, the yearning ceased. I stopped looking for that special someone and realised not only was I special, but so was everyone else.
Amazing to feel the truth of what your proposing Sarah, of how we pick and choose who we open our hearts to and share and trust, with our love. It makes no sense that we can delude ourselves that we can be loving with some people and not others, for we are love and come from love.
Beautifully said Thomas. Like a pick and mix sweet shop, I’ll have this one but not that. Or growing up and having ‘best’ friends. Love is love, cannot be measured and does not discriminate.
What a great moment, hearing the young woman talking about her love is for all equally! This quote and your blog are a cup of water to me today. I deeply agree that “we must be honest about the fact that politeness does not replace love,” because the opposite is happening. Politeness can be the wall that is holding back love, preventing the connection between people, like they are following a designed choreography, instead of the natural flow of the what is. Beautiful, what Eduardo has written here, that love does not belong to us but we belong to love! This for me is a great supplement to the quote of the young woman. This shows, that we can only open up to love, or separate ourselves from love (and not at all can we let our love be exclusive).
We tend to think that love is something that belongs to us. As such, we ‘have the right’ to share it with whom and when we please. We also ‘have the right’ to attach conditions to this sharing. In this view, love is not different to a kitchen appliance, or a car. It is something we can share when someone else needs it if we wish to do so. Something we can withdraw if we feel so. But, what if love is not something that belongs to each of us but something we belong to, equally so and no matter what? Only when we understand this, we realise that holding back on love is stopping the expansion of a flow that should be naturally out there. By doing so, we harm the all.
I can really relate to guarding the love I express and picking and choosing when to express it, as if by doing so I guard myself from potential hurt, feeling out the other person throughly before I decide to share it. It’s such an illusion to do this because I’m missing out myself on the love that I am. And, everyone deserves to feel this great love I am.
Love is love, for one and all and once we dilute it by showing favourites, holding back and a big one, just not being the love we are then it’s not love. Love starts with us just being love, no expectations, just love and in that we’re everything, and anything which comes our way is addressed from that love – we run on our full tank of fuel when we are love, anything less is just running on empty.
Holding back our love because of hurts and protection is never worth it because no one wins, as the love of everyone and the whole world is held back too. But most people in the world at one time or another hold ourselves back, so the question is why do we hold onto our hurts?
Very important what you share about conditions. That we are just loving a bit, that person or group and even to that group a certain amount. Instead of freely loving just everything we come across. Can you imagine we live just loving everyone in the extent we can and have no limits – just not needed ?! We can. Yes now. If you love one, just love two,three, four – everyone.
This is a great blog, and feels so true, there is no reason to hold back love, because it is not for us to decide when there is love, because love is for us all, thank you for this revelation.
What a great blog Sarah. I don’t believe you have missed any of the simply put ‘dumb” reasons we hold back our love from the world… at the cost of us contacting and the world having us, not part of it.
So relatable Sarah. Holding back love for all to me feels like my way of protecting myself from an illusion of potential hurt. I pick and choose all the time, and whilst I can feel the truth in love already being in and for all, there are some old belief systems I’m running and working on uninstalling that stop me from bringing it forth.
Protection is a justification to not live the truth and fullness of ourselves.
Exactly 1heart1love1earth thank you for the reminder.
Love as the endless cup, that can nourish all. Great blog Sarah, asking me to consider if I am connecting to this love to me first and then to others equally.
Love is not mine to hold back. Love is for all. Great blog Sarah, thank you.
I love the metaphor of the ‘ endless cup’ it’s such a reminder that we can choose to go ‘thirsty’ or tap into the endless supply we all have within and let the flow out to make a reservoir of love for all to drink from. 🚰
Coming across your question today “who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody ” with its detailed following paragraph has expanded my heart Sarah, it is indeed time to “share freely what is in endless supply and natural” —- Love.
It is that line ‘share freely what is in endless supply and natural – love” that is so enriching and expanding for us all. There is no end to the love that is there for all of us – there is no ceiling to where we can go with love.
That is beautiful Wendy Winter and true indeed that this feels so much more expanding, because love is our natural way.
What a lovely blog and a spot on metaphor. It makes clear the love which flows through us is not personal, no-thing we own. We feel the full-ness of it when we let it out to share with others. Thank you for this very clear expression.
The truth revealing points made here that strike me are the two p’s – protection and politeness and how engaging them is a denial of love both for ourselves and others. There is a power and poignancy about love that comes through in this blog I feel like I have to read it with the pores of my skin, my whole body rather than my head. The analogy of the love within being akin to holding a full cup of water in a desert surrounded by thirsty people is wise, timeless and heaven given. Thank you Sarah.
I have returned to your blog Sarah and reading it the second time I feel I have clarified and taken in more than the first time. I truly love your analogy of the “endless cup of water” . Too many times I have not been inclusive with my Love, and I see more clearly now how for Love to be real, it must include self and all others without exception. A very beautiful sharing, thank you Sarah.
This is such a big-hearted loving blog Sarah, you have shown how small the separative or polite ways of relating are, and how grand is the love that includes everyone equally.
Such a beautiful sharing Sarah – I know I have held back love to others reserving it only for those I trust and feel safe with. As you say the love is not ours to hold back, we are here to share love equally with all – this feels a true way forward – thank you for the reminder.
I too, like you Anna reserved love for my family and closest friends. I grew up being told “Never talk to strangers”, and “speak only when spoken to, by adults”. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. So I interpreted this as -don’t trust people you don’t know; be polite, nice, and be a good catholic girl. But I can feel now how limiting this is and constricting it feels in my upper body.
Since attending talks by Serge Benhayon at Universal Medicine I have discovered that love is a beholding love. It is the essence of who we are, where we are from. It is therefore a quality that we can reconnect anytime, anywhere. It feels awesome- so huge to contain, so why should we?
Its true for me as well Anna, as much as I thought I was open with all people, I did reserve my version of love for those closest to me. Being open to loving all, equally so, has deepened the love I have for myself and all around me – it’s a whole new world, and one that feels incredibly nourishing and forever deepening.
This is beautiful Sarah — politeness most certainly does not replace love. It doesn’t come anywhere near it. I would much rather have someone be honest with me if they’re annoyed or angry about something than having them smile at me politely, while underneath there is a well of resentment brewing. En masse though we have settled for the latter — not to stir the pot, not to rock the boat, but the boat is rotting from the inside if we don’t look at what is really happening with love, honesty and care.
So true Katerina, the fact is we can all feel what’s brewing that may not be expressed, and this is more damaging than expressing in an honest way. Our bodies hold all of this and when it is not expressed the pots, our bodies will eventually boil over.
Absolutely Katerina, “..the boat is rotting from the inside if we don’t look at what is really happening with love, honesty and care.” And we always have felt what the other person actually wanted to say anyway. So it is a game of keeping each other small and fooling ourselves.
Sarah this is a great opening up of awareness of what love truly is and means to us.
I agree that when I use it with exclusivity, inclusions and exclusions I actually do feel more lonely. It is quite an eye opening paradox that you highlight.
Equality for all humanity is one and the same as love of all humanity. If it feels uncomfortable in any way it’s a great opportunity to ask why?
Beautifully expressed Sarah. I too have learned, the hard way, that holding back love hurts, not only me, but those around me. I am learning slowly to express this love; it is not always easy, but the joy that comes with it is immeasurable. As your title says so very wisely” “ The Truth of Love – Equally for all”; we are not its owner with the power to control it for our own, often selfish, purpose, but its curator, who knows that love is for all, unconditionally so.
I’m working on this too Ingrid,- not holding back on love and expression – in preference to having this dictated by whether or not I feel the other person is deserving of my love or some ideal or belief that the other person has to give me in return for my love. I’m learning that true love just ‘is’. It has no expectation, need, or imposition. It is simply an expression of what naturally is, and is offered for all.
This is very insightful Sarah and I hadn’t looked at holding back my love in this way before and the fact that it is there for everyone equally and not just a handful who we feel fits into our ideals and belief systems.
An image of how exhausting it is to attempt to stem the tide of the endless amount of love that is flowing through us every moment comes to mind and how ridiculous it is to even attempt to try and divert this most powerful current of love.
