713 thoughts on “How Crazy is That?”

1. Identification in being an individual, even if it is painful; are we mad or just plain crazy, ‘The crazy part is that in the choice to NOT be love, we get something in return: it might be pain, hurt and suffering, but it is OUR pain, hurt and suffering (i.e. it’s something we earned and something we can identify with).’

2. Joel I adore how you use playfulness to show us how out of sync we are with love because we want to make it all about us the individual. This thirst for acceptance and recognition is deep within us all and keeps us separated from each other, and that is the game that we have played for eons. There is no love in separation.

3. Thank you Joel, I hadn’t quite looked at individuality this way but it makes perfect sense, separate from love with a hurt that then becomes your thing, build a life around it, later decide it doesn’t work, deconstruct house… move back into the Kingdom of God.

4. One is an ‘away from’ and the other is a ‘back towards’ False love is an ‘away from ourselves’ and true love is a ‘back towards ourselves’. Everything that is true is already contained within us or rather accessible from within us as it comes through us and everything that is false is obtained by grabbing at stuff outside of us.

5. The playfulness with which you present such huge revelations is so cool, Joel. I can see myself walking down the street to the new house with nothing but myself and I feel richer and fuller than I ever have.

6. Oh we love it, we really do, we love to make stuff up about ourselves never admitting that we’ve actually made the whole thing up, including what we deem as ‘ourselves’. We don’t exist in the way that we pretend that we do. There is only One of us, One United Consciousness but we’ve spun a yarn, a very long and elaborate yarn about who we believe ourselves to be when we’re not, we’re not that at all.

7. “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it” – wow, I can feel how my spirit just hates that. There’s absolutely zero identification when it comes to love.

8. True Love offers nothing but more Love.

9. And relevant today, how much would be spent on rebuilding a church whose religion ways hides pedophilia? HOW CRAZY IS THAT!?

10. I really enjoyed reading this blog Joel. You so succinctly explain the two choices we have and their qualities that no elaboration is needed in the elucidation.

    1. The choices we have, so why do we not always choose love, or joy, ‘WHY? Why would anyone make the choice to go in any direction other than the one that leads to true joy…?’

11. ‘…but it is OUR pain, hurt and suffering ..’ I can relate to the kudos I thought there was in making life hard – look at me, how amazing am I for coping with all this; or, when not coping I could be poor me but I’m doing well considering. This crazy desire to be an individual feels both ugly and immature. It’s worth recognising and letting it go.

    1. This is how many choose to live their life, making life about them as an individual, what they endure, and so on, instead of keeping life simply about love.

12. Recently I was staying in a hotel and the back ground music was from the mid seventies and I could feel how emotionally charged it is. Music is another form of distraction we use because we can get lost in the emotion of the melody, add say alcohol to the mix and then we are gone. I know from my own experience that when we are in such an emotional state there is no way we can feel our essence. I don’t feel we understand just how toxic most music is.

    1. Today I went for a walk and a person was playing their music so everyone could hear. I remembered when I was a teenager and I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to claim I like this music and this is who I am in yer face. Now I don’t like hearing other people’s music but I know there’s a big lesson for me: being in the world and not get affected or absorb emotions. Me reacting is fueling what I don’t like. I’m not anywhere near being chilled about this – I can get a right righteous bee in my bonnet but I am learning and letting this go.

    2. But this I understand. If we are choosing to live separate from love we then have to ease the pain of this. Emotionality is an effective, albeit it misguided, way to do this.

13. “This means in a world that can be back to front, the hurt gives us something to own ­– something that is ours.”
    I feel when we have something to own it keeps us all in the individuality of life and this is what we crave, because being an individual keeps us all in the separation to God. This is how we have fooled ourselves for lifetimes. There is a part of us that is so utterly arrogant that we would rather suffer in whatever way that means than return back to our origin, our soul. This actually makes no sense to me whatsoever, but this is what we are all doing. We are all suffering the imprisonment of separation.

14. ‘..it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it. ‘ I love this. reading it I can feel all those areas where I am still conditional and not loving. Wonderful to notice and drop.

    1. Love just is, it’s as simple as that but we dance around creating stuff out of nothing, concocting dramas out of thin air, investing in illusions and buying into beliefs. What an absolute waste of time, truly what an absolute waste of time.

15. Thanks so much for this blog. As I get more honest about the house is really falling down, and how I am way more than any of my hurts, I can leave them behind and walk away.

    1. Only when we get honest about what is truly going on can we leave it behind, otherwise it will forever remain unresolved.

    2. The things that we say hurt us are completely fabricated, our anguish, our tears, our sadness and our grief are all conjured up by our spirit, they are not part of our soul and never will be.

       1. Our hurts are fabricated, they come because we have an expectation, an ideal or picture of how we want things to be, so arrogant.

16. The title of this blog is a phrase I have often used in observations of illogicalities in this world. It seems anything that is absent of equal love and care for others is always open to the corruption of greed and selfish pride.

    1. Is greed and selfish pride any different to being a samaritan or an evangelist? all of them are variations on the ‘What is Not God’, I actually think that the energy of ‘saving others’ is potentially worse than selfish pride because at least with selfish pride we’re all aware that it’s out for self gain but with the energy that stokes samaritans or evangelists then the energy that is also out for self gain is much more hidden.

       1. Great to expose the evil in wanting to ‘save others’, it is a more hidden form of ‘What is Not God’.

17. Joel, thanks for writing this piece because we do need to understand how we are actually hurting ourselves, and for most of us we have no awareness of this. We seem to live in auto pilot mode just ‘doing’ life. Which means we spend most of our lives in the identification of our suffering without realising that actually we can do something about it if we chose to, by simply bringing more awareness to our bodies?

    1. I love what Joel has offered here. To explore what it would feel like to put down all the accoutrements and accessories of life and walk simply and purely as us… to begin to feel what it would be like to have apparently nothing to offer except ourselves and realise how rich this is.

    2. People do spend a lot of time in the identification of their suffering, whereas in reality they can make different choices, choices to align to God, to love, to truth,, ‘Love does offer joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity, but it is offered to all equally without any sense of reward or parade.’

18. And how crazy is it that someone who is expressing utter love and care of humanity with more beholding and genuine love than almost anyone could imagine to meet is attacked and called a cult leader?

    1. It is utterly crazy, we all desperately seek love, whether we are aware of it or not, and yet when we are offered love in abundance, we can turn round and attack those who offer love.

19. It is crazy not to choose love yet so many of us do not choose it. Eventually all will choose it but how long that takes us is up to us.

20. Love just is, and it is there for us all equally. There is no investment in love like the path of hurts that we dedicate so much time and effort to create. Yes it is crazy but something we all fall for!

    1. Love is there for us all equally, ‘Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it. It doesn’t care about race, skin colour, wealth, intelligence or life experience.’

21. There are so many times in my day when I use that expression – “how crazy is that”. I am sure that I am not alone in this. It is absolutely crazy for example to not love ourselves yet we seem to accept it as part of life. Now that is crazy!

    1. There’s a whole lot of crazy that goes on in life when we come from love. The things I used to do that once made sense now I wonder what possessed me? But seen from wanting to be an individual, defined by what I did, even having a reputation for crazy, was something to live for. But the more I live from love the more I see how crazy not living from love is.

22. ‘Hurt gives us something to own’ and from that we withdraw.

23. To understand and appreciate love as something that we can return to, surrender back to, rather than go outside of ourselves to seek or need to try to conjure up, makes a big difference.

24. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ and this takes honesty and a choice to see with no attachment and identification the investments we made for so long. It brings us to a truly joyful life where we realize that we are much more than the pain we may experience at some point, we are pure essence from the inside, no matter that we have run away from it.

25. Every word written here feels so True. With our issues and complications we believe being someone – it hurts but at least we can identify with something, crazy indeed – whereas Love is for all equally so and it has nothing personal.

26. “This means that each step is looking to either cover up that hurt or alleviate it”. I love the clarity and simplicity with which our two choices and the resulting consequences of our choice to walk towards or away from the soul. To consider that all the things we do each day are driven by the need to alleviate or cover up the hurt of not living with the soul is massive. That means everything we choose to eat, how we exercise or not, when we go to sleep and what we do to keep ourselves up.

27. How many of us have chosen to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it? HOW CRAZY IS THAT!?
    Yes, that is crazy, from the knowing that we are loving Souls, even when we have stepped million steps away from it, to invest in something that we know is not working. How crazy is that ?

28. Everyday I realise more and more how utterly subtle the choice between love and abuse is. And despite how fine such a choice is it is poles apart in its quality to the other.

29. It is the most empowering feeling to feel true love but it is can be the most exposing as it shows how utterly irresponsible we have been and how much we have been fouled by lies that we think are true.

30. Love can’t be earnt, that is something many of us trip up on feeling we have to work for love in order to deserve love. Where the truth is love is always there to connect to as simple as that when we are willing to actually let go of our hurts.

31. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” – And when we do we wonder why on earth we held onto them for so long, because when we become love our hurts become insignificant.

