FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY on April 15, 2020, my book was published — *Living Love: 12 Heart-Centered Practices to Transform Your Life.
Nine months earlier, I panicked when I was told it was coming out on Tax Day. It seemed like a pretty stressful day for a book about Love. As it turned out, taxes were the least of my worries.
Six months before publication, my wonderful publisher was let go in a huge downsizing effort, which also scrapped my promotion budget. Now I had to cobble together whatever I could on my own pretty limited dime.
Then Election Year kicked off — and so much divisiveness and angry rhetoric ramped up — and suddenly living Love seemed pretty pie in the sky.
Finally, Covid hit — and lockdown happened. So much for even my limited book tour.
I tried to take all this in stride. I posted every single morning on my Daily Practice of Joy LINK blog and shared that on social media. I did a lot of online interviews, hoping that once people engaged with the heart-centered practices in my book, they would see what living Love could do.
The ones who read the book and did the practices got it. But by far, the biggest response I got was doubt. I kept hearing, “What can love possibly do about all this fear, hatred, and anxiety? People are dying. Everyone is scared of Covid — and of each other.
I knew what the answer was: “Literally EVERYTHING!
Love is the only answer to fear, hate, anxiety.”
But I didn’t say that.
Why not? Why did I clam up?
Well, that’s what this podcast is about. . .
It has taken me five years to understand why I didn’t have the courage to say what I knew to be true.
Here’s the short answer: Because I, too, was afraid.
I refuse to be afraid any longer.
It’s hard if you come from a family of famous people who were so concerned about other people’s responses that they changed their actions because of that fear. I was literally taught to be afraid — even as I was taught about the power of Love.
It took me long enough to embrace the immense power of love. It’s taken even me longer to unpack the fears woven into my parents’ twisted double helix of a message.
Thus this podcast. It’s my do-over. Living Love 2.0.
It’s also my audiobook, kind of.
When the money for publicity was pulled, my audiobook budget went with it — and I’m a huge audiobook fan.
So, this podcast is going to be me, reading my books while talking about the practices that have saved my bacon over and over again, but also sharing what I’ve learned about fear, hatred, anxiety, judgment, and doubt since the book came out.
Along the way, some new heart-centered practices will be revealed — beginning with Radical Honesty about my own flaws, foibles, and failings. A practice which, I think it’s fair to say, is in pretty short supply these days.
In this podcast, I’m going to do my best to speak the truth, because Truth and Love always go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. No Love without Truth. No Truth without Love. Period. The end.
I’m probably going to release these podcasts on a regular, because of my work travel commitments. So, lease subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to be notified — as they’ll come out when they come out.
If you want to read along or work through the practices in the book, you can find it online or digitally at all the usual book-shopping sources. LINK
So, please tune in. . .
Today I’ll leave you with a quote that I just discovered from a poet named Max Dunaway. I can’t stop thinking about it.
**If we forget to love, we forget to live.**
This week, please, let’s all remember to love.
Tune in to my next episide as we talk more about the connection between love and fear.