Love is an overused concept and an underused practice. We say we love chocolate, books, and movie stars. We search for true love and hope to fall into it as though it were a hole in the ground. So, what is love? It gets 102 million hits on Google. It’s the most common theme of art and music. Love can refer to a simple pleasure, like loving a meal or smelling a flower, or to something one would die for, like love for a partner or a child. Love can be present in the best of times and the worst. It seems to hang around little children, puppies, and kittens. It is usually found at births and deaths, and in between it often gets mistaken for sex.
Love is a complex, abstract concept, with multiple meanings. Love, as I am using it here, refers to a life-enhancing energy. I see it as the basic element of the Universe. For me, love makes me smile. I feel energized, worthwhile, and connected to Oneness. I think it’s the best thing in the Universe, and in many ways, it is the Universe.
To distinguish this Universal Love Energy from the “ordinary” love of chocolate and books, I refer to it as “Enlove,” the energy of love. Enlove is a healing energy that mends emotional trauma, calms mental turmoil, and can heal cellular and biological wounds and illness. Imagining love as an energy avoids the common misperception of love as a thing. We don’t have to be perfect – look right, act right, own the right objects – to deserve Enlove.
A common misperception is that love is something we must pursue or attract by doing/being a certain way. We make love an object to win, buy, or potentially lose. Seldom do we think of practicing love. We commonly practice musical instruments, sports, and languages. We know we have to practice them to get better, so why don’t we practice love?
Our culture is inundated with myths about love. We refer to finding love – as though it was a separate thing, and not a resource within us. Then, there are the concepts of winning and losing love – as though it were a contest or competition. My favorite is the idea of falling in love, as though it was a mud puddle. Or a dangerous myth that says love can cure all – and if you just love your partner enough everything will be fine. And there always seem to be more references to being lucky in love than skilled in love.
Another problem with love is grammatical. Love demands a direct object. I can say ‘I am walking’ without designating where I’m going. I can even say ‘I’m looking around a place.’ But it doesn’t sound right to say ‘I’m loving around a place.’ Or to simply say ‘I’m loving.’ I must love something or someone. Which perpetuates the myth that love only exists in relationships and that it is not an emotional-mental-spiritual state on its own.
I believe love is something we can practice and the more we practice the better we get at loving and being loved. The first thing we have to do is believe we deserve Enlove. The poet Rumi tells us, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” In the webinar, The Healing Energy of Love, I will present the concept of the “Love Fountain” – a simple, practical tool to help you fill up with Enlove from the abundant universe. Using the image of a fountain, I can pour love into my myself. The Love Fountain also helps you discover the blocks you have where Enlove can leak out.
I have been using the Love Fountain as a daily practice for years and was ecstatic to discover one day, when I received devastating news and felt lost in despair, that filling myself with Enlove had become a habit that I now unconsciously do when stressed. The amazing thing is that by practicing the Love Fountain, I have significantly increased the amount of love in my life – and I didn’t have to lose weight, make more money, buy anything or do anything perfectly.
The more Enlove we have inside ourselves, the easier it is to connect to the expansive universe, which I experience as filled with Enlove. Learning to connect with Enlove is like speaking a language – it helps create healthy, solid relationships with the divine, in whatever form that takes for us. Through my forty plus year apprenticeship with Mescalero Apache Medicine Men (an indigenous tribe in the Southwest US), I have learned how to explore the energetic realms. There I have found an abundance of Enlove. The more I accept and receive Enlove the easier I can connect with the spiritual/energetic world.
Being connected with that loving realm helps me heal old trauma and beliefs that used to block me from being open to Enlove. It’s an ever widening circle where the more I open to Enlove, the more the spiritual/energetic realm can help me heal and receive ever more Enlove.
I look forward to sharing Enlove with you at The Healing Energy of Love webinar on August 2, 2024, and through my website, which has videos, stories and my blog.
About the Author
Jan Ögren, MFT
Jan Ögren is a licensed Marriage, Family Therapist with a private practice in Santa Rosa, California. She enjoys helping people reprogram their automatic neural programming so that they can live the life that they desire.
Jan specializes in creating joy in inter- and intra-personal relationships, releasing trauma and dealing with abuse issues. She especially enjoys serving the GLBTNBQQIA and P communities and has written many articles and presented workshops to help educate colleagues and the public.
For over 40 years, Jan has apprenticed with Native American medicine teachers, learning how to walk in both the “normal” world and the world of energy and spirits. She is a Universalist, respecting and acknowledging all paths to the sacred, and loves helping people find their individual paths to greater harmony within themselves and their world.