32. We are reminded of and shown what we have invested in every day, in so many ways: from busting a gut running to catch the train because that’s the one we’ve decided we’ll get, or getting annoyed or upset because someone else isn’t acting how we’d like or are expecting them to,
    or the day isn’t going as planned..holding onto any expectation and reacting to it not being fulfilled is a distraction away from our true purpose: being who we are, and through that, upping the quota of love on the planet.

33. When we truly live in love, we no longer feel identified with our hurts and no longer seek recognition from them, this to me is true freedom.

34. Our true ‘identity’ is love, which is universal and doesn’t separate us out from others but is always considerate of the whole we are a part of.

35. Such a great analogy with the falling down house, it’s crazy how identified we are with the self and how much love we are surrounded by if we just let go of all we have invested in.

36. “Love has no individuality in it.” This is an upside down life changing revelation. Essentially it wipes out separation and says that there is not an ounce of truth in the so called love you think is love if there is an separation in it.

37. Joel I like what you have written here
    “Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself.”
    This is I feel what Serge Benhayon is presenting to the world that to love ourselves is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves because it belongs to us freely so. And when we give ourselves the grace to be in love with ourselves again then we will be all that we were meant to be. And this means that you are completely with yourself and there is no way you could possibly follow any one because you have such a self-sufficiency within all that you could ever need.

    1. I am feeling that more, that return within and the deepth that is actually there is holding more sway to me than the distractions offered by the hurts etc. The other thing that is key to what your sharing Mary is how if we are being all we are then we offer another the permission/ inspiration to do the same.

38. There can be a lot of push and drive and trying to seek love from others but beautiful how you share here that the movement back to love is a surrendering to what is already there within us to then bring that back out into our expression.

39. Choosing any other way to live than one that is totally loving and embracing of every moment drains and depletes us.

40. Choosing love means letting go of any investments in being a persona identified by anything outside their innermost.

41. It shows that there is no in-between or a bit of both, it is either love or not, surrendering individuality or cementing it, allowing or owning, accepting or controlling – our choice at any moment.

42. I like your analogy of the house Joel, thanks!

43. Joel these are very wise and true words
    “Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself. Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it. It doesn’t care about race, skin colour, wealth, intelligence or life experience. This means Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals, i.e. no identification. With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.”

44. Regardless of what life throws at us, the preciousness of our essence remains untouched.

45. When you have made your life all based on the individuality of you and everyone else it does take a massive shift of your consciousness to even begin to be open to the fact that true love has not an ounce of individuality in it.

    1. We have so many versions of love in this world it can be confusing to know what is true and what is not. But the truth is, we all know true love inside out and we would only fall for the false version of love when we have already walked away from true love. The two versions are a million miles apart and we can spot them instantly. Like you shared Joshua, ‘…true love has not an ounce of individuality in it.’

46. I love the analogy about the house – we can apply it to so many things we are invested in and hang onto for way too long instead humbly accepting a new way forwards.

47. What I get from this is how simple, and how expansive, love is. It’s not emotional or dramatic, isn’t anything you can give or get, but a quality. A quality that’s always there within us, ready and waiting to be connected to, even though sometimes we have added so many layers of ‘stuff’ around us, i.e. old issues and ways of behaving to try to not feel those issues, that we feel like the love is not there.

48. Living from our hurts is an entrapment that has living at the mercy of our need for identity and individualisation, as we forgo the freedom of living and exploring the expansion and divine potential of our connection to the love we innately are. The wisdom, intelligence and power that is accessible to us when we live implused by our love is incomparable to anything or any emotion in this world and is what truly represents all that we are and are here to live.

49. There is so much pain and suffering in the world today and if only we could come to an understanding that it is self-inflicted because we refuse to love ourselves. Thankfully there is a man on this plane of life who since 1999 has been reflecting to us all that there is another way to live and be with ourselves by returning back to the love we walked away from.

50. Spot on Elizabeth ‘our divine essence is our greatest love’.

51. ‘Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself.’ So true Joel, it is incredible the amount of money and energy we can spend searching for love when in truth it is within each us equally, waiting patiently for us to connect to it.

52. The way we live life is a little like speaking German and living in Italy – bound to cause strife. All it takes though is us to admit that there is another language (of Love) and we can begin to redefine our whole life.

53. It is interesting that we are OK with not being love, whilst we are actually love. We live in a world where it is upside down, how crazy indeed is that?
    It is revealing that we have gone far away from our natural essence. Better for us to be honest about it, as this invites us to come back to who we are.

54. In the midst of a crazy world, sitting, re-reading and feeling the vibration of the words this blog offers on the truth of love, my body feels expanded, joyful and very settled. Thank you Joel Levin for sharing your lived experience and re-connection to love.

55. It is totally up-side-down back-to-front crazy that we are taught or rather shown that self abuse is the only way to handle life.

    1. I agree Joshua hence how vital is for us as a humanity to see, feel and witness that there is another way where love can be the focus of the way we live, and the joy, freedom and vitality that becomes a natural way of being. Such is the responsibility of all who have rediscovered our true way of being.

    2. More than that Joshua we champion self abuse. We make heros out of those that self abuse the most, the mountaineer that lost toes but made it to the top, the sportsman that kept playing even with a broken bone, the mother that was exhausted but managed to drag herself through her days for the sake of others. The list is exhaustive and what’s worse is that we never question it, it is literally just the way that we choose to live life.

56. Because we have made ‘bad’ choices in our life we feel and believe we are ‘bad’. So ‘bad, in fact, that we believe we cannot return to our glory and that we are no longer worthy. However, that is what is so amazing about true love – there is no judgment, it is just there waiting for us to choose it and our glory, our essence, which can never be tarnished, only covered by ideals and beliefs that are real though not true.

    1. Thinking we are ‘bad’ is a poisonous self-judgment that goes hand in hand with the pain of the separation from the love that we are.

57. It is clearly evident that the only thing that ever makes sense in this world is love.

58. When we observe this indeed is crazy, when we are in it , it seems as our normal and no other option in life. Hence why observation is so important and shows us where true love is in life.

59. What you remind us here is so profound – love can not to be owned, there is no individuality. What I can feel is how we want love but just as strong is our desire to remain an individual, so our attempts somehow stay half-baked as we want a bit of both.

    1. To let go of identification in individuality seems impossible and that if we did we would not be anything. However, this is not true as demonstrated by the lived example of such people as Serge Benhayon and his family.

    2. Yes and the half baked version we can live with for lifetimes, for eons! So close but no cigar as the saying goes – don’t really understand that saying but the general gist I get. It shows our better life up for what it is nothing but an illusion.

60. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts’ True Love and hurts cannot co-exist , With emotional love there is a Pandoras box of hurts. We not only invest in these hurts but we leave them to gain interest until such time that we wake up to the fact that they are poisoning us and that the only way to heal is to allow true love space in our bodies.

61. Love leaves you alone to choose (even to walk away from it) and provides no rewards if you choose it. This exposes that love is not a human quality but a divine one.

62. What you say makes so much sense, I completely understand how we get something in return for not being love which we can hang onto for life times which we use to identify ourselves by. Until that day when we turn and face God again and realise that love was always there just waiting for us to re connect back to it. This shows me that God is pure love and all those religions that have God as a wrathful being are totally misrepresenting the truth of God.

63. This makes so much sense, Thank you…”This means in a world that can be back to front, the hurt gives us something to own ­– something that is ours. But love offers no special treatment for individuals. Love does offer joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity, but it is offered to all equally without any sense of reward or parade.” No reward indeed, but something so deeply sacred, precious and naturally enriching.

64. Returning to read this great blog once again, it felt like I had missed so much of the wisdom that is expressed throughout it the first time around. But what this is telling me is that I was ready to accept the truth of how every movement away from our souls and love, is one that is destined to either cover up the pain of that separation, or distract/numb oneself from feeling it and just how much God is holding us in his love with everlasting patience, until we let go of all the ways we create problems and issues to continuously feed our errant spirit that seeks individualism over equality at all costs. I feel like I am ready to accept myself more and take the responsibility of living with more self-love than I have in the past.

65. So crazy how we hold onto old things, patterns and behaviours, even though we know that they are hurting us and not helping us at all, just because that’s how we’ve always done things, or that’s what’s worked for us in the past, or just simply because we’ve invested so much time and effort into it that we don’t want to or feel like we can’t let it go. But when we do, we free ourselves up for whatever is next – more space, more room to expand and grow – instead of holding ourselves back and keeping ourselves small by binding ourselves to our past choices.

66. How crazy indeed !
    So true, but makes a lot of sense:

    “This means in a world that can be back to front, the hurt gives us something to own ­– something that is ours. But love offers no special treatment for individuals. Love does offer joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity, but it is offered to all equally without any sense of reward or parade.”
    Now that is honest.

    1. Love is not personal, hurts are; very, very personal indeed.

67. Love the analogy of wanting to stay in the broken house because of how much we have invested in it! It really shows to me how crazy we can be about being attached to or identified by our creations…

68. This raises the question if love is really the one thing we crave most for. As a matter of fact we do but obviously we don´t want to let go of the one thing that keeps us from love – individuality.

