A Fertile Heart “Contemplating Love” Contest.
Time to talk love today, play a little game for the pleasure of playing, the reward of insights you might gain, and even a chance to win some goodies.
Valentine’s Day is upon us, window displays with sparkling red hearts, and images of romantic getaways are crowding our field of vision. One of our newly pregnant Fertile Heart Mamas recently posted a quote on our message board: “Love heals everything.” A sweet sentiment indeed!
But what is love?
Is it a feeling that sweeps over you from time to time, enters inexplicably, without knocking, and just as inexplicably vanishes without saying goodbye?
What does it mean to love someone? Whether it’s your stunning significant Other, a friend, or a child born or not-yet-born?
I, as most of you probably do, have an answer or two to the above questions and I bet if we googled “quotes about love,” we’d get millions of posts to choose from.
But what I thought might be not only fun but perhaps even shed some eminently useful light on our baby- journeys, is taking a few minutes to contemplate what it means to you to love someone. How would you define love without quoting anyone but your very own Visionary Mama Self?
Perhaps you can include a word or two about how your definition of love has changed because of your fertility challenge? Or if your definition has changed as a result of your Fertile Heart Ovum Practice, I’d certainly like to hear about that.
What do you say? To make this a little more interesting, I’m inviting you to post a comment below and reply to each other, or invite your friends to reply to your comment and engage in conversation.
And let’s kick up the game a notch: I’m inviting you to post comments on this juicy subject until the end of February. The person whose comment evokes the most replies will be welcome to one of the following:
- A private consultation with yours truly
- A Teleconference Series, the 3 Session Intensive or Visionary Mamas
- A set of all of the Fertile Heart CD’s
- A copy of The Fertile Female & Inconceivable
- A copy of our brand new e-book What to Expect from a Fertility Expert, to the ten people who post their comment on the Fertile Heart Facebook page and receive the most “likes” on their comments
I have recently raised my fees for private work, but I am also devoting most of my time to facilitating groups and developing new resources, with very little time left for private consultations. So if you think a private consultation might be helpful to you, this is an opportunity to do a little thinking and writing and you got it!
Here are some guidelines, and then let’s talk Love!
- Your comment should be no longer than 500 words
- No quotes
- If you’ve been playing the Ovum game, an insight or two on how your Fertile Heart Ovum Practice shifted your understanding of Love.
I do hope you’ll play, this truly is a subject worth contemplating, especially for those of us on the baby making trail.
Game on!
Julia
Dear Fertile Mamas,
I’ve been pondering on Julia’s question to us from the day this blog was posted. I found it very difficult to answer. Then my own answer came to me last night in bed after doing the ‘Palace of Truth’ imagery. Loving someone, according to my visionary, is feeling and knowing the connection that was always there.
Love to you all.
Tina
Love is AND.
Love is something we feel AND something we do.
Love is self-sacrifice AND self-indulgence.
Love is a mother up at 3 in the morning to comfort her sick child, even as he vomits all over her nightgown and…
Love is a plate of fresh food at the homeless shelter and…
Love is a warm, fierce fire that permeates my heart when I think about how grateful I am for my husband and…
From Fertile Heart OVUM, I’ve learned that love is drawing myself a hot bubble bath and calling in sick for the day AND love is kicking my own butt and getting myself to work on time.
Love is holding on AND letting go.
Love is AND. It is us and it is bigger than us. It in within us and all around us.
“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence”
“Love isn’t something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn’t a feeling, it is a practice.” (like the OVUM practise!)
“Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.”
“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”
“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.”
“Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.”
“Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort.”
“In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.”
“Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.”
“Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.”
All quotations are from Erich Fromm, “The Art of Loving” – a book my husband gave me as a present years before we got married.
I don’t enter to the contest (out of the rules with so many quotations after all! :-), I just wanted to share this with all of you because these words mean a lot to me. Strangely, all these quotations means a lot more to me nowadays than 15 years ago when my husband gave me the book as a present.
The fertility journey can be tough, really tough. But somehow, who knows from where, we (my husband and I) still face this and other challenges together. I really realise now that love is a practise (or at least part of it) –and I really see a strong parallelism with the OVUM practise! We married quite young, we grew together somehow, we supported each other many personal life adventures, we have faced strong challenges, and we are still together. I am coming now to the conclusion that we really love each other! If I see sometimes a lack of this or that in our relationship (the list can be endless if we want!), I can see now a deep commitment from both sides to practise the art of loving together. I’m writing this while I’m discovering it and of course this is putting tears on my face.
