Transforming Fear into a Call for LOVE | S1E001

Linda Orsini: 00:00:08

Hello and welcome to A Call for Love. I believe the most powerful gift you can offer yourself is to give and receive love more freely. I'm your host, Linda Orsini, meditation guidance spiritual coach. Everyone has the desire to be seen, heard, respected and loved. The journey to becoming more connected to your greater purpose lies within the ability to live from the deep source of love within you. Let's begin.

Linda Orsini: 00:00:42

I'm so grateful you're here. Thank you for joining a call for love episode one. Wow, I can't believe it's finally arrived. And I'm finally here sharing with you what a call for love means and how it can help you in your life. Well, to begin, I feel like I'm a very loving person, as I'm sure you do, too. However, we all know that life is not easy and things do not go smoothly. Eventually, something will stir us trigger has upset us. And then Wow, all of a sudden, we're not in a place of love, or even a place of peace. And this is the driving force behind my journey is to notice what I'm feeling. And if I can be more loving and kind, it doesn't always work out. So let's see how a call for love can work in our lives.

Linda Orsini: 00:01:39

Let's begin with a personal story. I was teaching a healing, emotional stress, fear and anxiety course at a local yoga studio called be yoga in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. And I decided to share a pivotal concept with my students. We're about halfway through the course. And I wanted to really drive home this concept of the two main emotions, fear and love. According to many spiritual traditions, there are these two emotions, living in love or living in fear. So I thought it would be a really cool idea to paint on rocks, one side love and one side fear. So that if you are living your life, and maybe you place it at your desk, and you say hmm, am I in a place of fear or in a place of love, and then you could look at your rock and then turn the rock to that emotion and just notice just it's about creating an awareness. And if you see fear showing up in your life and facing you on the rock, then maybe you could say, Hmm, maybe I don't want to be in fear. What can I do about it? So this was the whole pivotal concept of what I wanted to share with my students. Well, we have a place up north, and it is on the water right at Georgian Bay. We have so many river rocks and I thought it'd be a great idea to collect about 50 of them, bring them home and then undertake this project. So I really was very mindful of the rocks. I picked the shape the size How would sit down I selected my rocks, brought them home, wash them put a nice little clear a very thin on first so that I could paint them and prepare them while they began with the fear side. I chose a black paint marker and began to cursive write the letters F E A R fear on the back of each rock. Well, you think it was easy? Absolutely not. I can't believe how long it took me. It did not flow. It was not smooth. It was not fun. I kept on running into difficulties. The the paint marker wouldn't flow. I had to change them. I ran out of ink. Everything that could happen did happen. I had to start over many times. But I was determined to finish the task. So eventually I did that I proceeded to cursive paint the word love on the front side. And actually I was done in no time. It was a breeze. It was so fun. I couldn't believe it. It was just easy. It glided it was joyful. And when I was 10 I looked at my friend said, Wow, that was really fast. And so Valerie and I both chuckled because it only occurred to us after that. That isn't that interesting? That love was so easy. And fear was so hard.

Linda Orsini: 00:04:49

Isn't this the truth? Fear is stark. It's dark and absolutely it's painful. It's a painful emotion. It is the powerful lie that leads us away from who we really are. When we are living from a place of fear, we are not living our best lives, we are not living our best selves, we are not tapping into all the glorious strength, vibration, love and light that's within us. So no, we do not want to be in a place of fear, love. Love is uplifting, it's light. It's joyous. It's just where we want to be. So no wonder writing fear was challenging. And no wonder writing love was easy and flowing. I really feel like this is a reflection for life. So why is fear such a driving force in our lives, I think we have a very clear idea of what fear is. But let me just give you an example. As I said, we have a country home up north and it's very close to the Bruce Trail. If you've never heard of the Bruce Trail is a hiking trail in southern Ontario, Canada, and it runs from the Niagara River to the tip of Tobermory, and it's around 900 kilometers long. Well, there's lots of black bears that live along the Bruce Peninsula. And I've often thought what would happen if I actually met one while hiking. This is when fear real fear of a direct threat and a physical harm or danger to myself creates a healthy dose of fear, I want to have the reaction of fear if this should ever happen. So let's say I'm walking along the trail, and I see a bear on its hind legs staring at me and starts hollering, you bet my heart's gonna start racing, you bet my breathing is gonna increase and my hearing and vision will become so much more acutely aware. And thank goodness, because we all need the adrenaline rush to get the speed and the strength to fight flight or freeze, which is the sympathetic nervous system. This is our lower brain and the most ancient part of our brain really protecting ourselves. It's how we've survived as a human species. And I'm grateful for that. I have spent the last 10 years studying the fight flight or freeze response. Personally, I find it really interesting, and especially how it creates havoc in our physical body. Because when in a yoga class or when we practice pranayama, I just feel a huge shift from feeling that adrenaline rush to a sense of calm and ease and I, my whole life gets better my because my thinking becomes clearer, my body becomes softer. It's just so mind boggling. This whole fight flight and freeze response. But really, how often are we going to run into a bear? It's more likely that the car in front of us might slam on its brakes, and we'll have to think instinctively and press on our brakes to avert an accident. But really, how often is that even going to happen?