69. Put like this love is very disappointing for the one who glorifies individuality – it is either or.

70. Love asks us to be responsible and let’s face it, there are few in this world who truly want to be responsible.

71. We can grip onto the house while the walls are crumbling down in our hands, or we can let go, let it fall to the ground and build a whole new house with a completely different, solid foundation.

72. It is beyond crazy that many of us, me definitely included, have chosen to “to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it”, and not only to we continue to live in it we keep on investing in it in ways ensure that it becomes even more decrepit. Not an ounce of common sense in this scenario, but in contrast there is heaps of common sense in choosing love in everything that we do, everything that we express and in every interaction with another. Love certainly makes the world go round in the most natural and glorious way.

73. Surrendering to love is letting go of the recognition of self and the current way of life that we live which is an identification and recognition in what we do- it is to let go of that and surrender to something true and deep and then bring this to all we do.

74. I have never considered it before that we earn and identify with our hurts. But it makes so much sense if we consider the difference between creating our own suffering or life dealing it out to us.

75. Another brilliant observation you have made here Joel, and one that indicates how invested we are in anything that makes us different or stand out as individuals, including all our issues and hurts that continue to recycle so as to not feel the pain of letting go of the Love that has always been there waiting for us inside. Putting the way you have sure does bring out the insanity of it and is inspiring to choose a different way.

76. It is crazy how much and how diligently we invest our efforts to achieve a state of ‘happiness’ that is at the end of the day unsustainable, requiring more and more effort the maintain it. This is a way I once lived and championed, living as I thought I was succeeding in overcoming the hurts and anxiety that were, in hindsight, really ruling the quality of my life. Through developing a loving relationship with my essence, who I truly am, inspired by the works and modalities of Universal Medicine I have never once looked back to question who I am, knowing and feeling absoluteness of the love I am within is everything I am here to live. Experiencing living in connection to this quality is the most tangible, real, inspiring and natural feeling that can only be described as joyful and liberating.

77. I get something out of this blog every time I read it, which shows to me the pattern of wanting to own something and the fear of letting the house I’ve invested in go. I loves this blog.

78. Every choice we make is either healing or harming. When I keep it that simple, then it is easy to see where i am letting in room for a hurt, and where i am building more love in my body.

79. To live anything less than the love we truly are is indeed crazy and something we all seem to have invested in and are very skilled at which is even more crazy!

80. The real crazy crazy thing about all this madness is that to make life about hurt and not love we have to reduce it into this box and say that what we see in the box is what we see in life when the box is only a tiny piece of the whole picture.

81. Such a great blog, I am sitting here a little stunned at how much sense your sharing makes of why we don’t simply choose love, because it has nothing for ‘us’ as the individual. We aren’t special or identified in love, we are love, not ‘I’ am love. But I am hurt, I am struggling, I am what ever the sentence ends with, it starts with an I and that is the crux of the matter. Can I just walk away from my house and all I have built up over the years that say back to me ‘you are this, this and this, loved by them and them’ such a great analogy and one that I will be left pondering and getting honest about.

82. A brilliant blog Joel, the crazy thing is we all want true love, but we imprison ourselves with our investments and our hurts making it very difficult to connect to the immense love within and around us.

83. I think I have the same thing with certain behaviours, for example sometimes I feel super small and instead of seeing it as a behaviour I can change or choose, I see it as me or part of me. I reckon we hold onto way more stuff than we need rather than experimenting with a different way.

84. We have to leave behind all we’ve created, all our investments, all that effort and yet it’s not true, and all we can take is us … the ultimate surrender is what’s asked and love is there always.

85. That’s really it, isn’t it, accepting that possibility all that we have invested in isn’t it and that we can let go of all of that and simply come to something much grander, but we have to be willing to let go of all our investments.

86. This really explains why we create problems and issues: because then we are recognised and noticed we want to stand out. We might say we don’t like it though and would really want true love but even that is a form of individuality – it’s huge and the only way to live true love is simply to indeed live it.

87. When we try to make life work around the hurts that give us recognition and reward, we are stuck in the illusion that we can make or create life to our held ideals. But some time we will come to the understanding that this does not work, as it is not sustainable and starts falling apart from the moment we have created it and that living from our hurts is not it.

88. This is brilliant. It exposes the staunch pride of ‘me, myself and I’ that wants to hold on to the hurts as opposed to surrendering to the one thing we long for the most. There is no glamour and fame in love, but my is it glorious, stupendous, amazing and all that there truly ought to be.

89. Love is Love but for most if not all of us we should be honest and say we are still on a steep learning curve when it come to True Love!

90. To cover up or to alleviate, it does seem a bit bonkers to live in the tussle of only these two choices when there is the stupendousness of the soul waiting to happen all of the time.

91. ‘The crazy part is that in the choice to NOT be love, we get something in return: it might be pain, hurt and suffering, but it is OUR pain, hurt and suffering (i.e. it’s something we earned and something we can identify with).’ I have read this before but it truly struck me this time. Do I really want to stay in MY pain or do I surrender to love and stop fixing my problems.

92. Love is always there whether we choose it or not. I wonder if that’s why we take it for granted. There’s something very odd going on in the world where we value those things that are hard to get and do not appreciate those that are consistent and simple.

93. It is crazy how life is: we disconnect from our true nature of love which is encompassing of the all and then spend most of our life trying to fix that which is divine in the first place.

94. The more I surrender to my body and feel all the warmth and love within the more I see that the world is upside down, inside out and completely back to front, but it does make sense. Because to a being that wants to be individual with issues and problems the world has to be set up this way for such desires to be reality.

95. Who knew that life is so simple, it’s either Love or not with no in between. We complicate the world with many different things and emotions and that way we can’t see how simple it is. When we look at things like this it becomes not many choices but one, the choice to choose the love you truly are and then everything else. The fact that you don’t choose love is also the choice for the ‘other’, as I said there is no in between, it either is or is not. In this we see that there is a constant choice to align to this quality of love and the mere fact of not holding this as a truth is a choice. Love is love and it’s our free will to choose it or not and for me another level of the game is up from reading this article.

96. Joel yet again another golden blog…..I love the house analogy. We grow up with these attachments and yet when we are born we come into this world with nothing except Love and when we die, its not different – we cannot take anything with us except Love.

    I can recall when I lived in the UK I went on many back packing holidays and when I used to pack my rucksack, it was always challenging thinking I need this and I needed that. What was amazing that the things I thought I ‘needed’ were not needed, I lived with out them and in some respect it was kind of going back to basics without the excess baggage…Great sharing.

97. It’s so incredibly crazy you can’t help but investigate as to why we have chosen such craziness.

98. “But love offers no special treatment for individuals. Love does offer joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity, but it is offered to all equally without any sense of reward or parade.” This whole blog is gold Joel. What you have clearly highlighted is that the choice to choose the path of ‘not love’ although apparently nonsensical, is a very deliberate choice to invest in our individuality. So separated are we from the truth that we are magnificent beings before we do anything, that we cling on to any last vestige of what we think identifies us in the world – justifies our place. And yet if we walk away from this and accept the offer of a life of true joy, fulfilment, love, we feel the greatest sense of who we are that we could ever feel. The difference is that in this we hold all others equal and do not try to be better than another.

99. It is crazy to live in a house we know will fall down because of how much we have invested in, but understandable, if investments are what we have made important in life, and some much more important than others. But ultimately there will be a time and a chose when we say enough is enough. We may go back and forth for a while, but we will get there one day. Making a choice for ourselves is a lot to appreciate each and every day.

100. “Why would anyone make the choice to go in any direction other than the one that leads to true joy…?” Realising that you have made and continue to make steps away from true joy is the first move towards returning to love.

     1. Yes indeed the first step is to be honest and become aware of the mess we have made. Then there is a process where we need to retrace our steps and clean up the mess, open the curtains and light the light in and out.

101. ” One direction is our glory, our divinity, our amazing light. That direction remains ever-an-option for all to take. That direction is love, it is joy; it is our true expression.” The other direction is away from this and anything away from this must be pain, hurt, non-joy, resentment, bitterness and self-hurt and more. How crazy is that, but we choose it and sometimes constantly.

102. It is crazy – especially because love is who we are and the separation we have gone to in the depth and extent is quite concerning… And we are continuing the path of destruction until we stand in the love that we are – chosen by our very own will.

103. I love the house analogy. What struck me reading this was how often do we completely consciously have conversations with the question ‘Why am I not choosing love?’ or ‘Why are you not choosing love?’ and then without going into guilt, blame or trying to make excuses of why we are not we instead simply allow ourselves to completely feel this. I reckon this would make a huge difference because it immediately offers us or another a space to feel all that we are and that is innately there and then to feel all that we are not choosing which is not aligned to this … Love.

104. Jumping ship or changing houses only works when the ideals and believes that fostered the ill way of living is healed so Love can be re-connected to. Being gentle and starting with the Gentle Breath Meditation is the first baby steps on the path of return to being at-least self-loving.
     For more on GENTLE BREATH MEDITATION go to;
     http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=gentle+breath+meditation

105. Holding onto hurts identify us as being an individual, indulging in the illusion of life and keeping us away from the true love where we come from and that is accessible to us more than ever before. At the end of the day it is a simple choice we make- to live from our hearts and let the love flow as a divine reflection of the universe.

