A Return to Love

In June of 2010, I was introduced to Susan Stewart via an at-work seminar. During her talk, Susan referred to a book by Marianne Williamson entitled A Return to Love. In listening to Susan while she spoke, she held an inspiring energy within her that I so daringly wanted to connect to. Not knowing what this energy was at the time, I simply approached her during one of the breaks and asked her about her work. I was particularly interested in knowing (understanding) why she left her “Corporate world” job and just what made her do it, or how did she go about doing it? I’m sure she just didn’t wake up one day and say to herself, “Ok yup, today’s the day I’m going to quit my job and just turn over a new leaf and do whatever…” No, I’m sure that something had to have happened – because, for me, that’s the only way this would make sense, right? Being the logical person that I am, I need to associate reasoning behind why people do things in order for me to accept and understand their choices. Yes I know, I have self-work to do… I’m working on them-things! …So anyways, Susan looked me directly in the eyes and said, “Just read the book”, referring to her previous mention of A Return to Love.

Time passed-by and I read many other books, just not this one. Why? I don’t know why – probably because I didn’t know what to expect out of this book and deep down inside I wasn’t sure if I was ready for something so life-altering? Then the day arrived. My sister asked me to accompany her to Chapter’s for a few hours. She was looking for a book to assist her with some life-issues she was experiencing, which lead us to the self-help section. Grasping this opportunity, I found the book A Return to Love and purchased it.

Now I don’t know what planet I was living on before this moment, cause I had never heard of this book, let alone ever heard of Marianne Williamson. This book was released back in 1992 and I just, now in 2010, hear about it. The book sold what is believed to be in excess of three million copies and was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey herself. Now where I come from, here on planet earth, if Oprah talks about you – you’ve made it. Made what? Made whatever, Oprah just talked about you! Hello!! So thinking back to where I was (stage of my life back in 1992), explains a lot. I was a lost child running in circles trying to find a corner to sit in.

…I digress.

Taken from Wikipedia, here is a passage from the book that’s been the most popular – repeatedly quoted for inspiration: 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

What was this book about and why have so many people been impacted by it? The point-blank message is that of love, hence its title. I didn’t know what to expect, let alone be ready for what it was going to give me - a new found outlook on life, on love.

For years I’ve been self-dependent, self-sufficient, self-everything. My motto had been: “I don’t need you, I choose you.” Meaning that I don’t need anyone in my life, you are part of it because I allow it, because I want you to be. Why was this so? Because I had been hurt too many times before; I have had too many people disappoint me, and so now I only rely upon one person and that person is me. This way I control my life, I control what happens to me because I don’t trust anyone. I can love people and things to a certain point, (like I love my dog… yes people I love my Dohzer) but I would keep this love under my control. No one would hurt me again because I wouldn’t allow it. When things aren’t going my way, I would either make them go my way or I would leave.

…and then comes this introduction to love. And not just earth love but the real thing, real love. Gosh was I in for it!

I’ve blocked out all of these things out of my life… spirituality; trust; love; honesty; faith; belief; etc.. I blocked them all out because they weren’t measurable, with tangible data no one can prove this stuff (so I thought). These are all uncertain things that people out there are trying to prove or disprove.

My career is based on technology – everything I do has reasoning behind it, or else it doesn’t succeed. You can’t write code that doesn’t work, the system just won’t run it (understand it). You have to be logical (to me this means smart) in how you approach situations and scenarios because in the end, you have to make a computer system understand what it is you are trying to have it do. Hence why I chose technology as a career, because everything you do – you are accountable for. Nothing is done without you somehow controlling its output. If something isn’t working, there’s a 99.9% chance that its issue is human related. …yes I know I have trust issues, control issues, blah blah blah – but in my state of mind, at the time, was: Computers aren’t the issue, users are. And so fixing computers meant fixing people; and I can do that, cause who else is going to do this, right?

…I digress again.

So anyways back to this ‘real love’ thing.

In the book, Marianne explains that everything originates from love. Her teachings come about from her study of A Course in Miracles. She notes “that (a) shift in our perception is the meaning of miracles”. Marianne doesn’t embellish her stories with cute little fairies – she gets right down to the nitty-gritty on topics of spiritual nature such as God, Hell, Heaven, Forgiveness; and doesn’t conceal emotions people so ethically try to disguise such as Anger, Fear, Shame, Love, Trust...

“For many people, God is a frightening idea.”

When I finally finished this book, I took a long deep breath and… then exhaled. Wow! was this ever mind-boggling. So many teachings from school and Church (I come from a French Catholic background), so many beliefs all gone astray. It’s baffling how society adapts so quickly with what it’s presented. If someone offers you cake, odds are you say “Yes, thank you”.  Only those who know what the cake is make of, or who made it, or why it’s being offered (knowledge) choose to say “No, thank you. But I’ll have some of that ice cream!” …cause we know that there’s more then what we’re being told.

Why must you continuously treat us like children? Why does our Country, our World, our Religions, our Education system limit what it tells us? Why are we only exposed to "what they think we need to know"? That's because it's their way of controlling us. ...and we do nothing about it.

And we as a society why must we choose to continue passing on these values? We hide how we feel and pretend that no one else feels the same way. Everyone hurts. Everyone loves. Why do we choose to just not come out and say things like it is instead of masquerading emotions and hide them behind excuses and reasoning... 

In the end, the message is simple. Live in Love. Whatever you do, choose to do, choose to say, feel, think, whatever – have it be rooted from Love. Ask yourself, where does this come from? Why do I feel this way? And then associate love to it and the results can only be that of good.

For some quick highlights see http://www.peace.ca/a_return_to_love.htm, however as mentioned on this site, to properly understand the highlights, you need to read the book to put them in the proper context.

Did you read the book A Return to Love? What was your take on it?