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Creating Powerful Relationships By Shepherd Hoodwin |
PREFACE
In our growth and healing as human beings, our core issues usually involve love: being loved by others, loving others, and finally, loving ourselves. Today we often explore our relationships with our parents, what our parents were and were not able to give us of love, and the effect that had on us. Some of us investigate issues around love from past lives. This is all very important work.
This book goes to an even more basic level: exploring the nature of love itself--what is love, and what is it to love and be loved? Seeing ourselves as being love, which is perhaps the ultimate perspective on love, puts our inner work in a different light. It doesn't eliminate the necessity of doing the work, but it does make it easier.
I have had some mistrust of the word love; perhaps you have as well. It is often associated with behavior that seems, well, unloving. The bickering and even violence often found in romantic relationships, and the hurts inflicted by adults on children, supposedly in the name of love, are prime examples. It is useful to recognize that love and truth cannot be separated. What is not truthful is not loving, and vice versa. Defining love this way makes it clear that the word is often misused. We human beings do not yet really know all that much about love's reality.
Working with the material in this book, however, has given me more acceptance for our human condition, for the fact that we are still quite early in our process of learning love, this primary lesson of life. If we could do better, we would--this seems the most loving of attitudes.
I accessed the material in this book through a process called "channeling," working with a nonphysical entity referred to as "Michael." Before beginning reading the channeled material, you might find some background helpful.
MICHAEL CHANNELING
Channeling is a process of allowing a nonphysical intelligence to express through a person who is the "channel" or "channeler." It can be in words, energy, emotion, movement, and/or music, among other things. Michael is the name of a group or "entity" of 1,050 individual souls or "essences" who have completed the physical and astral planes of creation, and teach from the causal plane. [See the Glossary for definitions.] This is why they refer to themselves as "we." They are not the same as the archangel Michael or other Michaels who are channeled. However, there are several other Michael books by other channels and authors who work with this same Michael.
Most of the other Michael books deal with the Michael teachings, which is a complex and fascinating body of information about the way we set up our lives. The Journey of Your Soul: A Channel Explores Channeling and the Michael Teachings is my contribution thus far to that body of information. Loving from Your Soul, like the other books in the Summerjoy Michael series, does not attempt to cover the technical aspects of the Michael teachings in detail, although the teachings' principles pervade it. The few terms associated with the teachings are defined in the Glossary.
ORGANIZATION
More than half the material in this book is from lectures, most of which were given as part of the New York City "Michael Speaks" series. The rest of the material is from private sessions. Some of the chapters are compilations of passages from various lectures and private sessions. Most of those passages are in their own subchapter. If there are two or more passages in a single subchapter, they are separated by double spacing. Questions are italicized and are also separated from Michael's responses by double spacing. Some chapters or entire sections contain material directed to specific people, yet have universal relevance. Unless implied by subtitles or questions, these are noted: To a Specific Individual, To Specific Individuals, or Mostly to Specific Individuals.
EDITING
I channel consciously. That means that I am awake and fully present during the process. While the material does not originate with me, Michael makes use of the contents of my consciousness, and, to some degree, is limited by my limitations. Transmitting information that is too foreign to a channel is difficult. Although this material is well beyond what I could produce on my own, in a real sense it is mine, and I take full responsibility for it. In general, I treated the original transcripts like first drafts, and polished them as I would my own writing, cutting, rearranging, and rewriting as necessary.
Some passages needed little or no editing, while others required extensive revision. Most of the book's material was originally spoken, and what is clear orally may not be clear when it is transcribed, because speaking and writing are different media. Also, there was sometimes a need to translate from the personal to the universal, so that readers can relate.
Finally, some editing was necessary simply due to my imperfections as a channel and the difficulties inherent in extemporaneously translating complex concepts from the invisible to the visible. However, before publication I "brought in" Michael to get their modifications and "stamp of approval."
Using "s/he," "he or she," or alternating "he" and "she" all seemed awkward, so I decided to stick with just "he." The Elements of Style states that over time, "'he' has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances." I hope that no one is offended by this choice.
This book does not contain Michael's comprehensive thoughts on any subject. I simply used the material I had, which came forth in response to specific individuals and groups.
Loving from Your Soul presupposes we each are a soul who has lived other lives, but believing in reincarnation, or even in channeling, is not necessary for an enjoyable and profitable reading of it. You can validate most of the ideas in it for yourself, and Michael encourages you to do so.
Interchanges with Michael are magical: full of healing, clarification, and upliftment. May you experience this magic as you read their words.
-- Shepherd Hoodwin
INTRODUCTION
We are all expanding and deepening our knowledge of love. Love is the primary force of the cosmos. As we learn greater love, we further our movement toward the great goal, agape, which is the ability to love fully and unconditionally. In our relationships there is great opportunity to open ourselves to love.
The soul is an expression of the Tao, which is the source of love. By loving from your soul, you are loving truly. By loving truly, you are letting the Tao come clearly into your relationships so that they are transformed and contribute to the unfoldment of love's journey through the cosmos. This is the great purpose of existence.
This book is a collection of explorations on this subject. We hope that you find it both practically useful and spiritually illuminating.
-- Michael
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