     1. We tend to put conditions on love, on God, where there are not, it is like you say a simple choice to let the love flow.

106. We do have an investment in this body, which is far deeper than the analogy you have shared about the house Joel, all we have to do is look at the rising rates of illness and disease. Living in illusion devoid of True Love we will always end up down the road somewhere looking back at the carnage. Living in an empty, love-less shell we have created in the name of doing good and being right because these become “something that is ours” will never work as it is devoid of Love. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts,” good and bad!

     1. Agreed Doug, our investments are closely related to our ideals and beliefs, so may I add that it is we are more likely tricked into think we are are in control?

107. ‘However, in order to move in, you have to completely leave behind the old house, all the furniture and little knick knacks you used to make the house ‘yours’… and all you can take is you.’ Reading this today feels so refreshing. I’ve been looking at all the things that I use to make my life ‘mine’ and seeing the rot that it is. That I have the choice to leave it all the junk behind, knowing the falseness of it all and the accepting I can simply walk to the new house, which was home waiting for me all along, feels so easy.

108. Eventually we will all move into the house that has everything, it is just a matter of time how fast we are willing to let go of all our so called possessions.

109. It’s so crazy, yet many of us, myself included have lived in the fallen down house for eons. This blog is such a great way to expose our investments.

     1. Yes, I know trying to fix the fallen down house for too long but can feel it’s time to just let go and with it, the exhaustion I also carry like a sack of potatoes on my back.

        1. Absolutely Karin, the exhaustion is part of the investment. ‘Look how hard I have worked on this, I’m exhausted’.

110. How do we choose love and evolve if we are so used to choosing our hurt and investment? You start by simply having this awareness.

111. How crazy is it to keep making choices to not be love. It is completely exhausting and goes against everything that we are.

112. It is crazy that we choose to be everything but love and yet we are that love in our very core. It makes perfect sense to understand the 2 possible paths we can take in life… one in separation to the fact with an endless need to distract or numb from the fact, or one that lives and breathes this love… a glorious and joy-full way of being. A no-brainer really, or so you would think.

     1. Or would we prefer to use our whole body as a way of perceiving life so that it is a ‘no-brainer’. And as you say Jenny, when living and breathing the tender delicate Love that we are this is “a glorious and joy-full way of being.”

        1. Yes it is Greg… and the only way to live a truly joy-full life. Joy comes from our own love, and not from the outside world meeting our needs in some way, as we generally think it goes.

     2. And Joy comes from moving that Love in a way that is always connected to how we are breathing to stay in connection with our essence.

        1. Yes Greg the breath is a key part of connecting to that Love… in fact it was through the Gentle Breath Meditation (http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation) that I was first able to develop a deeper connection. Now it is one of the markers I have for when l’ve lost that connection with myself – my breath feels rough and course and is quite uncomfortable.

        2. Spot on Jenny, the Gentle Breath Meditation also fits into the no-brainer basket, as it becomes a natural go-to!

113. An interesting observation you make here Joel, that the reason we find love less ‘appealing’ than the other kinds of dramatic choices we can make in life is because it offers us nothing that feels like reward in return. It’s the so-called ‘boring’ choice – yet of course living in love is far from dull. It’s just not entertaining in the way we think we want life to be.

114. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ Well said and very true Joel, letting go of our hurts is key to feeling the enormous love available for us all to feel.

115. ‘Our true expression’ is Love, any thing else causes the ‘pain of separating from that love’ and to let go of that pain you have to completely leave behind the old ways, and see them for what they were so we can start to heal the issues by seeing the lies that we have been living.
     And when we start to understand the respect and decency that is needed for us to connect to our true purpose, then becoming our Loving essence becomes simpler and so does the nomination of our hurts, which is part of ‘our true expression.
     Our hurts being the ‘Pain of separation from that Love,’ and we all can heal our issues when these simple principles are applied.

116. It is pretty crazy that we would choose to hang onto ‘stuff’ in whatever form that takes, when what is on offer is all ONE is, the love we are, the truth we know, the stillness that moves us and the harmony that flows.

     1. And the more we hang onto our stuff the more complicated daily life will remain.

117. Love is a holding essence and can be in everything – the way we speak gently, firmly, loudly or quietly, the way we move or are still – in every way we are in life.

118. There is deep joy expanding through my chest and spreading throughout my body on reading this sentence – a truth being confirmed from deep within.. Thank you Joel for another deeply inspiring blog.
     “One direction is our glory, our divinity, our amazing light. That direction remains ever-an-option for all to take. That direction is love, it is joy; it is our true expression”.

119. ‘Our true expression’ is Love any thing else causes the ‘pain of separating from that love’ and to let go of that pain you have to completely leave behind the old ways. Then see them for what they were so we can start to heal the issues by seeing the lies that we have been living.

     1. And when we start to understand the respect and decency that is needed for us to connect to our true purpose then becoming our Loving essence becomes simpler and so does the nomination of our hurts, which is part of ‘our true expression.

        1. Our hurts being the ‘Pain of separation from that Love,’ and we all can heal our issues when these simple principles are applied.

        2. So could it be possible that pain is actually a healing process and when we connect to that we start to truly heal?

120. This line “although living outside of love can feel like a punishment” made me pondering on the fact if this could be at the root of all the religions in the world, at least of the christian religions I am more familiar with. As to me the christian believes are about punishment because we are born as sinners and not worthy to face God in its Wholeness. Does this simple fact not expose that at least the christian beliefs are from not being connected with God’s love and therefore are created as ways of congregation to actually empower that fact of being disconnected instead of sincerely looking for ways to return to God as quick as possible?

121. In order to return to love, we need to renounce all that does not sing in accordance with this. This means letting go of all the thoughts, behaviours, beliefs, patterns, momentums, images and ideals that do not hold an ounce of truth but that we cling tight to and have used as a security blanket to keep us comfortable in the dampness of our separation from the true warmth of our inner most self – the fiery spark of our Soul. The more we renounce what does not belong, the less identification we have to hold onto and this is a very terrifying move for the etheric spirit within us that has carved countless lives for itself in pursuit of recognition – to not be ‘at One with all’ at all, but more so to be ‘the one that knows it all’. It is this aspect of us that requires absolute focus because it is like trying to take a bone from a dog. It cannot be done until such a time that the dog has no need of the bone.

122. ‘love offers no special treatment for individuals. Love does offer joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity, but it is offered to all equally without any sense of reward or parade.’ Love needs no grand entrance it is a truth that is always present.

123. In life, we can always choose to align and surrender to something we all belong to equally, or to go for something you can own and identify with.

124. Love doesn’t judge us on how long we’ve held onto hurts, nor on how much we’ve invested in them. Sometimes I can feel so attached to an issue but the more I feel the hold of this hurt in the body, it makes it easier to let go of my jaw, my muscles etc. This allows me space to understand the emotions being held onto, and the love underneath forever waiting. Once I return to love I see the investment for what it was. An unwise choice I need not continue or learn to let go of more.

125. Without our connection to love we are at a loss as to who we are, what our purpose in life is and how we can live with true fulfillment. The fact is love is absolute, ever-present within us, and our greatest investment in life is to be open to surrendering to being guided by love. For it is our resistance to love that has us living less than the Divinity that we all equally are in essence.

126. Amazing how we hang onto our hurts as a form of identification something we own, sounds crazy, when love is who we are. i had a situation the other day where I found myself wanting to hold onto a hurt that I felt from someone, it actually hurt more hanging onto it rather than letting it go.

127. Seeing our hurts as not who we are, as not the love that we are, and putting them firmly in the past where they belong is the only way to be present with the love that we already are.

128. This line really spoke to me this morning – Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it”. This is beautiful because we have created the polar opposite to this in the world and that is that we want to be recognised for every single thing that we do but love does not play that game. Love just is.

129. I have been the one clinging to the nicknacks, living in squaller all because I wanted to get my moneys worth or thought that somehow my house might be able to be renovated. What I have learned is that love is not something that is improved upon, it is already whole, it already has a solid foundation, it is simply choices away from being who you are.

130. I read this in April and commented with this line, and today in June, it is the same line that completely made me smile and do a inner dance – “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it.” I adore this about Love.

131. I can really feel how sticky this sense of ownership is. My this, my that, and my other… as if we are trying to get to know ourselves by things that we identify as ours, and how stagnating that actually feels. It feels as though we are trying to stop the flow of what is passing through us by solidifying it and getting identified with it.

132. Wow this is such a brilliant capture of the Livingness 1 presentation. I really love how you have deepened my understanding of the ‘why’ we separate from love and why we remain invested in OUR hurts.

133. Our investments in external rewards are endeavours to alleviate our hurts and even though the ‘return’ is short-lived we keep investing more in the hope that eventually we will hit the jackpot but like the addicted gambler the jackpot never manifests. The irony is that we ourselves are the jackpot and there is no winning requires, that all need to do is invest love in ourselves.

