Most of us think that love is about a feeling we get from someone else or a feeling we show to others. So if we get approval, praise and positive attention from someone, we feel good about ourselves and/or we feel loved. But this is not true love… this is conditional love or pseudo love, and it’s a very insecure place to be. It’s scary because we constantly rely on others approval of us and various other signs of their love in order to feel loved or loveable. We then become attached to this feeling and become fearful of losing it, or wanting more of it, which is an incredible amount of pressure to live with… all in order to just maintain this ‘feeling’ of being loved.

The truest and deepest love comes from the love we have for ourselves and the source of who we are. This is the only secure love we will ever experience. Acknowledging our truth, living by it and expressing it when necessary is a reflection of self-love, and it’s also an expression of love itself. When we stop pleasing and approval seeking in order to feel loved, we begin to experience the truth of who we really are…. this is when we begin to live an authentic life and this is when we experience true freedom and unconditional love.

The source of every living thing is love so we can never lose it, we can only lose the awareness of it. The essence of who we are is love, but if we are not aware of this and allow our ego driven approval seeking mind to take over, we lose sight of this inner love and begin to look outside of ourselves in order to find it. Our mind will tell us all sorts of lies about love… our mind is therefore the barrier to experiencing love. Without the ‘thinking’ mind, we would all just be a beautiful expression of love… our true loving nature would shine because there would be no ‘mind’ stopping it from doing so.

So many of us live our lives by saying what others want to hear, doing what others expect us to do, being polite for the sake of it and attempting to live up to the standards of others. This is not freedom… this is hell. This is like being a hostage to someone else.

I’m not here on this earth to be liked or approved of by anyone… I’m here on this planet to know my truth/my heart/my source/my higher self and be brave enough to live by it, independent of what anyone thinks about me. I wish this for myself and every other human being.

When we are aware of the fact that we are ‘love’ and learn to question and stop believing our minds when we judge, blame or criticize others, then we can authentically love ourselves and others.

Stress, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, tension and fear simply come from our thoughts, which stem from our beliefs. When we become attached to our beliefs we produce stressful thoughts, which leads to suffering.

The key to wisdom is being open, which means NOT knowing or thinking that you ‘know’. And the answer to living a stress free life is to mind your own business.

The more I observe and listen to people, be it so-called experts or people who are passionate about something, the more I realize that most people seem to want to know for certain and let you know that they know. I’ve also noticed that most of these people appear to be uncomfortable with ‘uncertainty’, ‘grey areas’, ‘not knowing the answers’ or not having the answers.

Many of us have such strong beliefs about various topics, issues or subjects that we just can’t wait to convince someone else of it. And since it’s now so easy to ‘share’ our views with the rest of the world, thanks to social media, we are sprouting off our opinions/views left, right and centre…. and I’ve been doing it too, but I plan to change that about myself.

The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know, and more importantly, the more I realize I will never know absolutely. There is so little that we can say is absolutely true, yet so many of us are claiming to know it to be true. We can become so attached to our beliefs that we are blinded and can no longer see or hear anything else, which is when we cease to be wise. We no longer question our thoughts, which come from our beliefs and judgments, since we have convinced ourselves that they are true.

Imagine what a beautiful loving and accepting world we would live in if we all just took care of ourselves, followed our own truth, made choices that were right for us and allowed everyone else to do the same... Imagine if everyone stopped pushing their beliefs onto others in an attempt to convince them that their way is best. Not only would we all be more relaxed and content, but we wouldn’t be spending so much time and energy shoving our views onto others, trying to solve their problems or make them better in some way. Nobody would be on a mission anymore to make others more like themselves, but would rather just enjoy being themselves and have more time and energy to work on ‘self’.

Unfortunately, I’ve done this for most of my life and now I realize how futile it’s been and more importantly, I  now understand that it’s insanity. Trying to convince and/or fix others is INSANITY. The change begins with ‘me’…. So if you like what you see and choose to ask me what I do, I will share, but if not, that’s fine by me and I’ll wish you well on your journey.

Katie Byron says it well – There are 3 kinds of business; mine, yours and God’s. God’s business is ‘reality’ and anything that is out of your control or mine is called God’s business, like natural disasters, war, death, and so on. When I am mentally in your business or God’s business, the effect is separation, which results in stress, anxiety, frustration and disappointment. Most of our stress comes from living outside of our own business; for example, thinking thoughts like, ‘you should or shouldn’t’ or ‘you need to’. If I am doing this, I am mentally living your life, so who is here living mine? We’re both over there living yours. I am therefore separate from myself wondering why my life doesn’t work.

To think that I know what’s best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance and the result is stress, tension, anxiety and fear.

Do I know what’s right for me? That is my only business. So next time you’re feeling stressed, frustrated or anxious, ask yourself, “Whose business am I in?” Just by noticing that you’re in someone else’s business can bring you back to your own wonderful self.

So be wise by staying open and not attaching to any particular belief and be stress free by living in your own business.

Visit Katie Byron Site to learn more about questioning your thoughts