Sarah I went through life being different with different people, love was something I was very selective about but never considered love as something that is equally for all before coming to deepen my understanding with the presentations of Universal Medicine. What I now realise is that the love I was selective about showing was not actually love otherwise it would not be selective. When I find myself holding back the love that I naturally am for whatever reason I will recall your desert and cup of water analogy especially the bit that it’s endless.
Before attending Universal Medicine presentations I didn’t know what Love is. I knew the word but it was so many “loves”- to motherland, to Communist Party, to parents, to children, intimate, etc.etc. Also when people were saying “I love you” sometimes I felt no love coming from them, only the words, meaningless. Big one was politeness, you mentioned, Sarah. It’s the worth – when people are smiling at you, saying nice words – but you can tell they are ready to kill you if only they could. What I learn and feel from Serge Benhayon that love can be tough but it never leaves you, supports you all the way by simply holding you in stillness and amaziness you already are. Yes it is the same for everyone.
Sarah your analogy of the endless cup of water reminded me of a video I recently saw of a professional counseling session. I found it a real struggle to watch as the counsellor – who was very skilled – made the gestures and expressions that were conveying care and support, but also much effort. I couldn’t see him though, only the professional, which he very much was. Right at the end of the session he changed and who I saw was him, and he was delightful, playful, natural and at ease. It was like he was protecting the image of what a counsellor was as well as a reputation for the skilled counsellor he also was. Why is it that we feel we need to hold ourselves back in ways such as this?
Perhaps it’s puzzling to see the outside world being what it is lacking – what we feel ourselves to be on the inside. We know we come from love yet there is an extreme lack of it when we look around, yet again it’s right there if we can see throught the fallen ways we’ve made to be normal in our world. I think a lot of us give up because we feel we come from divinity yet everything around us is lacking that same quality. The key is not to give up but as you say Sarah to bring that divinity and let others know so they too can be reminded.
I love your sharing of how being loving is the offering of an endless cup of water, so true and so easy to apply, just an offering to everybody and opening them to the choice of living their endless cup of water too.
Very beautiful.
“The love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”, this changes everything when I read these words. I can feel how holding back and measuring who I give my love to affects everyone and how easily it is to then be polite and courteous but not being true to myself and to everybody else. It is great to be reminded of this Sarah.
I have just re-read this blog and was still struck by your words ‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody’? Sarah, this struck a powerful chord for me and is clearly something for me to reflect on further as I too have spent many years playing at being ‘polite’ and choosing who I want to share my love with.
Sarah I just love re-reading this blog. “love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.” A brilliant reminder that we cannot pick and choose who we give love to. Everyone is deserving of love equally so. Thank you for the powerful reminder.
We shutdown and barricade our heart, telling ourselves we are so scared of getting hurt, yet the greatest hurt of all is not being able to deeply feel the love that we are and the love we have for one another.
So true Fiona, lovely said.
We are responsible to always speak our truth. Though for most it is a humungous pill to swallow to feel that level of responsibility is naturally something every one is asking for.
Re-reading your blog Sarah, doubles its impact. What right, indeed, do we have to withhold love and apportion it only to those we deem worthwhile?
And I love you water analogy Sarah, so true! We walk endlessly parched through life desperately looking for another to quench our thirst, oblivious to the fact that our well (love) is abundant within. From a certain perspective it is quite comical that we can look at the one who has made the choice to fill their glass with a light divine and say ‘hey, where did you get that?’
I love what you are sharing here Sarah and ‘wise young woman’. How crazy – we protect ourselves from getting hurt by shutting others out and keeping our love in (while playing ‘nice’ and in effect lying to ourselves and others about what we are doing) and then often fail to recognize that the hurt of not sharing ‘our’ love, is more enormous than any perceived thing we are ‘protecting’ ourselves from. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot! In this hardened state we unwittingly choose harm over love for fear of getting hurt when really the only true ‘protection’ is walking with an open heart. What are we so scared of?
Thank you for the reminder that love is an “endless supply and naturally for us all”. Very true words spoken, thank you Sarah.
Thank you Sarah D, for the revelations, the blog, exposing the beliefs, and questioning “Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?”, I have experienced a lot of what you have gone through in regards to holding love back, which you expose as being ridiculous. I really like your ‘endless cup’ analogy, and the way you have embraced expressing Love for the All- inspiring us all to do the same. You speak for the All.
Great to reread this blog Sarah as a reminder that holding back the great love that we hold within is what hurts most, instead of all the things we believe hurt us.
” Though how ‘safe’ is it truly to hold back something which is both our essence and our right to feel and express?” Such a thoroughly insightful and thought provoking question, Sarah. Thank you for showing how ludicrous it is for us to even consider that love is selective or exclusive. It can only be what it is in truth – all encompassing and completely inclusive.
Thanks again, Sara, for highlighting the illusion we live in that we can choose who to love and who not and how harming that is for each of us.
Yes, I agree with you Monika re the illusion of love
Until Universal medicine I was held by ideals and beliefs and thought love was something reserved for your family only.
Thank you Sara for dispelling this belief and sharing the truth about universal love.
Love to read your blog this morning Sarah…. it is so full of wisdom and clarity. And great question:’ Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody’? Indeed a ‘moment of relevation’…. And I loved the anology of the desert and everyone being thirsty… really does bring the point home that love is for all equally… and that our essence is in fact love.
Sarah, thanks for a clear description of the damage we do when we hold back love. I have certainly used my share of ‘politeness’ and picking and choosing who I will give my ‘love’ to in the past, not realising just how off course I actually was in not understanding that love is for all, equally.
Sarah I love the metaphor of the cup in the desert. How can we deny water to anyone? True love is free to flow, like spring water, and such construct as politeness should not stop it along its way.
Great reminder that when we hold back, we don’t just hurt ourselves, but also obstruct others in their development.
So true Sarah, true love is universal it is not ours to hold or to direct but to let it flow.
Great to recognise how you have been holding back. I feel this is something we all do as it’s become an accepted and normalized way of being. I never really realised how incredibly harmful this way of being is both to ourselves and others, and that love actually belongs to us all. Thank you for writing this Sarah, it’s something great to ponder on…
It is extraordinary when our view of ourselves, our lives and the world is transformed by a simply presented Truth.
And endless supply of love equally for all. Sounds absolutely amazing to me. Count me in with a wholehearted high five to love for all.
Great blog Sarah and in this Aquarian Age with it’s sign as the Water Bearer we are in a moment of time where our cup of love is forever full and flowing for all equally so.
Great example about the endless cup of water and only sharing it with some, letting others remain thirsty. Made me cringe when you realise it’s the same when love is held back. We are all searching for one thing but by holding it back others miss out. That’s just not fair.
this is just gorgeous Sarah. Another top blog. There are so many great moments and moments of connection that I felt in reading this, that it would be impossible to share them all. And I particularly enjoyed the ‘endless cup of water’ analogy. How amazing to think that we have an endless supply of love in us and that it is our responsibility to share it with all equally. How can we not share it when we know others are love too and they have an endless supply as well?
Thanks Sarah, this is an awesome revelation for all. Just yesterday as I was paying for my petrol at a service station with one other customer waiting behind me, I was met by the face of ‘politeness’ with no love or connection behind it. It was a frightening habitual mask of tense, enforced smile lines, with a feeling that nobody was at home behind it. I could not even see the cashier’s eyes – they seemed in some kind of shadow from within. The cashier did not even ‘see’ me, just a blur of ‘customer to be dealt with’ and I dispatched out the door as quickly as possible. In that moment, I wondered if the cashier was even aware of the pain inside that produced that face and behaviour. I wondered if she’d caught even a whiff of the love filling my cup and being offered for all to drink from. But it was offered, that’s the main thing, and is the big difference between how I am now and how I was before the words and lived example of Serge Benhayon and you, gorgeous Sarah!
Absolutely gorgeous Sarah. It is so clearly for us all to express all of who we are – because that is who we all are – heavenly and radiant – and someone shining and bringing it openly (without holding the world to ransom – without need) is the key to us all remembering that endless cup we all carry within and can return to in any moment.
