Paradigm Shift: Choosing Love After Loss

I’ve been ruminating on the concept of love for quite some time.  It started on a tragic day in October 2014 and has led me on a quest for truth ever since that day.  I don’t know if I will ever get there but follow along and I’ll share what I have learned so far…….

In the 100X Breakthrough program, we study a lot about paradigms. There are only two ways they change.

One is through a strong emotional impact. Most of the time, that impact is negative. A tragedy. A health scare. Something that jolts you so hard that the way you see the world shifts instantly. You watch people change overnight sometimes. Their behavior changes. Their self-image changes. They suddenly act like a different person.

It doesn’t always happen. But when it does, it’s dramatic.

I was thinking recently about a time in my life where a strong emotional impact changed my paradigm — and changed it for the better. And I don’t think I fully understood it until now.

Years ago, the day of my sister’s funeral — her celebration of life — I came home that night and wrote something. I wrote it on a computer I no longer have. That file is gone. The computer died. I’ve never been able to recover it, and honestly, I’m still pretty devastated about that because I remember it being a real light-bulb moment for me.  Eureka, an epiphany!

That day gave me a much deeper understanding of love than I had ever had before.

Not love as we usually think about it. Not Valentine’s Day love. Not hearts and cards and kissing and love songs. What I realized is that real love isn’t something you see or hear or touch. It’s felt at a level deeper than that. 

I don’t know enough about physics to explain this properly. There are people who study higher dimensions and energy and consciousness, and that’s a little out of my current area of expertise. But I know this — when you experience true love, it’s felt at a level that’s deeper than anything physical. It is sent and received from a place much deeper than we are consciously aware of.  Almost like it exists in a different dimension altogether.

That day could have very easily been a day of total despair. And don’t get me wrong, there was despair. Losing my sister was devastating.

But something strange happened.

On that day, I didn’t feel crushed. I didn’t feel like I was at the bottom of the pit. I felt lifted. Buoyed. And I couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t the words people said. It wasn’t the hugs. It wasn’t anything tangible at all. It was something else.

There was this huge room full of people. Most of them never said anything to me. Many never touched me. There was no interaction at all in the physical sense.

But it was full of love; and that love is what lifted me and my family out of the depths of despair.

When that realization hit me, it changed how I understood life. It changed what I believed was real. It made it impossible for me to believe that reality is limited to what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.

There is something else available to us. Something much more powerful; a power that is far beyond our comprehension and love is a big part of that power.

What I started to understand that day was that I could receive love in this way that I couldn’t consciously explain or fully understand. 

What I didn’t yet understand was that I could send it the same way. I didn’t exactly know how but  it had to be possible — because I had received it.

Since then, I’ve played with that idea and practiced it a lot. Sending love to people, people who don’t even know it’s happening, people I may be feeling angry or frustrated towards. And I know it affects them.

But more than that, it affects me.

This wasn’t just a strong emotional impact that changed my paradigm. It was a positive one. One that expanded how I see the world, the universe, instead of closing it down.

I’m deeply grateful for that day. And for every person who sent love. Because that love didn’t just help me survive something painful, it led me closer to truth.

In every crisis there is both danger and opportunity, you get to choose which you focus on.  Choose love over hate, faith over fear, enthusiasm over anxiety. 

Your life and many more that you touch will never be the same.