134. Besides words and great presentations what I love about the Livingness 1 workshops is the way they encourage you to feel your body. And at the end of sitting with others, sharing deeply, you simply can’t avoid the warmth and pull to Love you feel inside. Life is not more complicated than this, it’s this constant warmth inside we miss. So as you say Joel it’s simply crazy knowing this, to continue on accepting a life lived solely from our head.

135. There is so much we hold onto of material wealth and possession when we have not got hold of our own love. Knowing we ARE that love and that there is nothing to go finding (or buying) is where we usually miss the mark.

     1. Great point Jenny, if we put the same focus and energy as we do on wealth and possessions, towards connecting to and expressing love – I am sure our relationships would be more loving and true, reducing the constant need to fill the emptiness with so many distractions.

136. Seeking love is truly folly if you understand the truth that love is your actual essence. And thus, there you are, wandering around looking everywhere around you when what you “seek” is actually within and does not require a search so much as it requires a simple process of surrender.

     1. So true Adam. For he who seeks is simply in resistance to all, the absoluteness, that is already innately within.

     2. “Aw, now c’mon – where is the fun in that… (said the spirit) “…to not endlessly be in search of something we already are but have withdrawn from expressing? This would mean we would have to give up the game that we have spent lifetimes upon lifetimes investing in and thus all we have become so identified by in order to grasp onto some form of ‘self’ because the truth is, when we return to love, there is no such delineation on offer.”

        See? We know exactly why we do what we do, now matter how absurd it may sound.

137. “The hurt gives us something to own ­– something that is ours.” Perhaps more than any personal possessions, qualities or defects, friends or occupation this is what defines me most. My collection of hurts: big, little, ancient, new, insignificant, imagined hurts…. I can easily declutter, give away, sweep my house clean of unneeded possessions but oh, how hard it is to let go of hurts!

138. When I was young I knew hurts did not belong to us, but they feel so real and so often we feel controlled by them, they happen as if there is an automatic response. But no matter what, I still felt hurts did not belong to me, and there is a persistence in wanting to find out how it is possible to not be controlled by hurts, nothing stopped me. I tried many ways and methods, and many of them brought me closer to or farther away from these hurts, but never did they truly address how I can be not controlled by them, until I discovered Universal Medicine and began to live in a different way. Ah…if our focus is always on the hurts, hurts will always be the focus, as that is our choice. Wanting to get rid of hurts or fearing them or fighting them, we are still focusing on them! But when we know hurts should not even exist in our lives, hurts should not be what we throw around in hurting each other, we only have to live what is true. Live Love. Live Joy. Live Understanding. Live all that is true rather than not. As you say Joel, walk into that new house–it is ours, it has always been ours, waiting for us to live (in) it.

139. I can relate what you share with a car, how many put up with a car even though it is failing and causes problems, just because we have spent so much money. I know I have been in this space, not realising that sometimes it’s just best to let go and start afresh.

140. Yes often we can hold onto what doesn’t support us because we have become identified by that instead of seeing how it doesn’t support us and being prepared to fully let it go.

     1. Even when we know it has never worked for us and has caused us such misery we still hold on to it. When we start to see that what we thought we were has never been the truth then we can start to expose the lies.

141. Ah – I love the way you have illustrated this Joel. It’s like we are severely addicted to ‘polishing the turd’ of the lie we have accepted life to be. So many variations, intricacies and subtleties – but all just the same quality ironically. When we are faced with this reality we can be overwhelmed, thinking we need to work really hard to change what we see – but we don’t – all we are to do is return to choosing Love and Truth. It doesn’t get simpler than that does it?

142. Hurt for some offers an identification that makes them ‘special’ or different even though is means holding onto pain that is not who they truly are. To let go of this means they do not have the rewards they imagine it brings. Yet to choose love means the truth of living with every other person as one in shared love, equality and joy.

143. So needed to read this today as I have just moved into a house where all of my old patterns no longer fit and I am being asked to let go to be able to fully embrace and enjoy it. I can feel the anxiousness and stubborness come up of holding onto old patterns of protection because it feels quite raw and vulnerable without these but I know that the only way is to fully let go of this and embrace all that is before me.

144. I feel like I’ve read this blog in a greater depth today. Love does not need a reason to celebrate, does not need an achievement to be met for it already is everything. And this line “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” I feel the ‘With love’ is the critical point, for without connecting to the all we already are we will remain attached to our hurts for without them we believe that there is nothing else when actually love is always there.

145. The crazy thing is that everyone can choose love and everyone is being asked to return to love. Joel you have in one simple blog given the answer to humanity on how we can all be living love. Look at our hurts, be honest about how we hide or cover up our hurts and then support ourselves to heal our hurts. Choosing love will become a very natural and normal choice as our hurts dissolve away.

146. When it is time for us to move on from anything it is always sensible to bring along what fits in with where we are moving to next and leave behind what no longer fits. Simple.

147. Wow, what a great analogy Joel, the investment in the lives we have created is HUGE and can be seen for me in how much I am still attached to things that represent times past etc. It is crazy.

148. I have often been amused and baffled by the response when someone is considering getting rid of something they are not enjoying eating, wearing or using: “Ah but I paid loads of money for it”. Reading this article I can see those scenarios are just a small snapshot of a much bigger pattern. It is indeed crazy how we can walk away from love and then cleverly rationalise it.

     1. Thank you Golnaz for bringing in very practical, everyday examples. If we don’t enjoy eating, wearing or using something how much have we invested in it? and as Joel shares, with love we can work on dissolving that attachment.

149. I think this is what I love most about love – “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it”. So simple. so steady.

150. Joel, it does sound pretty crazy. Even when I know how much it hurts to not be love, I find myself sometimes still falling for this craziness. I realised understanding what it means to live in our essence is one thing but actually living it consistently is another thing. Understanding what love is in my head means I can easily fall back into my loveless behaviours much easier than if I was to truly embrace and live love every day. It is not our knowledge of it that gets us out of this craziness but our choice to live love consistently that frees us from this imprisonment of a loveless way of life.

151. Loved your blog Joel, I always find it interesting to visit other people’s homes, and the most loving homes are simply furnished without clutter and well maintained, there is a stillness and a space, because they no longer carry the hurts that keep us contracted and needing the latest TVs, gadgets, or leisure products that only go on to feed the emptiness we hold within.

152. Aghhhhhh the last line totally exposes how most of us choose to live. Gosh – countless times, have I held on to something purely because my hard earned dollars were spent on it – but for what reason, if it’s not serving me? I’m getting far better at letting go of things that really are of no use or support. Food is a very good example of this, as I was brought up to not waste anything. But, these days, if I’ve bought something, and I realise that my body really does not agree with it, I’m finding it easier to throw it out – rather than leave it there tempting me even though I know what the consequences are of eating it.

153. It is crazy indeed to live with this endless struggle we choose to hide our hurts. While it is so worthwhile to let go and just be honest about what we find difficult in life, and what has hurt us, to be able to let it all go takes some time but I know that it is worth it. There is only one part that is separate from the whole that we know are part of, and it is that part that seeks individuality and needs learning to let go and release its hold on that which it has created for itself…

154. I love what you are saying here Joel about how LOVE has no need. So few people understand this and certainly I am learning it. If I have a need to be accepted, liked, identified etc then it is not love and I cannot therefore call it love. I have to accept, like, love and appreciate myself and then there is no need in me to have others provide these for me. In this way LOVE is very simple.

155. Yes indeed our choice to live so far away from our joyful, love filled essence is totally nuts!

156. Such a great blog to return to, ‘This means Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals, i.e. no identification. With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ Good to realise the only reason we can’t feel love is because we are busy playing ‘victim’. It is indeed crazy.

157. I love, Love. Anything less is simply crazy when love is our natural way and freely available to all equally.

     1. We have forgotten just how stupendous love is, we really have. We’ve become so used to living a life of reduction that this greyed out version of life seems normal to us and even satisfying for some. We feel lucky if we’ve got enough to eat and lucky if we ‘have our health’ but what poor benchmarks these things are compared to being the living magnificence of love.

158. Is it possible we choose to live from what least challenges us in life and hence brings up the least hurts or issues we have to deal with? Is it possible that because of this we end up making choices we would not otherwise make if we knew what we were truly choosing?

159. It is so interesting how much we can hold onto and clutch at all that we know doesn’t support us.

160. Moving away from the love gives a false sense of control and being amongst it and moving towards love means just being who we are and allowing that love to unfold. Like the old house we are constantly distracted by fixing it and we are needed. This becomes so familiar that there is a lot of fear that if we leave the house we will lose ourselves. We are so used o seeing ourselves this way we can not see ourselves just being in the new house, held in all its glory and trusting that this is enough.

161. Everything in life is geared towards a good life, money and being charitable these are the goals in life but none of this brings joy. We live in an upside down world that fosters everything that is the opposite to what love and joy truly are. This is crazy and the more questions I ask the more absurd life becomes.