Great blog Sarah and a wonderful reminder “Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?” Thank you Sarah.
Great points that you raise here Sarah, that we pick and choose who we want to offer our love to. But is this really love? No, not if it is conditional. True love is an offering equally to all and politeness is no substitute for true love.
Wow this is a powerful blog. Being polite serves no-one but self. I know this truth but I still find myself being polite. Reading this blog has inspired me to feel deeper this truth and observe myself when I find myself in this way of being.
Sarah your words are true and fluid. Just like the bountiful love that is held deep within us all and is held for all equally so. Pure magic.
The endless supply that never runs out but is tapped into
“the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally.” Wow this is such a beautiful statement that also takes everything away from self.
Sarah, this blog from the heart is divine. I haven’t thought of love in this way before, to Love all equally, yes, but holding back love from some and not others is something I am sure I have done without realising just what that means for humanity. When we all come from Love it is like holding back the goodies from one part of ourselves while we share with other more favoured parts. Sounds so cruel .
‘what is in endless supply and naturally for us all.’ I love this closing line. This is the truth about love, no question, and love can only love equally to all. Love is not a doing, or any kind of emotion, it is an emanation of the energy we are made of, the energy of the divine. God leaves no one out, we are all equal in his love, which is our love.
Amazing blog Sarah. “…politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.” When I read that line I just had my own ‘moment of revelation’, how void of true love and warmth politeness is, it feels so functional and so much less than we all deserve. I know I would love to have warm, loving, caring relationships instead of the functional politeness.
I can relate to the pick and choose, measuring my love and holding it back. Lovely to read your blog, it inspires me to open up even more and express my love with everybody, excluding nobody.
Sarah your analogy of love as an endless cup of water depicts the picture clearly and leads me to feel the responsibility we have of not holding back our love and to share it equally amongst all.
I totally agree Donna, Sarah’s analogy really makes it easy to understand.
So many ideals about what Love is and what it means to be loving with another. But as you say so well, it is like an endless cup that is there for everybody (and yourself) equally but forever honouring that everybody has their own endless cup also.
Beautifully expressed Josh. An endless cup that flows from our inner most essence, which we ALL have
Settling for politeness as a somehow acceptable alternative if we choose to hold back our Love, turns life into ‘a game of pretending and not offending’. This is gold … as is this whole blog!
That’s what stuck me too David, we settle for this thing called politeness which is not true and we hold back who we are and the love we are. We become projections of ourselves with no real substance as our substance is love and if we don’t express that then what are we? Sarah each time I read this blog I get something new, thank you.
This is a great blog Sarah. I love your analogy of love as a cup of water in the desert – if we truly knew and connected to the fact that it is endless, why would we not want to share it with all that are thirsty and remind them that they too have this inside themselves? Whilst I feel that I am very open and loving with a lot of people, I realise that this is not love at all if it is not for All. Thank you for this reminder to not hold back any more.
‘This is not love at all if it is not love for all’ says so much, Melissa. The pale imitations that masquerade as love, are finite in space and time, turned on and off, owned by individuals. The love Sarah speaks of belongs to no-one and everyone, has no limits and endures through time.
You captured it beautifully Melissa, ‘it is not love at all if it is not love for all’
Sarah I love that there is no “doing” in the love you describe, it is just being love. No gifts, money, sacrifice or trade-offs are required. And this love is available to all equally, what a blessing!
So true Bernadette and Sarah. It takes a huge pressure off because we don’t need to try. We just need to be our true selves and share the beauty and love of who we are with everyone we meet.
Well said Bernadette, Love as a state of being instead of a giving and taking.
Brilliant article Sarah. The love that we all have to express is endless yet it is incredible to see how much we can ‘turn the tap off’ so to speak or even turning it so it only trickles, instead of turning the tap on and leaving it on.
Thank-you Sara, for reminding me of how I have been selfishly keeping the love inside me for myself and then blaming the world for not being loving! How ridiculous is that. It’s time to open up and share my love with everyone, love is not exclusive as you very beautifully point out.
I love how you explain that we can not switch love on and off. It is clear that being less than love with one will affect our relationships with all despite the fact that I have been taught (and conveniently chose to believe) that the opposite is true.
It is a very appropriate metaphor with the water Sarah, as humanity IS actually parched, withered and shriveled from drinking from every cup, except the cup of true love.
Awesome blog Sarah- I felt how entrenched’ politeness’ is;
we are taught to be like this from young, in school, in society.
I hadn’t realised or felt the extent of this until now- ouch!
It definitely feels like holding back the essence of who I am; I feel fake in it if I am being polite; I harden across my chest; it hurts deep within heart. However, if I am just being me, connecting to the love that is within us all, and then express, it feels so natural, free flowing, endless, effortless, beauty-full and love filled.
Great revelation!
I love how you talk about love as something that is everybody’s. It’s not really ours to hold back or give to some and not to others. I love how you explain so well how we do this… politeness. So entrenched. It is something I have to watch closely in myself. Especially around new people, people who annoy me, people who I think are better than me, elderly people, teachers at uni, my list of people I am polite to and don’t really share my love with could go on and on and on! I am leaving them thirsty. I like this analogy. Great blog Sarah, I’ll be watching out for this now.
What an amazing blog Sarah, and loved your relatable analogy of the cup of water – yes, if we were to see another who is thirsty and in need, or even choking, would we really be selective and withhold the water?? I don’t think so. It is our inherent nature to naturally support another, just the same as it is our inherent nature to love naturally, without condition. Your post has made me deeply consider further just how much of that ‘water’ – or universal expression and love I have held back, and continue to withhold…and how irresponsible this actually is. Powerful read.
I agree Zofia, the analogy of thirst in the desert is very powerful as is seeing another in distress ~ we automatically respond without fear or favour. Why do we not give our love in the same manner? It may appear that to love others is an option, however we know that it is as crucial for our wellbeing as any physical thirst may be. I loved re reading this blog.
It is undeniable that love is for all equally. What we have come to accept as love is a far lesser version. We imagine we can turn the tap of love down low in some situations and on full bore in others – often this is what we learn we can and should do in life. I have felt all the untruths that you have mentioned, feeling less worthy of love than others and way less than God. But I also have felt the truth, that love is there within us all. It doesn’t belong to any one of us more than another. It unites us all.
This is a powerful message and wake up call that we are all love and all are deserving of love not just who we deem deserving or who we like or don’t like. Thank you Sarah for sharing this
Love is NOT being polite, emotional, confusing, sugar coated or unclear.
Love IS being truthful, firm, consistent, absolute and leaves no one less.
It can feel spacious, spherical and playful. It is a warmth that emanates from inside of me and it is to be shared with all equally. It is OURS. It cannot be measured.
Sarah this blog itself is an example of love. Thank you.
Beautiful article Sarah…I love it! I too have had a very old pattern of holding back love from some and expressing more love with others. I have found that holding back love and protecting myself is actually physically exhausting. It is like it has an open and closed effect on the cells of the body and this goes against the body’s natural order of being open always.
When I connect to and feel the love that is all around me and is me, I can feel the truth of what you share here Sarah, that we do not own love, and it is not ours to keep. As when I connect to myself within love, it just naturally feels like an outward experience where you just naturally want to share it/you with everyone, and there is no measuring, just an allowing of that divine flow.
Indeed Sarah, I for one do not want to miss out on your love and expression! It is so true if we are all made of love then it is everyone’s right to feel, receive and express love all of the time. We put so many conditions on people and especially ourselves that essentially blocks the flow of love and being nice and polite without the connection that we are all equal is pretty much poison to us all.
Sarah this is a great reminder of how our love should be expressed – it is a journey I am on to bring this more into my everyday with everyone, not just who I feel safe to express love to. Thank you.
Your analogy of an endless cup of water in a desert with humanity is a perfect way of describing measured love or love as an endless supply and naturally for all of us. Thank-you Sarah
This makes total sense and why holding back love for one and giving it to another ever felt like a good idea is a mystery. The contraction it takes to not express who we naturally are takes enormous energy and what a waste of time. I know I have done this for years. It’s so lovely to be aware of the folly of living like this, and to have the chance to turn these habits around. Thank you Sarah.