The love with my sister has been another practise, I can say. We have lived with the Atlantic Ocean in between for almost 25 years now -I think- but still our relationship is just magic. I realise now that we have fought, cried and laughed together and all it has been a love practise. A commitment to still walk together and support each other unconditionally, even without understanding of many things. We both know we are there for the other. And this has been also a practise. No doubt about it. We have hurt each other, we have forgiven each other and today, she is my very special buddy in this fertility journey.
The fertility journey –and Julia no doubt!- are introducing many and important changes in my life. Overall, I would say that for love and freedom. I actually feel stronger and happier after all this pain, you know. Today, this community helped me by making me to review part of my love stories under the light of an author that I always liked but haven’t read for years. Thank you!
Ana
Love is this feeling that your heart is walking around outside of yourself- at least it is for me. I feel this way about children- mine and all of the children out there. It is this unconditional love that allows them to grow, and flourish. If there was more love in this world, we would all grow so much quicker without so much struggle.
Love is meant to be shared, but if we cannot care for ourselves, we will not have enough to give. When we are properly nourished in the physical body and mind, we feel empathy and have the strength to create change. Love in our duties as mother and catalysts for change in the world can create lasting peace. We have the ability to love all of the world’s children as our own. This is the power of mothering. Only love can change the world,
Love, the most precious gift. I never thought that I would ever write about love but here I am giving it a try.
The first thing that came to my mind when Julia asked me how you would define love was it is unconditional. It cannot be measured, cannot be captured, you cannot buy it or you cannot force anyone to love you. One can just feel it. Yet, it is one of the most important aspect of life. It is the force that binds us all and is found in abundance in all god’s creation.
Through this OVUM practice, I have learned that it is equally important for us to love and care for our self with same TLC as we would do for our baby.
It is little late to wish everyone Happy Valentine day but I hope we feel special every day and not just on Feb. 14th.
I really loved what you wrote, Aparna. I agree, love is unconditional and I would add inclusive. Thanks! Ana
Love is a sensation in the chest cavity reverberating throughout the body, inspired by another human being or another living creature or all living things. It is the realization of our deep-seated and universal connection to one another, of the beauty and miraculous-ness of being alive together. It is the recognition of and involuntary response to another’s spirit and soul. It is always accessible to us, this love. It is the highest form of our experience, the highest expression of our truest and best selves, if we allow it to flourish and vibrate through us …
I believe that love can never be fully seen, felt, or understood but it breathes life into everything around (and within) us. Although I cannot see love in its purest form, the world reflects love to me in a myriad of ways. I see love reflected in a glowing crimson sunset over the sea, in a budding rose reaching toward the light, in a baby’s tiny, trusting hand wrapped gently around my finger.
I see the world as a mirror of love, a place that invites me to trust, to forgive, to understand and most of all, to serve. When I help a friend in need or set aside my own troubles to offer kindness to a stranger, these are the moments when I feel love pressing out from somewhere deep inside, enlivening every cell in my body.
The Ovum practice has taught me that yes, even pain is love. I am learning that pain is a dense, concentrated form of love that pushes me to act, to grow, to change. It is only my resistance to truth that causes pain, which is why surrender has become such an important part of my practice. When I make judgments or try to control an outcome, that’s when I no longer participate with love. Love is a flow, a dance, and my role is to move joyfully to its rhythm. It is not always easy to do, but I know that there is nothing more rewarding.
Hi Jessica71, trully loved some of your concepts. “love is a flow, a dance” :-)))) Thank you for your insight. Beautiful. Ana
Love to me has become a very strange emotion, sensation, and physical force throughout my baby quest. I have always thought of myself as a loving person and thought I had an open heart. However, I have realised that there are inseucurities inside of me that have always been unsure of love, and despite being told I was loved, I dont think I have felt the love and let it in. This has resulted in me being more closed emotionally. The aggressive words used by doctors, words like ‘ovarian failure’ ‘infertility’ ‘no chance’ ‘early menopause’ have all hit me in a way I never thought possible – breaking through my positivity and longing, and reducing me to a nervous child in the hands of the medical profssion. My love, giving and receiving it, has been squished into a tight ball, and I closed my heart further to stop the pain. I have felt this physically mentally and spiritually. In a time when I should try to feel more love, to welcome any baby into my body, I have tried to feel nothing, to feel detached, to not let the pain in. But I now realise that I cannot acheive my goal without allowing my heart to open again, to heal those childhood worries and soothe myself with self love. It’s the old classic of ‘if you dont love yourself, how can others love you’. I spent many years giving out love to others and left none for myself. I see now the pain in my chest is a genuine physical feeling of an aching heart. Aching for my unborn baby, aching for my husband who is giving me so much love through all of this, but I now see, most of all, aching for me to look at the person who will have the strength of heart to carry and care for a child. Me. I long to create and care for my unborn baby, for my husband, my family, but most of all I long to care for me. That person I need to really really love is me. I have to open my heart – wide wide wide open, release my fear, worry, anger, anxiety, guilt, and let everything flow out, and love will flow in. In and out, a wonderful wave of love. I will be open. xxx
For me, my journey to my child and my Fertile Heart practice have changed the way I define love. Before the birth of my child, I might have thought of it as some warm, perhaps unconditional, feeling towards another person. Now, I think of it as more of a knowing or truth. I know that I am meant to be in a relationship/journey with this other person. It may not be a pretty or easy journey, but all the work is worth it. Whether the realtionship is with a spouse, friend, child, teacher, family member, etc., my soul knows that this other person is meant for me.