162. Love doesn’t offer a feeling of specialness.. It just is. So pure and simple and accessible. Yet to live it asks us to leave behind the comfort of our hurts and our protection, to live life fully open and transparent. It feels terrifying to start to do this but the more we open up and let go and just allow ourselves to be, the more we realise how unnecessary and in the way the protective layers are to living life as we truly are.

163. Letting go of the past can be challenging for some but it is only until we let go of the protection from our hurts that we can finally let love out and let love in as a natural way of being.

     1. So true Francisco. It is totally crazy that we would choose to hold onto our hurts when we understand and know what it does, blocks the flow of love.

164. Love, glory, joy… when I thought life was all about me and my lot and how to make it better, these things used to mean something quite different from what I know now. Our desire to remain individual ensures that life remains a struggle no matter how ‘better’ it may appear to be. I love, love, love your analogy of investing in a house that’s falling down. It’s utterly absurd yet we do! We continue to ignore it, as if ignoring it would stop the house from falling down. Well, it won’t.

165. This brought tears to my eyes as I read this – how much we punish / give ourselves a hard time for not living the love we are and yet, the truth is, it is only ourselves keeping us away from returning to it. Love is there always, patiently waiting for that choice to be made.
     “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it”.

166. It is totally crazy, I often have to ask myself why, oh why did I walk, fly, zoom or whatever, away from love in the first place and still choose not to return fully to that love. Its like being given everything you will ever need, but still wanting more and in the want lies the construction of the hurts which just makes our path of return full of pot holes.

167. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts..’ – Joel this is a great read to really show in black and white that we have 1 of 2 choices – love or not love. Simple as that! And yes the not love requires something in return – so we can get an identity out of it. Wow, what a game we have set ourselves up to play and be part of, when love has always been there.

168. “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it” I remember an instance not so long ago when I realised just that and exactly that is the difference to the recognition we often erroneously see as love. The false love, recognition, congratulates us for what we do, we always have to be doing something. True love is and does hold you but will never give you more attention because you have done something special – it holds you no matter what because we are in the end love ourselves.

169. And do you know what is even more crazy than this? The fact that deep down we all know this is not truly working even though it may at times look like it is, it only does so because of what we have been building up in our own lives to ignore the fact. The fact that heart disease has been around for many thousands of years is one clear example of this.

170. I am drawn back to read this blog again today Joel. Every sentence is full of simple, yet profound wisdom. It feels like being bathed in an infinite ocean of true nourishment (Mana from Heaven) from the Soul, God and the Universe, expanding into every empty and false pocket of illusion and ill choice previously stored within, with that which is true an absolute. Deep appreciation for your gorgeous and inspiring blogs Joel.
     “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing)”.

171. It’s totally crazy… completely nuts actually! The fact that love is always there, ever present and allowing of us to run around like headless chooks thinking we are thinking for ourselves. Meanwhile, Love is there, and our ability to choose it is equal in all, it’s just a matter of when.

172. I have enjoyed re-reading this corker of a blog Joel – as it speaks from your own experience directly from your body (not information from the mind) it is as inspiring now (2017) as the day it was published in 2013.

173. The illogical nature and irrationality of what you describe certainly leads me to believe there is more at play than the eye can see.

174. When I feel my hurts and go into a reaction the hurts that I feel are controlling me and would not let me feel the real issue. Thank God for Serge Benhayon for I can now respond to situation so that I can see any underlying issue so therefore I am not controlled by my hurts.

175. My observations of life have always caused me to question when something happens that causes a hurt; why do people choose to hold onto that hurt and to separate or shut out what they perceive to be the person or cause of that hurt instead of keeping the heart open and reaching out in love? Hurt builds hurt and adds to the prison they become, narrowing every experience we go on to have. I agree Joel – how crazy is that? Love is the only way and nothing is more important than the love we already are.

176. I am still holding onto my knick knacks, it also seems to be important for me to be thanked or acknowledged and noticed. The house of LOVE up the road does not have that going on, no rewards, no accolades, my need for these things seems to keep me holding onto the crappy house, for there I am acknowledged for my woes and wins. The logical part of me thinks that holding on is crazy but I can’t seem to let go yet. I am keeping a close eye on the house of Love and doing as many visits there as possible and hope that in time I am able to realise that LOVE is the only way, and the things I cling to expose themselves by the fact that I need them and in turn place them as more important than the love I am already.

177. “How many of us have chosen to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it?” This is such a great metaphor, what do we hang on to that has long gone because we had once invested in it? Time for a brand new fresh start I think.

178. Every Livingness 1 workshop, presented by Serge Benhayon, that I’ve attended (and there have been several now), offers a fresh perspective on this same wisdom that you’ve shared here Joel. That we have a choice, and indeed are always making that choice, in every aspect of our lives – align with the Love of all that we truly are, and thus with ‘the’ All, or… negate this and keep ourselves in wilful separation from this Love.
     What a process of unravelling it is, to recognise the myriad ways in which we’ve resisted Love in our lives – and to also deeply appreciate, how possible it truly is TO deal with and heal from these resistances, and return home. Home to ourselves, to Love, and to an ever-deepening connection with all.
     I can think of no more true education on this earth, than what is delivered by Serge Benhayon – and offered for our consideration and awareness in workshops such as this one.

179. How strong our predilection for self-punishment can be – to leave ourselves wilfully outside the circle of the real deal of love, via our own hand… A great expose Joel Levin.

180. I like the example of the two houses Joel, they display in very simple terms the two choices that we have.

181. I love this… you have to leave behind the old house.. all of that which doesn’t serve in order to make way for the new. How often are we truly prepared to do that? I know that there are patterns that I still strongly hold onto that no longer serve me and it just doesn’t make sense to do this but the well worn path of comfort is one that takes love to step out of.

182. The choice to avoid not being hurt has this terrible outcome where we effectively choose to not feel, to become less sensitive, and so lose out on something so gorgeous and delicate inside of ourselves and that we can then spend a lifetime looking for.

183. I love the simplicity and common sense of this blog. When it comes back to love or not love, it becomes very clear what we choose and how much our lives are ultimately our responsibility.

184. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ The word surrender here says it all really. But when married with investments and hurts, it totally exposes the game we play with our hurts and how we identify ourselves with them. Like a pride that gets in the way of us feeling the fact that all our woes are stemmed from holding onto a few hurts. Surrender dissolves the pride, the identity and allows the love we are out and the love that is all around in.

185. Very crazy Joel but yet here we are choosing it over and over again. We have chosen it so many times that we identify it as ‘us’ or ‘me’. We can’t even see the choice it’s that ingrained within us and hence we don’t notice the ‘house falling down around us’ in fact we will deny it even exists because our eyes are so firmly on what we have created or what we are getting from what we have created. This is the power we have in a simple choice, that choice made over and over becomes how you are whether it’s true or not. So if you are feeling lost or that life is upside down and doesn’t make sense then time to look at what you are choosing and how it supports you. No different to having a really bad week or something traumatic happening and then drinking alcohol. It does nothing for what has happened, no understanding and at the end of it you feel worse? Doesn’t make sense and yet we do it over and over and defend it as our right. We don’t make sense and if you were on the outside looking in you would be shaking your head and wondering what we were doing to ourselves and why. The power of a choice, what choice will you make?

     1. I agree Ray. We are so far down the track of investing in our hurts that we can no longer see that they are our creations. We will defend and justify the falling down house, as we are so used to having it that way. The distraction it creates is a great way to avoid the hurt that is laying there hidden in the rotting foundations.

186. The attachments and investments in the broken down house can be so strong and blinding that we are willing to do such a crazy thing – not just walk away and into the house we have been wanting that is sitting there waiting for us with an open door. We are so blind we may not even notice the house is falling down or if we do, we try so hard to convince ourselves that it isn’t really.

187. ‘How many of us have chosen to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it?’ Brilliant question and analogy. I put my hand up to that. To the investment I have made in ways of being, simply to identify as something/someone. How crazy is that indeed?

188. ” This means Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals.” How beautiful is this, love is always there for us to return, we don’t have to try and achieve it, get it. It is a constant flow to which we need to connect too.

189. Super crazy! It makes no sense at all that we, not once, but repeatedly over and over and over again, choose hurts over and above love.

190. Every choice is an investment …. One will support us back the other is living in an imagined picture with no reality. How Crazy is that!

191. Reading your words this morning Joel, I feel that Love is like a river, that runs and flows so naturally in life. There is no plan or meeting needed, it just makes its way, with the help of gravity, consistently, steadily and together not in parts. When we get ideas that aren’t this love it is like we make stakes in the ground that stick up out and above the water, and which the river has to flow around. It does this effortlessly of course. These stakes may make us ‘stand out’ but it’s just a matter of time you see till these stakes they crumble and fall back into the natural beauty of the rivers flow.

192. Attachment and individualism always pull us away from love -we think that they will fill the emptiness only to discover that they are like bandaid which only covers the surface. Only love can get down real deep and heal those hurts that create the emptiness in the first place and our soul is waiting for us to know and feel this.