This is a tough one. It absolutely makes sense that we don’t individually own love, I get that. And it makes sense to me that love should be shared and experienced by all, everyday. Personally, this is a tough one to crack. Peeling away the layers of hurt and protection means that the love I hold is slowly emanating for all to feel, but I can safely say that I still hold on to it with the belief that I have a personal quota of love and I will only share it around when I feel safe to do so. This idea is slowly falling away, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t selfish with my quota of love.
This is a really good point.. I see it all the time, and even do it myself where I have different levels of how loving I will be with different people. I’m more open and loving with family, partner, some friends but not all, and then work colleagues different again. I wonder when this started, why did we learn to do this.. And I’m noticing how hard it is knowing that most of the time the other person is not going to be that back. Knowing people are not open with me makes me want to close off to them.. If it keeps this way nobody changes even though we all want it to change. Someone has to start, so I’d say because I’m now aware of this I should be the bigger person and allow them the choice to see that they are thirsty as you’ve said above..
Thanks Sarah for sharing the truth about love and how it is equally for all.
I know I always calibrated love because I thought it was mine to choose to whom I shared it fully with or not – ouch! I can feel how harming this is. I now understand how it is from an endless source to be equally shared to all.
Sarah what a great revelation you have passed on. I too was in the Illusion that my love was mine to decide what to do with. Love does not work like that; if I can’t love everybody I cant love anybody. Thank you for sharing your revelation and explaining in detail what holding back looks like and its effects. I now have a deeper understanding.
Thank you Sarah. It is such a powerful truth – that we don’t own truth even if it is given to us. That is not love and it actually takes something away another (or many others) were meant to have through my full expression.
Thank you Sarah, I love reading your words of wisdom and inspiration.
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody”
This is such a timely reminder for me to not hold back and to love all equally.
Thank you Sarah for reminding me that I don’t ‘own’ love and it’s not for me to hold back.
It is as simple as we either express love for all, or we do not really express love. I loved your example of the water and the endless cup Sarah, as to feel that we can selectively offer the love we have in this sense seems odd. As you say we come from love, our essence is love and therefore we are all deserving of this love equally. To think otherwise is not truly living in a loving way.
Awesome blog Sarah. I too have participated in and thus perpetuated the ‘acceptable forms of relating’ with others and subsequently sold both myself and them short of the love we are here to be and express. Therefore, as you so beautifully said, ‘I am denying others love, which through reflection can inspire them to re-connect to that same love which is within them’. Thank you for this reminder and for sharing that our love is not ours to hold back but for all equally. Just beautiful.
Thank you Sara, Love is for all and all of us are Love. Just the start of this blog is enough to be considering and how in my day I do have moments of ‘playing it safe’ and being polite. It is so very true if Love is there no matter what and not something for me to own “Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?”
very powerful Sara and a beautiful reminder that the love that is within me is for all. I feel clearly how when we hold this back and not truly meet other people we actually keep creating the hurt that stops us from opening up and sharing all of us with everyone. We have created a negative spiral where we shut down more and more and then have more and more excuses to do so as it hurts to interact in the shallowness of politeness and ‘good’ behaviour. The only way out i have found is to commit to opening up no matter what or who it is…offering an opening for the other to feel safe and trusting enough to open up a bit more too and in this way building a spiral back up to the love we are and all so desperately want.
I too had placed many conditions on sharing love and playing the game of pretending rather than true expression. I had never even looked at the fact that the love I hold back is not even mine to hold in the first place. I truly felt what you expressed here. Love is an endless well.
Sarah I totally agree with you in the fact that love is for everyone not just a select few in our lives. I am finding that when I hold back feeling and expressing love for everyone that I don’t feel quite right in myself. It’s like if I hold back love from anyone it actually hurts me to do so. With the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I am now more committed to letting go of any blocks I have to loving everyone which continues to be a work in progress.
Wow Sarah that was a massive download for me while reading. What an amazing revelation, one worthy of sharing as is the love within us. I got a lot from your blog and feel I will for years to come. Very wise words.
“love is our essence, it is what we are made of and therefore it is everyone’s right to feel it and receive it.” This is beautiful. We do not own the air we breathe, we take it in and we let it out.
True love is the same, we cannot hold on to it and if we try to hold on to it we suffocate.
How we keep ourselves small with our old ideas about love – that we only have a limited amount to give and share. Thank you Sarah for writing so clearly and showing how we and others are expanded and connected when we accept and live that love that is an “endless well”.
Beautifully said Sarah.
Like the song says
“through all those years when I thought I wasn’t enough,
and I was doing so much, just to be loved,
and now I know that I can just be who I am
knowing I have come back to love.”
And with so many people, they feel that there is just not enough love to go around… That you have to portion it out, because it may run out. And so people live on this rat’s wheel of insufficiency, where the truth is, as Sarah says, love is indeed an endless well, and the more we drink from this well, the more it fills.
Yes, indeed Chris. What a great comment.
If we could all just open up the well of love that resides in our inner heart, and let it flow out for all to feel, then we will all be swimming in the endless sea of love! (there’s a song in there somewhere!) All it needs is for us to let go of the protection and barriers that we put in the way to protect ourselves, and allow ourselves to feel.
Hi Sarah, I enjoyed reading and reflecting upon your article. Living a measured life means everyone misses out, starting with ourselves.
The endless cup of love resides within each of us and who are we to hold it back. How can we pick and choose who receives our love. Love is there to be shared equally with all. Thank you for sharing this Sarah.
Your analogy of having an endless cup of water for humanity who are thirsty in the desert and then only sharing it with some and not all is a huge awakening for me. We cannot offer love to some and not to others. If this is a consideration then it is not love at all that is on offer. So beautifully expressed Sarah.
Sarah that is a colossal blog ! Jesus we’re all holding back a dam, it’s no wonder everyone’s buggered ! How absurd that there is nothing of this world that is not love and yet most people are scratching around miserably looking for love. Using your brilliant analogy it’s like swimming in a fresh water lake and feeling parched ! Time to stop holding back the dam and get saturated ! Yippeeeeee
Interesting how our language somehow falls short when reflecting on love. To even call the love inside me to be mine is already a limitation as I can not possess it in the first place, actually it is not love anymore the moment I want to own it. Nevertheless, your picture of the endless cup of water captures it very well as it is the source of love we are connected to when having that cup and we only can keep the cup as long as we share it.
…”To even call the love inside me to be mine is already a limitation as I can not possess it in the first place, actually it is not love anymore the moment I want to own it.” What an awesome awareness Alex, thank you.
Sara, I’d never considered that the love I have within me and hold back is not actually mine to hold back. What a revelation. Time to get myself out of the way. I love your analogy of the cup of water in the desert. It’s beautiful. Why wouldn’t you want to share it with everyone? I look forward to taking this with me and sharing my cup with all that I meet. Awesome thank you.
When we put conditions on love it becomes so much less than the natural expansiveness it is. We extensibly, pull it to pieces, calibrate, package and tie each piece very tightly, and then auction each lot selectively to the highest bidder, if their credentials are right. No one receiving value for money, all feeling cheated, as all they receive is a small fragment of what they intrinsically know love to be and, believed they were getting.True Love knows no bounds, as you say Sarah, “love is our essence, it is what we are made of and therefore it is everyone’s right to feel it and receive it”, equally, no holding back.
Sarah what you share is a real revelation that the Love that we have or hold back is not ours to do that with. We often think that the way we act, think or feel is for us but in that we negate the impact that has on everyone else both inspiring or harming others. I’ve spoken a lot about being angry and how that harms someone yet don’t often reflect on the fact that by not being loving or holding back the love I feel it is harmful as well – that love is there for us all equally.
The way I have been behaving is as if there is a limit and there is not enough love to go around to everyone. Even just typing up that statement – which is the complete opposite to the truth, I can feel the tissues in my body tensing up.