Linda Orsini: 00:08:11

In this day and age we are perpetually fighting fear, not real fear, emotional fears. When fear stops being real, it becomes psychological or ego driven fear. And that is what's threatening, really our mental safety and stability these days. This kind of fear originates, it originates from inside our minds. It's not an external threat, but often a self imposed, and it's so crippling, it actually hijacks our life, and definitely our peace of mind. I know this all too well. And I bet you can identify to in the last two to three years. How much fear is all around us is mind boggling. So this is a not a new phenomenon for sure. Yet when I refer to psychological fear, I'm referring to all negative emotions. psychological fear manifests as let's say, anger, jealousy and V, sadness, anxiety so much of that these days depression, oh my goodness in the news, agitation, everything negative is a psychological fear. And anything that is not love and of the highest vibration is in that domain of fear. And we know this because of the law of polarity, the law of polarity that says that everything has an opposite. There's the ying and the yang, the pain and the pleasure day and night north and south. Success and failure or health or sickness. You get the point it's all the opposites. So what fear is, is it's a separation it's a separating out us from living in calm and peace is separates us from our real self is the ego, self, and our higher self. So fear is from the ego. Fear robs us of our inherent sense of peace.

Linda Orsini: 00:10:18

Because fear is our lowest vibration and love is the highest, we can make a choice. I'd like to ask you, do you want to live in fear? Or do you want to live in love. If living in a place of love for yourself, and your thoughts, and your feelings, and your emotions, is just too challenging, and most of the time it can be, then maybe there is a call for love. Maybe you don't have to force yourself into love. But maybe you can notice that, oh, this is a call for love. It's a call for self compassion, and kindness. This is what a call for love podcast is all about. This is what I'm sharing with you now on this platform. It's about creating awareness. It's about noticing when we're living from a place of love, and noticing when we're living from a place of fear, then making the decision to move towards love, if it's possible, in this moment, deciding to shift towards love. I'm not saying it's easy. It's not easy for me, I've been battling fear for I would almost say my whole life. Of course, there are periods that fear is less, there's less fear. And then there's periods that there's more fear. But I believe with my whole heart and soul that if we can just notice our psychological fears, and make space for them to process and lean into them. If we're able, then we can heal our fears and move towards more loving thoughts, more loving feelings, and more loving actions. We can make a call for love and end our suffering.

Linda Orsini: 00:12:06

Let's just slow down here for a moment and bring attention to your heart center. If you're able, can you just take a deep breath in and exhale through the mouth? And ask yourself what would it feel like to live a life more awakened to love, where fear doesn't hold you back, where you're not crippled by fear where you can live in freedom, freedom to explore and be with your emotions, without worrying what others think and without worrying how you are living or if you're doing it right if you do if you're good enough. Breathe into your heart and offer yourself some loving kindness and self compassion for where you are in this moment. We place so much pressure on ourselves already that no more is needed. We are often our own worst enemy. I'm not asking you to add more pressure to yourself. I'm just wondering if you are able to ask yourself to open to soften into this moment. And if it becomes available, can you make a call for love? I love this quote. When love expands fear disappears. It's just so comforting to know that if I can be more in a place of love, then I don't have to worry about fear it disappears on its own. And remember when given the choice if it's available to you and if you can soften into the moment remember when given the choice, choose a call for love. Thank you for joining in today. For my heart to yours. Namaste