193. The pull back to love is far greater than our pull away from it. The illusion we live under is in thinking it is the other way around, if indeed we are even admitting that we are pulling away from love at all. You are spot on Joel when you say that we do not return to the love that we are because we are invested in what we ‘get’ from not being it – yes, how crazy is that?!

194. It feels really important with what is going on in our world right now that we hear this message of love, and how love does not care about ‘race, skin colour’ – or nationality, culture or religion. Love is equally available to us all – and in a world where we talk about building more walls and removing ourselves from ‘common markets’ it might be good to reflect on this fact every more deeply.

195. Holding on to our hurts gives us identification, which is a separation from the amazingness of who we truly are into the smallness of our individual self. It is all a choice whether to own our pain and dramas or to claim our love, a love that is for all equally with no ownership just a claiming.

196. I love your way with words Joel. It is so crazy but this is exactly what we do. We stay in the broken down wreck of a house because it is of ‘our own making’ so we stay with the mess so we can hang on to the ‘I’ and the investment we made rather than going to the house of our dreams and having no hook, no investment, no past, no ‘I’. It is crazy!

197. When we build our world from separation, from reaching outside of ourselves we find that we are living a lifestyle that is held together by walls of emptiness. This does not hold us in who we are in essence, and as such offers us no way of knowing or living who we truly are. It is only when we turn within, to the kingdom that ever-awaits that we discover the greatest foundation through which joy naturally lived, is found in the surrender to the Love we already are.

198. That is a very good question how many of us would be willing to leave the house we put so much effort into even though it is falling down around us.

     1. Yes it is the ultimate metaphor of choosing our lives of misery and struggle and what it has brought us in the end over a simple, joyful life where we because of the lack of struggle have to take responsibility and share our love with everyone.

        1. And doesn’t it show how detachment is such a vital value to hold.

        2. Yes, we should try not to put all our value into that we have worked for so hard if it is showing us to not be working. It is far wiser to be honest, let go and say ‘oops’ that did not work and be detached enough to walk away and start afresh. Something I am learning every day.

199. “Love, on the other hand is free” this really made me sing Joel! We really are fountains of endless love, it’s always made to go out, if we expect it in return it doesn’t go.

200. Yes Joel exactly… “How many of us have chosen to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it? HOW CRAZY IS THAT!?” The pride of that part of us that took the first step away from love and didn’t simply turn back and say ‘Oops, wrong way’.

201. It is pretty crazy, why we would ever avoid love. It is non imposing, free, expansive, all-encompassing and love is endless. So, why would we ever reject this grandness? To me, it all comes down to holding onto our hurts, it is what stops us from being loving, embracing who we are, and allowing others to be who they are. Our investments in our hurts is what blocks our love from being expressed because once we choose to surrender and let go of our hurts, we will naturally feel the grandness of love that we all are and we will be able to choose to express love instead of our hurts.

202. Yes, we are a bit crazy, Joel, but we are so reluctant to let go what feels familiar, tangible and safe and yet it can be so unloving and actually harmful for us. This is so worth pondering for me as i know that many of my choices are still not as loving as they could be!

203. Beautifully explained Joel, hurts are the pittance we live by to be in our own individuality, whereas love is an equality and grandness that unites and holds us as one.

204. Joel the fact that it is our choice to not be love, that we work so hard at it is a point I found really difficult to comprehend. It seems illogical, yet it is exactly the reality of what is going on today. This is something that we each need to consider – all the areas that we choose to be unloving. When you add them up its quite clear that we are avoiding love, from the food we eat to the way we walk. We can make a different choice at any moment.

205. “How many of us have chosen to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it? HOW CRAZY IS THAT!?” I love this analogy. We stay with something because it feels secure and is comfortable – but in truth it isn’t. Yet we always have a choice……

206. This is beautiful Joel, and it is crazy indeed, but can very much relate to holding onto all that makes me feel individual, like life happens to me without me having a say. While I have the biggest say, it is in which path I choose, the path of love or that of the hurts, that never will bring me true Joy.

207. Love this Joel – it is so true that investing in our hurts means we can’t actually fully appreciate love – or the possibility of it. And hurts are a sure way to keep us invested in ownership. It is crazy that we don’t want to see that our choices have such an impact on how we are. And we forever have the choice to choose more love.

208. Joel,
     I am re reading your blog today and reflecting on the choices I have made in this past year that have seen me letting go of many things and situations, to where I now live with taking only me forward because love felt too beautiful to be ignored, and it still does.
     The freedom, lightness of being and acceptance of myself and what I am truly capable of is felt, every day.

209. Our sense of being is all too often governed by what feels familiar, rather than what is actually true.

210. I read a saying recently, that said: Don’t hold on to a problem, just because you spent much time creating it….

211. As always the clarity with which you express Joel brings a wealth of understanding to the ways of the human being. This makes so much sense. Love won’t have a party for me but love will love me whether I choose to feel it or not. And isn’t love what we all want? I certainly do.

212. And that house can be anything and how much we spent on it can be something like the time we have spent investing in that something. It is incredible what we hang onto even though we know that it is not good for us at all or in the hope that things will change in the future.

213. Thank you Joel – incredible how you bring us back to the simplicity of how we can either move away from what we feel or stand behind it. That by virtue of this example about the house – it is shown – that our choices are simple, we can just make life more complex than it actually is. Really crazy actually. So to feel and hear this we are given the opportunity to change our ways.

214. ‘living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing’, this is so true Joel and it is always our choice to disconnect from Love and this choices is the most hurtful of all. Therefore, no one is to blame because the choice is always ours.

215. Our choices are indeed crazy and we undoubtedly suffer from them when they are unloving. But the beauty lies in the fact that the love is always there to choose whenever we are ready to let go of anything less, and truly know that it is all we truly need.

216. ‘One direction is our glory, our divinity, our amazing light. That direction remains ever-an-option for all to take. That direction is love, it is joy; it is our true expression.

     And so the other direction can only start with the pain of separating from that love – it can only start with a hurt.’ This truth becomes more and more glaringly obvious to me. So to stop and uncover what that hurt is and how it was able to be triggered becomes the key to our understanding and the initiation of another way of being.

217. It is interesting that you call them two directions. The direction of love is actually a RETURN to who we are to our origins and the other direction is a going out that takes us further away from our essence and true selves.

     1. With this going out we have the illusion that we are attaining or getting something, but this is a complete illusion because we are already everything. Our evolution is a process of letting go of all that stuff that we attained or got that is not of our essence or truth. As you say the way we carry on is completely crazy!

218. There is that beautiful feeling when you return to love- a warmth, a knowing and an ability to see through and understand life. This gives you the ability to not be so affected by life- as the saying goes ‘swim like a fish in the sea but don’t get wet’.

219. Reading this blog I was reminded that love is the default setting. It is what we return to when we are over chasing our tail to find love, because it is here all along. This is a simple, much referred to truth, but when involved to varying degrees in that endless search going around and around, we give it power, when in truth, it is simply normal. The only reason we may experience a ‘wow’ response when returning to love, is the power we give away by leaving it in the first place.

220. It is quite confronting to realise that the stress, pain and drama of our lives is something we choose and create yet it allows for a great deal of healing when we accept responsibility and reconnect to the fact that we can choose love again at any moment.

221. I like the analogy of the new house – once we have realised something no longer supports us and we have been able to nominate this, sometimes we can still carry it with us even though it is no longer our pattern – what you present just asks us to give ourselves a chance to let go and have a fresh start without bringing that pattern forward.

222. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ Yesterday I found myself talking to a friend about someone who I had thought had let me down. My friend did not enter into the conversation and as I heard myself talking I realised the conditional love I was still holding for that person and the hurt that was being expressed through my voice. When I stay firm in my own love this does not happen so it gave me an opportunity to see where I had deviated from the love that I know I am. I had not been willing to take responsibility. It seems it all comes down to taking responsibility for the love and truth of who we are, for our essence.

223. I’ve read your blog many times Joel and love reading it again and again. This line is absolutely brilliant ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ It is crazy why we’d choose our hurts over love? Crazy as it sounds I have certainly done this myself but now I am choosing to be love more and more each day. This has been totally inspired by people around who are reflect true love, especially people I have met at Universal Medicine courses, workshops and presentations.

224. “there are many, many ways we can deny the original choice we made away from love.” We all seek love and the Ageless Wisdom presented by Universal Medicine reminds us that we all come from love, we are love and love is equally within every being on Earth but we still so often cling to what is in our crumbling house of created existence that keeps us from being all the love that we are.

225. Love is something that can be held back for as soon as it is held back it ceases to be love.

226. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” this is what gives us individuality the separation from our own love and the love of others. Crazy when what we are longing for, is only a breath away, deep inside us. Thank you Joel.

227. Holding onto our hurts keep us as individuals where life revolves about us and how we can make life better at the expense of others, choosing to let go of hurts opens us up to so much more we could ever imagine where love, joy and wellbeing are just a natural way of being. Thank you Joel for making this so simple to understand.

228. Love just is, and it is through our connection and surrendering of our bodies that we can allow divinity through us for the benefit of all equally.

229. Incredible blog Joel. I can see very clearly that love does not allow us to remain in the illusion that we are individual and separate from one another.