“knowing or truth”. You touched me ;-) Thanks! Really beautiful words. Ana
Love is given to us to be born, love is given to us to grow and love is given to us to sustain going through life.
Love is around every day and we should celebrate it every moment…sometimes we don’t see it, we don’t feel it and we think it is gone..but we just don’t realize it..or we ignore it..or we don’t expect it…Love is just all what is around every day!
Like it! :-))))
This might sound odd
but the way I see it, Love is being selfish, love is being completely focused on myself.
Trying to love others before you can love yourself is like pouring water out of an empty jug, it just won’t work.
Love means that I know when it’s time to stop and put me first, when it’s time to say that I deserve the best. Love is knowing when the extra money from the budget is meant for me, and not for someone else. Love is knowing when I need to buy myself something organic because it will make me feel good.
When you learn to love yourself, that’s when you will feel absolute love towards your spouse, your children, your parents and your friends.
By pouring energy and goodness into yourself, the jug which is you, will overflow and spill over to others spreading love on its way.
Be selfish, love yourself and see how you will end up loving everyone around you.
I trully like and deeply feel what you say here, Libi. I also feel that filling our own cup is an important stage to accomplish if we haven’t done it before. After knowing the pleasure of having our own filled cup, we can fill up other’ cups and understand and share how happy! they may feel as well. Thank you! Ana
This was my first Valentines alone without my husband. I was very happy to get to speak to him for 10 min that day and so grateful. By the end of that day I really felt that love is about being grateful. I’m so incredibly grateful for my health and for everything around me, my husband, my friends, my family and my dog…that is all true love. To be grateful and loving to yourself and everyone around you.
yes! Gratefulness is a powerful force. And so connected to love. When I look at what I am grateful for each day, I am looking with loving eyes and the world answers with beauty and magic. I am grateful to you Estelle, and all of you in this community. Sharing thoughts with such amazing women is encouraging and humbling at the same time, and ever so sweet.
Love shows her face in an infinite number of forms – a mother tenderly holding her baby, friends sharing a laugh, a flower bursting into bloom in time for spring.. We can also see it in our growing ability to see beyond what are orphans are trying to tell us about ourselves and others. I think love is the message from our V and UM and all love comes from the same divine source.
Like it! ;-))))
Lilli I agree if you “need” to reach for it every time that’s where the work is…good luck! I’m wanting a treat right now so I’m headed for a chair massage and new rice cooker!
I have to use this beautiful piece of writing which i dicovered many years ago to sum up What I think love is…. it’s taken from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being “in love” which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two..
Love is the ache, the pain, the joy and happiness created as a path to follow. Love is the unwavering faith and the challenge to still give love to others while you journey with the space in your arms for your own true love…
Being in love to me means seeing someone for what they really are. Seeing in my beloved more than just that person who might be grumpy in the morning—also seeing the amazing human being he is and wants to become. Seeing food in all its beauty, flavor, texture—every bite of it. And seeing myself with open, generous eyes, falling in love with myself—learning to see deeper and deeper into the open book my body wants to become for me.
Dear Julia, the fertile heart approach to a ´fertility diet´ is one of your tools that taught me to love myself more: You once said, that you found a delicious sugar and dairy free ice cream, and while when going by the book, that was totally fine to eat, when you found yourself reaching for it every night, you stopped and asked yourself: what true need am I covering up here?
I found this bit of insight to be truly healing. Following your example, I am cutting down on sugar in this way: Every time I crave something sweet, I try to see myself one bit more clearly, fall in love a little deeper and here is what I discovered: one time sugar masked the desire for a glass of water, one time I really wanted avocado, one time I longed for a foot rub from my husband (and that felt way better than chocolate), and one time I really did want that cake to mark a special holiday with my friends. So I honored that too and ate it with love.
This is how the fertile heart way is helping me see the world more honestly, fall in love with this life more deeply.
Love is trusting on an amazing god to blossom a beautiful miracle at just the right time! Believing that against all odds a sprinkle of rain will fall in just the right season that will transform two complicated but incredible human beings into one spirit filled with joy and thankfulness! Having a feeling of gratitude for such a small wonder that only can be truly felt when the sprinkles join and become a rainbow that only childless couples can truly appreciate!
I’m visual as opposed to verbal but even using both skills I can not begin to describe the magnitude of <3 LOVE <3. So I will wish it for You All & pray for You to see it reflected in Your Baby's Eyes xx
It took me a while to get your message! Like it now ;-) Thanks!
Dear Fertile Heart
Happy Valentine’s Day to all Fertile Moms
Julia, I Love that you asked us to share our feelings about Love. Love is so open-ended and limitless. I’ve always followed my heart. I have strived to make people happy, to be a good listener and to let my friends and family know they are loved. I thought that was the quintessential Love but WOW did I have more to learn…
I want to start my saving I Love, LOVE! I Love that we have this Love through Fertile Heart between women who have in some cases never met but have sought to extend their Love to each other. You can feel it on the pages of the website, in the teleconference calls and in the Visionary Mamas phone circle.
Love is so powerful and profound. I feel it’s the most difficult project we have as humans. To be successful in Love you must use all your faculties, your senses, your reason and your intelligence. The skill-set used to Love is not necessarily the one that makes you successful at work, or the one that enables you to make a restaurant style meal or the one that teaches you to be a world class athlete. Love requires all that we have: an open heart, the ability to have compassion for others and ourselves and maintains that when we truly Love we do so unconditionally, like the Ultimate Mom.
My journey to true Love started the moment I was born but has grown and expanded in the last three months since I began the journey toward my baby. The Canopy of Compassion and The Gates of Love and Fulfillment imagery exercises have opened my heart to a new feeling of love, one that is bigger and one that has added to my previous definition. I feel like the Grinch when it’s said that his heart grew three times its size. The Love I have in my heart has grown to include organic farmers, my Breville juicer, the homeless man at the corner that I’ve started to make a weekly brown bag lunch for, for my partner who I see now in a different light thanks to the All of Me, All of You imagery exercise and lastly I LOVE MY ORPHANS! Thank you Ladder of Light for helping my orphans find a new home on a farm outside of Denver where they are doing organic gardening and dancing together all day, everyday.
I Love a lot of things of course but my point is…I wouldn’t be who I am today, in this moment, had it not been for the fabulous work of the OVUM tools. They have opened my heart.
I also am unsure of exactly how I will get to my baby but one thing is sure…when I get there I will be a better person, a more patient and kind person and one that sees life with more beauty and magic.
Thank you (hands crossed over my heart). xoxox
Dear Erica, I love the new home you created for your orphans. And how amazing that with the right tools this journey can become one that opens our hearts, rather than breaking them. yay.
I’m reading through all these great comments, before the deadline tomorrow. I really love what you wrote here, Erica. I agree that love is the most difficult project we have as humans, but we better learn how to do it,otherwise we’ll be in a lot of trouble. Blessings for your journey!
Iforgot all about this contest, but I do want to support it so here I am in the nick of time. I really like this:
“I feel like the Grinch when it’s said that his heart grew three times its size. The Love I have in my heart has grown to include organic farmers, my Breville juicer, the homeless man at the corner that I’ve started to make a weekly brown bag lunch for, for my partner who I see now in a different light thanks to the All of Me, All of You imagery exercise and lastly I LOVE MY ORPHANS!”
I love my Orphans too!
Lucy
So beautiful Erica, and so true! The expansion and expression of unconditional love is a life long journey……..here’s to you turning into white light!
Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.
-Louise Hay
Thank you for the read Erica, beautiful!
I am so proud of all the progress you have made and feelings that you have awakened in your heart through this process. Love is a wonderful thing to all of us humans, it makes us better mothers and friends.
I have know her love for kids for a long time. I love her writing and her spirit in which she approaches this subject matter. The way she relays her journey to us in this piece is uplifting and inspiring. Now if only her eggs could hear this! the best of luck to you.
Expressing love to my beloved:
Our love is a rhythm all its own because there has never been another you, and there has never been another me, and there has never been the brilliance of a million suns that light our souls way to this blessed ecstasy. I am dying a thousand deaths, but this time it is in the pureness of pleasure because you are dying a thousand deaths with me. You have brought me to that place where nothing separates us… not earth, not sky, nor sea, nor air… we are one… and in that final moment when we have given all of ourselves to the other, we have arrived at that place called, Heaven on Earth… we hold tightly to each other with the feeling of joy that God had made me for you and you for me…
Love is a daily decision. Before I started on my journey with Fertile Heart (future mama with POF here), I would have described love as a feelings of joy, happiness, and warmth. It’s true that love does encompass those feelings at times. But love is not just a feeling to me anymore.
On this journey of fertility, I haven’t always felt like loving myself. There are days when I wake up and I don’t feel any love towards this body. There are days when I feel like giving up, days when I feel like my body has failed me, days when the darkness of despair creeps into my thoughts.
But on those days, I choose love. I choose to feed my body with healthy food. I choose to meditate, visualize, and exercise. I choose to believe that my future motherhood is not defined by arbitrary numbers and a brutal diagnosis. I choose to love even when I don’t feel warmth or happiness. That, to me, is love—choosing to take care of myself (and others) at all times, even when the feelings that follow are momentarily absent.
To truly love is to choose to focus, to prioritize, to extend the effort it takes to make or change the momentum required, when it’s so much easier to go with the natural entropy of not loving. To truly love, is to create, not with any aspect of your physical being but with your heart and your spirit alone. To truly love is to create something seemingly out of nothing but in fact out of the best of you. For if it does not involve effort, touching the best that is in you its not love.
love is natural, if it wasnt for love, the world/universe would never be, for its because of it that all creation was made, God’s love is why we are here and why all creation is, we love because we were made out of love, and during this month of February, may we live to love, so we can be loved too.
happy valentines day.
I’m really loving these great comments. I appreciate your passion Dede!
Love is everything. I feel it starts from the moment we were conceived to the moment we were birthed from our own mother’s womb. It is this powerful love that draws the mother to instantly love her child and to pick up her child after the child is born and hold the baby dearly in her arms as she weeps of the pure love that exists between her and her child. Yes this time has come and it is the most beautiful moment. This allows her milk from her breast to naturally flow from her and feed the baby pure nectar love. This love grows deeply and it is a trusting love like no other. The mother meditates on the baby and the baby on the mother. They are both loving each other so deeply. They have become one. This is what I imagine the moment to be like when I can see my child for the first time. My husband and I adoring and loving our beautiful child, we have all become one by this power of love. It is similar to the story of the mother tortoise, she neither feeds her babies food nor holds them. She is on one side of the river and her babies are watching her from the other side of the river. Her loving looks are what give her babies nourishment and love. This love feeds them. They meditate on her while she meditates on them and they both blossom from this pure divine love. This love flows through us all but we must allow it to flow. It can become blocked just as a water flowing through a river can be blocked by a big rock that comes in it’s way which symbolizes a pain or obstacle along the way. If you notice though that the water does not stop flowing, it finds a different direction to flow and flows over the rock that was once trying to block it. It finds a way. Love always finds a way. Love is the song of our heart and we must allow ourselves to sing this most beautiful song. If we open our heart and allow it to enter into the deepest chambers of our heart we are filled always with pure love. It is the greatest most sacred gift you can give yourself and anyone. It can save lives, it can end wars and violence, it can bring peace into our lives. It can make the stranger next to you a brother or a sister. It can change the world. It is an eternal gift that Mother Earth has blessed us with.
Reading Inconceivable and now as I read The Fertile Female I feel that my heart has been opening to the love that I feel that is deep within me. It is the greatest journey of the heart!
This is so beautiful Swati, it brought tears to my eyes. I’m working on my comment. I think it’s a really beautiful question to ask and I agree with Julia that it’s an important one for those of us on the baby journey. Thank you again for your beautiful words!
Sim
Love is an unconditional feeling or longing that arises when we realize our profoundly the connection of our souls to others. It may change or grow over time, but leaves a permanent everlasting trace. <3
My definition of love has changed since doing the Fertile Heart work to include a more encompassing view – to love the visible and the invisible. Loving myself fully, if I get pregnant or not, naturally or otherwise; loving my body and knowing that it’s doing the best it can, at its own pace; loving my boyfriend unconditionally and receiving his love and support; loving the spirit of my baby, even though we haven’t met yet; loving the Universe/Spirit/Source for its benevolence, remembering that it is always guiding us to our highest good; loving my friends as they go through their fertility challenges and celebrating their successes; loving all the children that I interact with; loving my family for all their support; loving and living life to the fullest, each and every day.
That’s great Dede – I love this. Reading your post reminds me that I am very good at loving some people and spirits, and that I should be more gentle and loving towards others.
not sure i posted a reply to this in the right place. I really love this definition. especially the part about loving yourself fully if you get pregnant or not. It’s a tough one for me but the Fertile Heart tools are definitely helping me with it.