This post was inspired by my Meditation Moments series. (For those of you subscribed to that series this is going to be slightly repetitive, but stick around! There are extra pearls of wisdom here, I promise. 🙂 )

I had an interesting experience a couple weeks ago. I was in the market for a home warranty and comparing some options online. Let me just say that I’m a pretty independent and capable lady, but I’ll admit that dealing with home matters without the aid of an (ahem) man sometimes gets a bit overwhelming for me. (Yep, I said it.) So, naturally, I reached out to my dad for help. I called him up at work, asking him what he thought of the plan I was considering. He lovingly offered his input, including some avenues I hadn’t considered. With every one of his suggestions, I found myself becoming more and more defensive. (Um, hello. “Did he think I couldn’t handle it on my own?”) My defenses took over and I watched myself, almost as if from afar, promptly shut each one of his suggestions down. The conversation ended quickly, and I hung up the phone (feeling quite ruffled by that point). Then, I had a realization: Here was my dad, trying to help me and I was deflecting it at every chance. I was literally pushing away the exact help and support I was looking for. What the heck was going on here? 

As human beings, all we really want is to love and be loved. There is a literal abundance of love available to us at all times, yet so many of (myself included!) have trouble receiving it. In fact, learning to receive love can actually be quite a fearful thing for some of us.

Why on earth do we fear love?

Because we’ve all been hurt in the past in some shape or form, our ego tries to tell us we don’t really need love or support from anyone, that we can do it all on our own. So we say, “No, thanks” when we’d really like to ask for help or we shy away from a hug from a friend or loved one when we could genuinely use it. We reach out, but then we turn our back on love. It’s all totally bogus!

All these fear-based thoughts and actions do is keep our mind distracted from love’s presence. It’s time to break the pattern!

So how do we open our minds and hearts to receive all of the love that is around us?

Like most anything else, it starts with awareness. Any time you notice yourself deflecting love, get curious. Sit in silence for a few moments and ask your inner self what’s going on and see what comes up.

Then, use the following mantra: