Love Is Everywhere. Will You Let It In?

This article first appeared in my February 2019 Newsletter.

I’m sure this has happened to you; you bump into someone you haven’t seen for a while and they say something like: "Soo! What have you been up to?" And you know intuitively that they couldn’t bear to hear all you’d say if you started and besides you don’t have time. In a situation like this, an image pops up and I want to say: "Oh! Nothing much, just lounging by the pool sipping umbrella drinks."

Well my Newsletter has being lounging, waiting and waiting to share umbrella drinks with you for most of 2018, but the rest of my life, not so much. I’ve been crazy busy; you know the kind of busyness I encourage you to not get sucked into.

And it was all about you, especially if you are a woman who is stirring and stretching and desiring to start claiming more of your Feminine Power. You already have an inner knowing that it’s there. Now all you have to do is have an intention to follow through because it’s your time. Yes you, and you and you!

Do you want to know the why and the how? Well let me tell you... Pull up a chair to reflect and spend a little time with me.

I feel compelled to share what I know helps us claim more of our Feminine Power. Our Power is much like Self-Esteem; we all have some but none of us have enough.

Before I continue about the importance of you and your Feminine Power and it happens to be close to Valentine’s Day let’s start with Love.

Love is everywhere.

How much do you allow into your heart…your life?

“We accept the love we think we deserve”

― Stephen Chbosky

• How lovable do you believe you are?
• Do you believe that you are deserving of the love you dream about?
• Do you allow love in?
• Do you believe there is enough love to go around?
• Do you believe that there is a scarcity of love?

The quality and the amount of love like everything else in our life is dependent on what we feel worthy to receive. The level of love we have for ourselves is the litmus test for the love we bring into our lives; the degree that we can have a full, loving relationship.

There have been times over the years when clients have gotten angry with me…. This is more apt to happen after a relationship hurt or breakup and I enquire as to their beliefs about themselves. If anger occurs it is usually in the beginning of our time together until they are guided into loving themselves more. They have to come to grips with the fact that although they know about love and desire; it is their sense of worthiness which is the critical element to bring love forth. Then and only then can they have love and whatever it is that they truly desire.

Were you raised with a scarcity mindset in some area of life? Most of us were. It is a familial, religious and cultural way of thinking entrenched by beliefs that there is not enough to go around. It is based on the idea that everyone has to compete to grab his or her share of the pie…. (of love, of time, of money, of health, of youth, you name it)… and that pie is too small to share with everyone.

What does such a belief system does to our openness and willingness to love and be loved? First of all it narrows down our ability to be open to receive. This scarcity mindset narrows our world view, puts our frame of reference into a safe little black and white frame. It is like putting blinders on a horse, keeping its vision on a narrow predetermined path.

Do you know whether or not you have blinders on? Do you believe that love should come to you only through the “right” man or friend?

Do you decrease your possibilities of having love by wanting it to arrive in a certain form and in a certain way by…. noon on Wednesday? At least, by staying small in one’s expectations, our familiar is not disturbed. I’ve had clients say to me… at least by not expecting so much; I won’t be so disappointed when it doesn’t turn out .. So! What is the prognosis for love with a statement like that?

If we cannot see ourselves being surrounded by the warmth of love in all of its forms, we cannot have it. It’s not based on miracles, it is based on beliefs.

This attitude or mindset occurs everywhere. One of my clients, new to the community wanted to meet new people and hopefully make new friends. She joined a Women’s Book Club, and assumed they would probably be cliquish like the girls in her High School. She wasn’t really open to enjoy new experiences, she was still a victim of her old story. After exploring the situation, assumptions and behaviors, she admitted to being rather stand-offish, making it difficult to be approached.

Sometimes after a loss of love that has being intense, we fear the pain of a repeated loss so much that we close down, get cynical or lose hope about having the love we want in our lives. Some actually narrow desires and do not fully engage in order to avoid future pain of loss or rejection.

