Have you ever experienced an awakening?  Sometimes they are a slow and gradual process, and other times they are like standing in a dark room as the lights are switched on.  Honestly, I think most of our lives are an awakening, one after another, if we are paying attention. Often times it takes a monumental occurrence before we recognize an awakening. 

Love Ignites Peace was one of my awakenings, a big one, possibly the most important one; but it wasn’t my first. 

Rewind to the early 2000’s, and the me that was living each day was surviving on a mostly empty energy tank.  My zest for life had put on its coat and shoes and quietly crept out the door.  March 29, 2006, the first rays of sunshine after a long rain, the date I refer to as the day I got my life back. This was the day that I learned that eating gluten filled foods was devouring my energy and my dental health with each bite. Within days of eliminating gluten from my diet, the fog that had clouded my mind and dampened my energy began to clear.  

Changing my diet was my inaugural awakening.  With a clear mind and renewed vigor, I started seeking myself.  I wanted to figure out how a happy and vibrant women had become devoid of her zest for life. That’s what an awakening does, it alters you in some small or big way. It opened me to start exploring my something mores. I was ready to leave the unhappy and disempowered me in my rearview mirror, and take a road trip that explored a more authentic version of myself. So, I created a morning practice where I’d journal, or read, or close my eyes for 10 to 15 minutes and just breathe. All of these things helped me explore the “whys” of how I’d arrived at this point and to figure out where I wanted to go on this journey, my something mores.

That time quieted me just enough to start asking questions about myself and listening for the answers. Who was I, and how had I ended up feeling so lost and emptied of the things that I used to love about myself? What was it that I wanted for my life? My awakening was both my questions and the something mores that were guiding beyond the suffering to more happiness and more personal empowerment. 

Unbeknownst to me, learning to listen —not with my ears so much, as my intuition — created just the right amount of space, an opening in my receptivity, for my next big awakening: the words Love Ignites Peace. Out of nowhere, those three words landed with an exclamation mark in my conscious mind, a flash of enlightenment on a clear summer day.  In the time it took to take a breath, those three words forever changed the trajectory of my life.  They awakened me to my purpose, to learn how to live the words, Love Ignites Peace as my lifestyle. This awakening took time, over a decade, in fact, for me to fully embody these words and embrace all of the something mores that would change me from the inside out. Love Ignites Peace took me on an internal journey of deep self-awareness that altered my external world.  Learning about love, the who, what, and whys of that four letter word, led me to the self-realization of my true-(S)elf – Love.  

Love Ignites Peace was a three-word message, a journey, and a destination that changed the way I looked at myself and the entire human experience.  It showed me how to see the hidden messages in my life’s challenges. It helped me become wise as I asked the why’s of my life.  It encouraged me to look outside of the conventional for a new perspective by leaning into the maybe’s and something more’s.  It raised my frequency as I dealt with and then let go of energies like shame, self-punishment, and blame.  It taught me how to see the love budding in what sometimes felt like the darkness. Living Love Ignites Peace became my state of mind and my day-to-day lifestyle. 

Other smaller awakenings have found me since then that have taught me to recognize love amidst the chaos of my thoughts and the world.  It’s been a beautiful, but sometimes challenging journey to get there, and honestly, I am still a work in progress.  

From awakening to awakening, I have learned that love not only ignited my peace, it ignited how I looked at myself and all of my relationships. Love ignited the all things good in my life.

Is, by chance, the message Love Ignites Peace meant to be an awakening for you too?