An awesome expose on how we hold back love, when in fact love is universal, all encompassing, and something that everyone is searching for, and if we “find it” before they do we have a responsibility to share it with them. That is confirmed by your words: “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. It feels sad to acknowledge that I too have calibrated who to love and who not to. How harming was that; not only for me, but for the ones I held love back from, and it then follows that the love I did share would also have been tainted by my calibration. A very big revelation for me!
It would serve us better as a society if there was less politeness and more raw truth. Politeness is in many ways more destructive than the harm that comes from someone who speaks their mind without consideration for who they hurt. Whilst such expression is also harmful, at least it allows the other person to deal with what is presented to them directly. Politeness does little more to disguise such behaviour, and does not allow the underlying reasons for such ill thoughts to be looked at. It creates the facade that all is OK, whilst underneath the surface a storm is brewing, and brewing, and brewing. It is no coincidence therefore that when nice people lose it, they lose it big time.
I agree with what you say Adam. It’s no wonder the world is in such a mess when most of us are going around being polite to each other, not wanting to rock the boat and to be liked, or being afraid of hurting people, when the fact is, we are doing more harm by holding back. I have found that when I have spoken the truth to someone, it has been true for them too, and they have breathed a sigh of relief.
This is a great blog Sarah, thank you for the awareness and reminder. Especially “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” is a big one.
Sarah such power and truth I love it! I especially loved this “picking and choosing who we give and share love too, when it is naturally there for us all. ” Brilliant.
I had to re-read this blog this morning, and as I did I remembered something that happened to me when I was 8. I was on school camp, and we were doing an evening walk up a mountain side through deep forest. Many of the kids, myself included, were hyped up and yelling and carrying on – as kids do when they get over excited. When we got to the top of the hill, the teacher made us all sit down and told us we were not moving until those who had misbehaved stood up. No one moved for what seemed eternity. Then I stood up – alone – but I felt so empowered because I was taking responsibility for my part in what had happened. I did not feel like the victim at all, nor a martyr. Rather it just felt true, and my body came alive in response. As soon as I stood up, a dozen other children also followed. The teacher, rather than condemn us for our actions, actually praised us for our honesty. This case may be seen as an example of how when we stand up for truth, people follow. However, this is not always the case, and certainly at the time I had no inclination that others would follow my lead. Rather it was an example of the fact that truth is worth standing up for, regardless of the consequences, and the body confirms this for us when we do. Standing up for Truth is fundamental, not because it has the capacity to change society, but rather the fact that it ensures that society knows that it has the free will to choose.
Adam, I love this, how in standing for truth we show society they can choose, that truth is a choice that’s available. It really is true the truth does set us free, our bodies just lighten up and somehow with that openness and space something else is possible. Thank you for sharing a wonderful example of how this works.
Lovely story Adam. Standing up for truth, for truth’s sake, can certainly inspire others to do the same, without having any expectations of an outcome. Just being true to ourselves is enough.
Sarah, I so relate to your blog. I love that I got a bit of an ouch moment when I read, ‘I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to,’ because it’s helped me to reflect.
Like I’m really starting to feel love cannot be held back from one person, yet given to another- if I hold back from being love with one person then I’m not being love with anyone including myself because to do that requires separating from that love which expresses equally to all. In the same way that if I choose to disregard myself I cannot be love with another.
What I hadn’t fully appreciated was how I have lived thinking I have the right to hold back my love. I know I am not letting go of ‘protecting’ myself by being polite and not love. I know that I have actively withheld my love in order to hurt those I have considered have hurt me (yes, ugly). But I have never considered it is not my right to hold back love! Do I own the love that I am and even if I did would that make any difference?
No it wouldn’t.. Even in everyday terms people wince when material things aren’t taken care of – a beautiful car that gets smashed. I may have the choice to hold back my love and create disharmony and illness in my body but being given that choice doesn’t make it a loving choice. It causes inaudible winces everywhere. It shows other people that it’s ok to treat oneself and each other like this because it asks nothing more of us. My choices prove this is a choice that we can make but do I have a right to make that choice to withhold love? It just feels wrong to trash the love that we can bring.
Karin, I had my own ouch moment reading this blog today and your comment. When you speak of beautiful things and how we wince when they’re mis-treated I felt that, I see that around and I don’t like it, and if as you show, I take it further and see me or others as those beautiful things (which we are), how can it be fine to not be the full beauty, (love) we are, and yet I don’t always live this. Reading this today stopped me – if as Sarah talks of, I just live life as politeness, niceness and don’t truly live the full me, the love I am, then yes I’m living less and I’m saying it’s fine for others to do the same. It’s like this beautiful flower that refuses to bloom, and stays in the shade rather than stepping out into the sun.
“Reading this today stopped me – if as Sarah talks of, I just live life as politeness, niceness and don’t truly live the full me, the love I am, then yes I’m living less and I’m saying it’s fine for others to do the same. It’s like this beautiful flower that refuses to bloom, and stays in the shade rather than stepping out into the sun.” – Beautifully said Monica.
Although we might not be there yet as in “equal for all” and we still “pick and choose” who we love more than others…it is at least a great truth to have, that it might exist, and that we can experience it when we are in our essence.
We will all return to our essence one day, and then we will all BE love, equally, because we are all from the same essence.
Thank you Sarah, for this beautiful blog, it inspires us to look at love in another way. It is for all and we all equally have it so close to us, but sometimes we just need a reminder.
I felt expansion in my body as I read your lovely blog Sarah. You have really made it seem so ridiculous to measure out love to selected others, when love is boundless and not ours to own. I am taking this big love to bed with me tonight – like the gentlest warmest doona!
Thank you Sarah, this blog gives me a clear view on the fact that love is for all equally and never exclusive to some. I can relate to being selective with sharing my love and I know that this actually does not work. The relations I have with people without love are not flourishing compared to the relations base on love. These evolve to intimate and trustful relations I can build on for the rest of my life. I can now connect to the feeling that being selective with my love, brings hurt to others and myself.
Thank you Sarah. What a beautiful realisation that within all of us we are all made from love equally. With that too comes the realisation that we have a responsibility to share this love with everyone equally also.
Lovely blog all over again Sarah. It’s funny I can act like my love is mine to withhold and in the process I stop both loving me and the world – crazy. I can get caught in the games that say I’ll show you my love if you show me yours, but that’s not love, that’s a demand. To love is natural and like a child you can’t not just show it to everyone, it’s not even a thought. One for me to reconnect with today
This is a beautiful blog Sarah; we have all grown up with so many beliefs, concepts and ideals around the word love. Love for close family, love for friends, love for our intimate partner and all in varying degrees. If love is our natural essence, and it is, if we are withholding and measuring its output this is actually a selfish and arrogant way to be. I am also feeling it is very unnatural for us to hold back love and it actually hurts and is harmful to ourselves and others to resist our nature. I am letting this sink in more deeply, thank you.
I love these words you share,- “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”.
This is true Victoria and a great point you are making here, in our education at school the truth about love is not covered and living with or without love is not expressed either. What is interesting is that this is the most important factor in each and everyone’s lives and so there needs to be a base in which this is expressed, felt and explained so that we as humanity are not out in the world searching for something that is already within us all of the time.
As this has not been a discussion in humanity to the degree it needs to be for many this may be far fetched but the fact remains we are love, we need only to deeply self-love and be loving to all others and this will naturally show itself.
Your analogy of the cup of water makes so much sense. I have done and still do polite and other acceptable forms of relating, though this is changing. I have got a clearer understanding of the enormity of holding back love and the effects on others. Thank you.
What this time’s reading got me thinking about was I am part of that all, so the level of love I share with myself can be shared with others, so to what extent do I love myself? And to what extent do I not rock the boat to avoid feeling a personal hurt – a hurt which I avoid feeling because I know it was a moment where no love was felt. But in that I don’t get to feel the fact that I am love underneath all of that which is not love. What I then understand is something that has been presented to me many times over – if we focus on our hurts, or the fact that we are thirsty to follow the analogy, we loose our focus, awareness and connection to the part of us that reminds us that we have a cup of water already with us.
“love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.” So true.
Great expose of the real damage of politeness, niceness and things left unsaid… I have often used politeness as a shield to protect myself whilst denying others the love that I have inside me. I can feel deeply how harmful this actually is (even though it looks fine on the surface) to others after reading this blog.