This state actually has a name: it is called “adapted preferences” which means not allowing ourselves to dream big, while trying to some extent control the anguish that we might experience if things do not work out. Goes something like this….”you shouldn’t ask for so much.”

Do you betray yourself, by holding yourself back? Where do you practice “adapted preferences”? 

Love is everywhere. Will you let it in?

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,

while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

― Lao Tzu

Remove Obstacles to Experience Unstoppable Feminine Power

So I wrote a book for you containing some of the universal struggles that women have when they know they are ready for a change and want to really value themselves and step up to be counted. My new book is titled…

Remove Obstacles to Experience Unstoppable Feminine Power

In this book I give you timeless information. It doesn’t matter what age you are or how many strategies you have tried before… these are proven approaches that are designed to help you understand and reclaim or claim for the first time your Feminine Power. So, tack your courage to the sticking place. The ride may get bumpy, but it will never be boring. It is time to allow more of your light to shine.

Once you claim the power within you, own it, love and value all that you are, know that you will really be at another place in life. You will have stepped into a space of seeing more of the bigger picture and, once that happens, you are changed and, therefore, cannot go back to the life you had yesterday.

Once you decide not to play by faulty rules and beliefs that have underestimated you, you are on your way.

It doesn’t matter if you are on step two or are tentatively moving just a half step. You have begun. Whether a beginner or further along on the journey, most women have some difficulties claiming their power. 

Like self-esteem, when it comes to Feminine Power, no woman has none and no woman has enough… we are all somewhere on the spectrum. You may feel your power at work, but not at home; or vice versa. You may have power with your spouse and children but feel like you are 12 when visiting your parents. Even when you feel more of your power, most of us have a tripwire that repetitively “keeps you in your place” or stops you in your tracks when you least expect it.

I think women are fed up with the way women are treated on many levels. It’s really up to us - each and every woman - to create the change… to the extent we can join with other women and say “no more.” without the earlier rage. We are half the world’s power; we must say “no more.” 

Women have not been raised to truly feel their Feminine Power and those of us who have struggled to attain that feeling within encourage women to step up and take their rightful place in the world. This isn’t about doing it in an angry way but in a way that says “I count, I matter, and I will no longer tolerate being a shadow power.” It’s happening and it’s happening now! Join the movement by claiming your power and supporting other women to do so as well

You may wonder; why should I read this book? How will it help me?

This will help you as a woman if any of the following statements resonate with you.

Are you a woman:

• Whose family did not value your uniqueness and pressured you to fit in to their mold.
• Who suffered harsh restraints on freedoms, self-expression, etc.
• Who has not felt enough personal power to follow your dreams.
• Who has used false, or shadow power, from anger while knowing that something important is missing…. authentic power.
• Who felt some power and stopped yourself, fearing you would not be accepted if you were “too strong or too independent.”
• Who wants to sing your unsung song to make a difference in your own life and, therefore, the lives of others.
• Who is “too nice” for your own good, to experience the power in being kind instead.
• Who hides your power and strengths so as not to make others uncomfortable?
• Who wants success and yet fears it being locked into a narrow cultural view of success.
• Who fears failure because of faulty beliefs, not realizing that failure is a stepping stone to success?
• Who has accepted somebody else’s story that there would be a rescuer?
• Who does not validate your feelings and come to see me saying, “I know I shouldn’t feel this way about…”

What to Expect

This book represents decades of devotion to working out the glitches and the mysteries of why we tend to deny ourselves our birthright. This work then is a trial and error until I found the answers for myself and my wonderful women clients.

Here I share with you how to overcome the wounding to claim the wonderful strengths and patterns that all women have but not all women know how to identify and use. Women are unstoppable once they are determined to appreciate their innate qualities and know that they are worthy to actively pursue going their dreams.

Once women grasp their worthiness to wield this kind of power, when they stop underestimating what they have to offer, and become determined to create something better, they are a power to be reckoned with.

The results that have occurred in my life and the lives of women I have worked with could be considered magical. And so it is.

For more information go to: https://www.laurabyoung.com/