Spot on Andrew. I’ve noticed recently how untrue being polite and nice is – I find I use it as a protection that I can hide behind so no one can ever dislike or attack me – definitely one billion percent holding back!
I can feel how often I get steered into politeness and good manners, something I learned when I was growing up as a protection. I can feel that there is a deeper place with more connection but somehow do not seem to be able to go there, or find the words. I know it is probably because I am scared of the reaction. This can happen with almost anyone, my friends, family, strangers, those in authority. But it is not always so, I can also often break through that reserve, that “holding back the Love”, when I am feeling the Love in myself and for myself, and absolutely present. So it is when I feel empty that I defend and make do.
Great blog Sarah. For me stands out: ‘how the nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception’.
So beautiful and freeing to feel that we can share with all, with everybody the love we are and feel inside us. No need to categorize humanity and share my love only with selected groups or a selected few.
Sarah, re-visiting your article I feel this is indeed an inspirational sharing. I love this line….’Though how ‘safe’ is it truly to hold back something which is both our essence and our right to feel and express?’….something to ponder on, thank you
After returning to this blog after quite some time I was reminded of the importance of this blog , to share the wisdom and revelations that come to us. I have had moments of true love for all but still need to work on the consistency in that I remove the measured part for good.
Kev, I just felt to re read this blog also, it is an inspiring, and important as you say. What stood out for me was the reminder that I could not love myself and not love another – that I cannot ‘be selective’ in who I offer the glass of water to and who I do not.
I can relate to “the game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’,” and how politeness rather than true expression has been a way I have found to get through life without being too uncomfortable. But what you so clearly show here is that this ‘comfortable way’ is indeed extremely painful for me and for those on the receiving end of my politeness. To be holding back a love that is made to flow freely, consistently and continually is harming, not only to others by depriving them of that ‘quenching drink’, but also because it puts an ever present pressure on my body to hold back such love – and to hold away every other person that is that love also.
I re-read your blog today and this paragraph stood out for me. “A world without love does not make for a common or inspiring vision, however we must be honest about the fact that politeness does not replace love. On a superficial level politeness can help a system function – turn taking, sharing, listening to others, etc. However, on a deeper human level, politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.” – I felt very uncomfortable that I have used politeness to replace love.
This is a powerful lesson of love. My love is not actually mine to hold back – my love is for all, equally. If I am in a desert with a cup of water and do not share it, I will be so distracted holding back and hiding my cup that I too will die of thirst. Love knows no bounds, the more I share it the more I have and the more others will find love and share it with me.
I really appreciated the analogy of the cup of water, I can feel this and see it in a very real way. I feel ‘love is for all’ and does not belong to us to be given out as we deem appropriate. Great to share in your revelation, very supportive.
“The love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” – I could return and read this everyday.
Meg I will re read this everyday, you are correct in saying so.
Thank you Sarah for a wake up call, for us all as lots can relate to your words of wisdom. Thank you.
I have held back throughout my life and as I approach 59 years of age your words really came home to me. “If I choose to hold back my love and natural expression (often through beliefs and ideals, i.e., ‘I am not enough’; ‘it is not safe to trust’; ‘fear of rejection’; etc) I am not only denying myself – I am denying others love, which through reflection can inspire them to re-connect to that same love which is within them.”
Great blog Sarah. What stood out for me was the difference between politeness and love. I have often fooled myself in the past that if I was polite and courteous and not obviously angry or abusive then I was being loving, but I can see now that this was fake and that I have been picking and choosing who I deem worthy of my love and affection. This illusion we have that we own love and that we can judge where we give it or not. Arrogance!
I relate very much to what you say, Andrew. I can recall in the past ‘withdrawing’ my sunshine from people I deemed not worthy of it. In truth, they were simply not paying me the attention I wanted or were not acting in the way I wanted them to.. My withdrawal was nothing more than an energetic temper tantrum- withholding myself from relating fully to others. Incredibly arrogant & definitely not in the nature of true love.
It is so true how most of us humans are using politeness and niceness for society to function. It’s no wonder that it is so easy and mind bogglingly quick for people to change from being ‘ordinary’ citizens to being rioters, looters, hooligans fighting in the street, road raged drivers and all the ugliness we see day to day. It is a switch that is easily flicked because it has nothing but ideals and beliefs keeping it all going. Ideals are like smoke. Wispy. Not solid. Not real. On the other hand, the love that you describe in this blog is solid, expansive and all inclusive. It does not need constantly feeding with your beliefs like ideals do. If we are existing in a society that is functioning on the surface as a result of using politeness, imagine what we are capable of building together if we adopt true love as a way to live and relate with each other. If that ever came to be, and I feel that one day it will, people will feel the disregard and abuse that comes with being polite. To be polite would be insulting.
Top blog Sarah Davis and yes who are we to hold back the Love that we are made of.
The bit I love is you on a desert with humanity and you have the endless cup of water. It brings it all into context – why would you not share and offer to ALL equally. Some may be inspired and others may realise there is someone willing to share and it may open them up to do the same if they were given the opportunity and so it goes on. We are here to stay open to mankind and never to shut down and place conditions on how that Love is going to be.
It is our natural state to be open and loving. The End.
Hi Sarah, the desert analogy you use really made me get a bit of a high speed down load actually…. I get it! The people that don’t show us love, who we would automatically want to hold back from, need it the most. Who are we to decide it’s not us who they are seeing right now for a very good reason, because we know the love they have forgotten but like all of us yearn for deeply? We have the power, all of us, to remind and perhaps inspire, anyone and everyone who come in and out of our lives daily, of the presence of love. That’s amazing!
I felt drawn to read this blog again today – a deeper layer of the ill effects of holding back love is being revealed to me. Thank you Sarah for the power and clarity of this writing.
A beautiful blog to read Sarah. There are Powerful statements to ponder upon – this resonates with me very deeply – “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”.
Always be nice and polite was drummed into me when growing up – and since attending Serge Benhayon’s presentations of the Ancient Wisdom Teachings, I am at last coming back to be love and letting go of some old beliefs and ideals that are like straitjackets being worn when becoming aware of them.
Your analogy to the cup of water is an inspiration – a lovely reminder, that we all have our infinite cup of water to enjoy and also share.
Sarah, I came back to re-read this and this time it was different, I could feel that I really know the politeness of which you speak and how it is actually more insidious than anger as it’s cloaked, and is a way for the system to function. And it struck me that many times I am polite as a way to oil the wheels, so to speak, and it made me uncomfortable reading this as I realised how far from love that truly is, and how it’s purely about function in that moment and not true connection. I am using another in that moment rather than truly connecting with them.
I agree Monica, the nature of politeness is insidious. We casually use the manner to masquerade and it’s effect on another and ourselves goes deep…
Sarah, a great article and your analogy of the ‘endless cup of water’ is brilliant, thank you
A powerful blog Sarah, it has given me plenty to ponder on, on the ways that I hold back my love. Thank you Sarah.
Thank you Sarah. This article really resonates with me. Growing up I accepted the instruction to be polite and kind to everyone but from reading your article I can feel how this put a barrier between me and others and explains why I so often felt alone. When I shut down expressing love for others I shut down feeling my love for myself as well.
I have had roles models share their ‘cup of water’ (I loved the analogy) with me and yet many times I have chosen to believe and behave as if I do not have one myself. Why would I do this? The thought of ‘everyone will want my water and I’ll be left thirsty’ is silly when my cup of water is endless!. Thank you for the reminder that ‘ALL’ includes me and that by sharing love I am not left out so why should I hold it all back.
Great question Leigh, behaving as if we don’t have a cup or even that the cup is polluted, as you say it’s endless, it’s always there and it’s for us to connect to and share.
Thank you Sarah – what a gem this was – “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. It certainly hit a moment of expansion too. Taking ‘me’ out of the picture is a lovely reminder of how love is for everyone equally.
Hi Sarah, I love this blog and in particular the visual image given by sharing your cup of water in the desert – brilliant. Thank you for the timely reminder.
Thank you Sarah for your beautiful blog. Love is equally for everyone, and therefore there is no reason to hold back in sharing it.
What an amazing blog. This is such a gift you have shared with us. Very inspiring. Thank you Sarah.
Thank you Sara for a timely reminder. “who am I to hold back something that is for everybody?”
What a great reminder of what holding back our love does to us and everyone else. I have lived being ‘nice’ which is measuring what love I give and how much. The harm I was caused has stopped and my love is there now to shine for all to see.
Sarah this is an awesome blog, I know every word and every feeling you have shared, and today it was actually very clearly shown to me that I still have an unwillingness to share all of myself. Reading your blog I further see that there is almost a possessiveness in that – that it’s mine to have and to choose what I do with. You are so correct – ‘Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?’
This is something I could read over and over again and get something different from it each time. I completely put my hands up to doing the same as you in the past and treating people differently, loving some but not others… “To be honest I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to. I have placed many conditions on sharing love.” I am starting to change this now though. Thank you for sharing.
I love your explanation of how unloving may come across – it may be polite. My experience is that polite is often very cold and distant, a way to keep people away.
Your words resonated, “Politeness in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships.” I could also say that, for me being NICE in the place of love became a way of being and interacting that led to superficial relationships. I carved this as my way of being to protect myself from being hurt, but I am realising more and more that holding back expressing love hurts even deeper for everyone.
I agree Rachel, being ‘nice’ and ‘polite’ is something I can definitely relate to as I have been these for most of my life. I now realise that a lot of this was due to me protecting myself from being hurt or rejected because of my deep lack of trust. I know the more I express from a place of love the more I present the real me and not the falseness of the ‘nice’ and ‘polite’. Since attending the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon I have gained a greater awareness of how holding back my expression harms not only me but everyone else.
Yes Tim, for me too. I wonder if part of my deep lack of trust is connected to my not realising that, in Sarah’s analogy with the cup, the supply of water to me is endless…and to remind myself to drink from that cup (of Love) too as I pass through the desert.
These words we carry with us in every interaction manipulate everybody. They don’t sound nasty or horrible but they eradicate truth and the whole, which in turn affects everyone around us. How amazing if we were taught this from birth.
Me, too Mary. Someone once told me I was ‘kind’ I see that, even though I was kind to everyone, I wasn’t love, not even to myself. Amazing blog.
What an amazing analogy: the endlessly full glass of water in the desert. Why wouldn’t we share that completely, openly and always; as an inspiration and support for all? Thank you, Sarah.
I agree, Matilda, a very powerful symbol to carry into my day.
Wow this is amazing and power-full. “What part of us (belief, ideal, energy) allows ‘politeness’, ‘tolerance’, the ‘holding of grudges’, right through to the ‘us and them’ beliefs which justify atrocities – to be considered acceptable forms of relating?” You have so powerfully called out the energy here Sarah. What might seem harmless i.e. being polite is in fact driven by an energy that separates all. That fuels the capacity for feelings of ‘Otherness’ and disconnection from our brothers and sisters, which in turn creates dehumanisation and the atrocities that plague this world. Your words presented the truth that any deviation from unity and brotherhood separates us from the ability to express the love we truly are.
“politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’ and ‘not offending’, rather than true expression.” This is so true. I often feel sad when people are polite to me. It often feels dismissive or a blanket for anger. But I cannot deny that I do it too.
As I was reading I had an image of the whole world walking around waiting for the other person to go first….thankfully the world does have some beautiful, open people in it to light the way.
The image of the world waiting for someone to ‘go first’ is so powerful, I had an image of them all on a bus – no one would ever get off! And yes, how fortunate that there are those amongst us who show a way to get off that bus and live with love
Sarah thankyou for sharing your ‘endless cup’ – a timely reminder. You are a true inspiration.
Thank you, Sarah, this is really beautiful. The desert analogy is very powerful and presents an inescapable truth.
I love how you have expressed the Truth of Love, and the analogy used. I can relate to much of whats been shared but what gave me a stop moment when reading was,
“Who am I to hold back something that is meant for everybody?”, “To be honest I have lived like I have that right – to hold back love like it is mine to decide what to do with, and what not to”. These words are powerful and even though I knew this I hadn’t felt the absolute truth in how holding my Love back plays out. Inspiring – Thank you Sarah.
What and amazing blog Sarah, so clear and obvious when you present it like that. I too now this very well and the holding back and being selective. This is such a lovely reminder to start my day – Who am I to hold back the Love that is there for everyone equally? Who wants a glass of water I say!
I agree Mary this article really moved me. To hold back on love for others is to hold back on love for myself too, and I could feel it flowing as I read Sara’s immense blog.
Gosh, “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. What a powerful and thought provoking statement. I knew this intellectually but what you have expressed about it, Sarah, has enabled me to ‘feel’ it in a way I had not before. I feel it now as my truth not just a concept. Thank you.
“if I choose to hold back my love and natural expression ….. I am not only denying myself – I am denying others love, which through reflection can inspire them to re-connect to that same love which is within them.”
Wow Sarah what a blog, the love I have is not mine to hold back but to be shared with all – I so know this one, holding back and your analogy of the cup of water really brought it home for me, how by offering mine I remind another that they can find theirs – I will keep reminding myself with this. This is a blog for further reading, I love how you’ve expressed the key to letting love out, which we all deeply know and want and yet hold on to, in case, or when they go first (familiar yes), and this is so crazy, and needless. And you’ve nailed the biggest illusion in this, that we can do this (hold back) to another human being while seemingly being loving with our ‘chosen’ ones, it’s just as you said if we’re not expressing love, we can’t just turn it on, it’s there for all or none, and it’s an innate part of us we want to express to all. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, it really touched me.
I agree Monica, great blog Sarah. The big myth / Illusion buster is thinking we can direct love towards one person but not another, ie turn it on and off when we choose to – ‘its there for all or none’ – simple and extremely powerful when I apply it to my life!
Awesome blog Sara. I know I have played the game… especially when “politeness alone falls short of bringing true connection and true relationship – life then becomes a game of ‘pretending’”. Your call to be real, and share love with all equally is deeply inspiring.
It is crazy how the meaning of love can become bastardised to mean an exchange of what we can do for one another instead of the true meaning “I immediately felt how the nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception.” Thank you Sara for sharing this truth, love is for us all equally so.
A great article Sandra, full of poignant questions we can ask ourselves. I love this one “……what part of us falls for the belief that we can live our lives holding back love, and then press some ‘on’ button for our friends and family?……” Thank you for the wake up call
Thanks Sarah, what a great analogy to sum it up, that really helped me. I understand what you are saying and am currently working towards opening my heart so I can be love with everyone rather than offer superficial ‘love’ to a few.
What a stunning marker, thanks Sarah. You so beautifully nail it. Why hold back, for love equally is the greatest gift to self.
I love your analogy of being in the desert, and holding back our love is like holding back our supply of water and leaving people thirsty. It brings home the fact that love is not meant for a select few, but is the equal right of everyone to receive, feel and express for themselves.
Wonderful blog – I can so relate. Thankyou Sarah for the reminder to not hold back – “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”. Powerful. The way to end aggression………but it starts with me, each one of us individually.
Thanks Sarah this blog is full of wisdom, a lesson for humanity to move forward and evolve with. On reading it through for the second time it seemed to break though some barrier I was still holding up and made me realise how much love I constantly hold back. Here’s to moving forward without that barrier.
I love this article. Great reminder, and for me I can see the holding back is because I don’t want to get hurt. But holding back hurts me!! Crazy, though it is getting less and less. Bring on the Love button 🙂
This is amazing Sarah. I particularly enjoyed the analogy of being in a desert with humanity carrying an endless cup of water. I see my commonly held view that ‘they can find their own cup’ but what you describe here is beautiful in ‘many are not aware of this’. This brings in the great responsibility we have to be ourselves and not hold Love back as it’s not for us, but everyone else.
Well expressed, Shevon, I agree.
Thank you Sarah for sharing this awesome blog. I have spent many years hiding behind the veil of politeness and measuring my love out to certain people and not others and I can really feel how this has kept me less and harmed me and everyone I come into contact with. I feel inspired to share my ‘endless cup’ with humanity.
Thanks Sarah, a great reminder to not hold back love, I too have been very guilty of being more loving to one person over another just because I like them more or that they are easier to get along with. Is this true love at all, as how can love be a measured thing?
Thank you Sarah a great blog, and a timely reminder to not hold back.
The love I have is not mine to hold back, that is truly awesome, keeping others at bay, being measured, where is the love in that. A great healing blog, thank you Sarah.
A true gem, thank you Sarah. How inspiring and true, when we hold back our love everyone misses out and we are all less as a result. It calls us to expand and see responsibility in a whole new light. Beautiful expression.
A true gem indeed Victoria, awesomely said. This part resonated a lot with me: ‘In the attempt to hold back or ‘protect myself’ from, I was not aware that I was hurting myself through being separate to the love that I am. I had the commonly held belief that I could love myself and not another – ‘be selective’ in other words.’
Thank you so much Sarah, you have written these words for me to read at the most amazingly perfect time. You have so beautifully put into words exactly what I have been pondering these last few days. What an inspiration you are.
Wow Sarah, powerful post. Thank you very much.
Sarah, truly inspiring! I have lived behind the veil of politeness my whole life and as I have been unfolding these past few months in particular, have been feeling the deep deep sadness of having held back my true love and expression. I too was stuck by the opening line “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally” as i have so often made choices to keep myself separated from others, protecting myself, not wanting to express in fear of what others would think of me. All the while hurting myself and others in the process. Coming from the place “the love is not actually mine to hold back” has touched me profoundly!! Thank you!
Thank you Sarah.
Reading your beautiful blog gave me an “oh yes” moment. Your words have brought clarity and light to something that has been bubbling inside me. How can I, and why do I choose to “love” one person more than another? How did I ever imagine that politeness was enough, to simply negotiate my way through life, rather than bring all of me to each and every person? I completely relate to the physical hardness described by Danielle in her reply. Thank you Sarah for the absolute equalness and the love that shines out from you.
Aha! And the light goes on. I love your blog Sarah, thank you. The analogy with the ‘endless cup of water’ is truly inspired and so, so powerful. I feel a level of understanding and clarity about holding back my love that I haven’t felt before. It never did make sense to hold back given all that we already know, but somehow the picture you have painted has resonated deeply and turned my previously stubborn face fully to the light and truth.
I so agree Lucy. A truly inspirational article.
Wow Sarah. This is a cup of gold.
Interestingly Sarah I had to read your blog twice, the first time I was holding back from reading the whole. Why, because I have held back all my life. I have used politeness to not make waves. I have given my love to some and not to others. Thank you Sarah your blog is very inspiring, when I read it I can feel there is absolutely no purpose in holding back, I can feel the expansion in me and how much more freeing it is to allow others to see my love in full.
Sarah, this masterpiece has touched me in so many ways.
How exposing what our “ideals” and our interpertation of what being love is – squirmed like a worm about to be put on a fish hook.
It was felt to the core of my being and I will read this for months to come – thank you.
Toni reading your comment was the hammer on the head. I’m right behind you –
I’m now very clear on why the heart can’t love more than another.
Love is an energy, you are either love to all equally so or you are not love at all – simply beautiful!
Hear, hear Sarah. I love your ‘everlasting cup’ analogy — that is the holy grail — our own heart. Wow, awesome.
Thank you for your inspiration Sarah, your message is very powerful (your ‘mega endless cup of love’ is flowing over).
By eliminating ‘selective’ love and politeness, I can see how we can open up a beautiful pathway to a more consistent, simple and glorious life.
I have saved your article as a gentle reminder…
This is a very profound blog, Sarah. Your words – ‘The nature of love is unity, equality – that it cannot be separated – it cannot be for one person and not the other, it is always for All – without exception’ are perfect in the inspiration they provide for all to live this way and not hold back the love we all are!
Thank you Sarah, I love the way you have expressed this big issue of our attempt to own and measure the divine, your honesty and depth is much needed, beautiful.
I have definitely played this game, actually I still do. Although it is not a game that I want to be playing, that is holding back my love and being selective on who I share it with. However there are times when it happens before I am even conscious of it and so I am learning to feel this, nominate it and then reflect on what was going on for me to respond this way. My body can feel that I love humanity deeply and that I can let all of this love out. My body can also feel sad as I have held this love back and my body can feel joy when I let it out equally for all.
This post helps me enormously Sarah, because who AM I to hold back something that is meant for everybody? I have lived just as you have, selectively giving love to those that I believe warrant it. How ridiculous, done as a form of protection I’m sure, but protection from what exactly? I choose to change right now. Thankyou.
I agree with you Suzanne, I have lived an arrogance of ‘thinking’ I could choose who to love. Love is for all equally otherwise it is not Love! Time to change and love all truly.
The depth of your dedication and love for humanity is absolutely ginormous and most inspiring. Thank you Sarah.
Thank you Sarah, by sharing this experience you have deepened the awareness for us all. Beautifully written and this has expanded and awakened my responsibility. It is not that I did not know this at some level but the articulation you have gifted to me and all of us activates this truth in expression. Awesome. Honouring. Deep. Full.
I can totally relate to this – I have recently begun to feel that when I hold back love or being my shining light that I feel a very deep sadness, or feelings of tension or anxiety and a hardness through my chest and arms and even into my hands. After reading this blog and with further pondering I have felt that the sadness and anxiety I feel is not just because I miss my own love and am unsure how to be in the world without it – but I also feel the absolute sadness and some what ‘degustation’ of the rest of the world who all also want to feel and experience love. This is why the hardness in my upper body kicks in, to not only not feel the hurt of myself and others, but to not feel that I actually have the key to unlock the hurt but am choosing not to use it. I’ve decided that I will make my key (that everyone else also has but has misplaced) an automatic swipe card that can never be turned off to not use!
Your first sentence ‘a lovely and wise young woman recently said to me that “the love I was holding back was not actually mine to hold back – that love is for all, equally”….’ did it for me, delivering a complete, revelatory, expanding ah ha moment with no need to read any further.
However, I did read on and expanded that lovely ah ha. Yes, I too use politeness to not express love, gosh that is so true and so awful. Yesterday I attended “The Livingness Stage 1” – presented by Serge Benhayon and contributed to by a fabulous diverse range of participants, many of whom were attending their first Universal Medicine event. What a blessing it was to be there. Even though I have attended this presentation lots of times before, on each occasion it is an awesome experience and I connect to deeper levels of love, oneness and how AWFUL it feels to hold back love.
This was awesome to read and I loved your analogy with the cup, the games we play to avoid being love is truly crazy.
Hi Sarah…….I’m here to tell you that from what I can feel, your love button is “on” most all the time nowadays. You light up the room. Thank you for this beautifully written blog that gives us an insight into how it is that you switched yourself on. I feel I will be “on” more often now by recalling the words of your blog.
Great comment Gayle, I agree Sarah’s love button is very much on as is yours 🙂
Yes, agree, holding back love leaves us all less. What a great revelation to share, thank you.
There is so much in this post that awakens me and stokes the fire in my heart, thank you Sarah.
“In the attempt to hold back or ‘protect myself’ from, I was not aware that I was hurting myself through being separate to the love that I am.”
So many of my interactions have come from a safe or protected stance even though I may have been friendly and engaging. This hurts and feels awful because deep down we know there is more richness when interactions are love and love equally.
I have read this post a number of times and feel I can read it a number more.
How strong this piece is, I have also withheld my love from some, which I now know means I could not have truly been Love with those I thought I was being love with. This is impossible, if I am not loving with one then I can not be loving with all. Love is an energy I foster within my body so it naturally gets shared with all, unless I choose to separate from this Love of mine (through withholding or many other ways), then it is not a part of me that emanates, so when with another it can not be shared at this time.
Thank you Sarah, I really felt and understood what you were writing about, your use of the endless cup brought tears to my eyes.
Sarah, thank you so much for this awesome piece of writing!
Sarah this a beauty-full expression of love equally for all.
A most inspiring read. Thank you!
Utterly, eloquently and simply true. I love your expression – both the essence and the way of it.