     1. Love does not and cannot allow us to remain in the illusion that we are divided, for love is a unifying light that holds all equal within the warmth of its divine embrace.

230. But we do because of the arrogance we hold around needing to be right rather than true.

231. Great analogy Joel. I too have struggled to let go of ideals and beliefs that I know no longer serve me simply because I had invested so much in them and to admit I had made a mistake of this scale was so hard to admit but by doing so I can reclaim my power and let go of more and more of what is not true.

232. Joel, I love your clarity and ability to explain things simply. This blog certainly highlights how crazy it is for us to not choose love but our desire for individuality is so great that we will even go the difficult and painful route to give us a sense of being someone and getting somewhere. As you say “the hurt gives us something to own – something that is ours.

233. It can be difficult to surrender to the simplicity of love simply because in it we lose the identity of who we think we are – and complexity and thinking with the mind keeps us firmly in our individuality, but at the great expense of missing who we truly are.

234. Great example Joel, we so tenaciously cling on to the rubble of our lives simply because of the fear of stepping out into the unknown – of a life lived from a new and different foundation. The illusion of security is one of our biggest obstacles but if we surrender up the comforts of the known and to let go of false security to surrender to God, a great ocean of truth and love is there waiting for us within.

     1. Yes it is the letting go of comforts which is most unsettling but in choosing to do so will release us from being sold out to something that is not true.

235. I agree Linda it is crazy we have to start choosing and living in a diffrent way/energy to be able to live love and nothing but love.

236. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” Detailing the investments brings such a healing Joel – what a great blog this is. Stay in the game or be love and get out of the game.

237. That’s a great point Katie, there is a big contrast between love as we come to learn it growing up, and love in truth. My experience has been that the former is full of conditions placed on us by others… and our own placed on others – based on those hurts and needs. Love is though free of any conditions, it leaves us to realise our own choices whilst calling us back to being love.

238. Joel, you analogy of the house is brilliant for it is easy to say ‘how crazy that we don’t live the love that we are’ but as soon as we see it in terms of leaving our house full of all our prized possessions and walking out just with ourselves, there is a part within us that is holding tight and saying ‘no, I can’t do that. I have to take something that I own with me’, and therein lies the self that has secretly had a hold over the way we move and made sure that those movements do not support a return to the love that we are, for in that return, this self (spirit) is rendered naught and surrendered to the greater light that is our true self, our Soul.

     1. Liane this is indeed the key reason why we do not choose to return to love for, as you say, “in that return, this self (spirit) is rendered naught” and it will do anything to not let go of trying to get some sort of experience, no matter how painful, to make it feel like a somebody. Our ‘self’ believes that it will be annihilated if we “surrendered to the greater light that is our true self, our Soul”, yet it is only the wilful individuality that dies and once that is gone the spirit can walk as co-partner with the Soul.

239. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.”

     This is the simple and enormous truth as to why we keep choosing to not express the love that we are. Thankyou Joel for making this so clear for with that clarity comes the realisation of how crazy this is, whereas if we keep the picture muddy, distorted and complicated, we can keep choosing to live less than the all that we are by virtue of our chosen ignorance i.e. we tell ourselves we didn’t know any better. We are identified by that which makes us less and have found a certain comfort and security in this that we find difficult to let go of, not because it is hard to, but because we don’t want to. Ouch. We are responsible for our own misery but equally we are responsible for our own joy.

     1. The line stood out for me as well Liane and then I read your comment and felt the ouch. As I am choosing at the moment to hold onto some hurts that is making me less instead of holding onto what makes me more grand. I am responsible for myself and for my misery and for my own joy. It is always a choice.

        1. We forever have the choice to be the everything we are, which is love OR the everything we are not, which is everything else but this love.

240. Hurts can be owned whereas true love cannot be. This message and dept of understanding regarding the choice of how we live is huge.

241. Very crazy indeed…..I would say: Stop it!

     1. Absolutely ‘stop it,’ but for me it is firstly understanding that I have a lot of false floors, which I have built into my system or a loveless existence. Then with this understanding true love can be fully claimed so I can then ‘stop it’.

242. We have certainly set ourselves up to not consider how important love is, and how much of it surrounds us.The securities we create stem from insecurities we have also created, adding an immense amount of complexity to our lives that does not need to be there.

     1. I agree hvmorden, we have set ourselves and the whole world up to not have to have the space to understand and know what love truly is. The distractions, numbing behaviours and people running around driven by protection and the need to bury their emptiness is creating a loveless world and one that no amount of solutions to fix it will ever work. But there is a way to stop and to return to the love that waits patiently for us within.

        1. Annie you touch on something gold here; it is not about ‘fixing’ all the ‘problems’ we see in the world but rather saying no to what is not loving. To see the world this simply is huge, and almost unimaginable to some. But if we look at every single choice and action and movement in our day and just ask our selves, ‘is what I am doing supportive or harming – then what a massive difference we would be living – with a little more awareness of what our responsibility is for our choices.

243. “Love, is Love is Love” very touched by your words Joel, to feel the essence of Love. And yes how crazy is it that we as a society have accepted a life which is based on hurts and protection and therefore void of any true love.

     1. Me too Janina, i’m very touched by Joel’s words today as I read them and receive a healing from them. Our perceptions are so skewed making us think it’s such a HUGE jump to love but it’s not, it’s a choice to see the truth with loving eyes.

244. Love is. These are important words, words that give us a chance to look more closely at what our relationship to date has been with love, and if there has been tension and struggle, then maybe it is time to look again because ultimately you are love.

245. The security and comfort in hanging onto ‘the old house’ despite it not truly bringing fulfillment is what prevented me from choosing love. I wanted ‘proof’ that it would work. How crazy, when, as you say, you see the house next door, in the form of the Benhayon family living that love every day.

     1. That is a great responsibility that those who have chosen love hold – to live it in full and show us all what is possible.

246. Great to re-read your blog Joel. I agree, how crazy it is that we walk away from love, choosing distraction and stimulation over the joy we can feel when we connect with our essence – yet we do.

247. In our surrender to Love, the Oneness that Love is, we discover that our greatest power is in this union with One and All and our choices then support building, establishing and living our Love through our daily living.

248. The more we surrender to the Love we naturally and essentially are the more we realise that our hurts are not real. Our hurts are only our creation that come from the need to identify our–self as we have separated from knowing who we are truly through our connection to the oneness of Love that we are all equally from.

249. The fact that we look externally for acknowledgment, even if that is in the form of pain, shows clearly how we lack self-love even though our essence is love. How crazy is that?

250. I am about to leave the home I have lovingly renovated and move to a new home leaving nearly all my possessions behind. This feels incredibly freeing but against all that society would normally do. We can get very attached to our things not seeing that to grow and expand, we need to let go of the things that no longer serve us.

251. We are all from love but all these choices that aren’t from love do help us cling on to our individuality. It is crazy that we choose to separate from love when love is all we need and if we are all to be one again individuality is the last thing we need to cling to.

     1. Love is a specific vibration but instead of remaining in the vibration of love we choose the discordant twang of individuality.

252. OK Joel . . . you have certainly exposed us all with this one! Nowhere to hide except behind our individualised hurts and the knick knacks in the familiar old house that is falling down around us! We actually lived in a house that was falling down around us before we left Melbourne and moved up north in 2000. I can tell you the state of that house certainly reflected the state of our lives at that point !

253. Hello Joel and fellow readers,

     I have moved out of the falling down house, which is a great step, I did it as I know that is a sham. However, I am still scrambling, holding on to my last few things, I have them in a supermarket trolley, wheeling them round the street with me. I often wheel it up the street and hang out the front of the new house that I know I will live in one day, popping my head inside for a look but I never stay too long as I am afraid someone might steal my ‘full’ trolley of ‘valuables’.
     It’s totally crazy that we can’t just walk away from the house, empty handed and never look back. For me, it feels like to walk away I have to admit so much that I am not yet willing to admit, so much that hurts. For me it feels like a vulnerability that is scary and unknown; I am not sure if I can handle it?
     Deep inside, I know it is the only way and that there is only so long that I will be able to survive as a homeless person, and why would I want to anyway when there is an amazing house ready and waiting for me, patiently and humbly, waiting for me to come home.

     1. I agree Sarah it is crazy and can so relate to the holding on to that which we think is ‘valuable’. I have struggled with the same, holding on tight with both hands, thinking if I do let go I would be majorly missing something. I now realise that this is such a trick. So more and more I have dared to let go of these ‘valuables’ as in truth I am aware they have not truly enriched my life in any way as I still was left feeling empty, restless and searching for more. As with you deep inside I know there is more, and the more I do let go the more I am discovering that the most amazing valuable to uncover is found within that amazing house, within me, it is the Love we already are. As you beautifully said Sarah it is always – ‘waiting for me, patiently and humbly, waiting for me to come home.’ It may feel unfamiliar at first yet when we surrender there is a warm embrace that I am discovering that feels all too familiar, a knowing that we are truly home.

        1. Ohh, thats just beautiful Carola and all very true a blessing to read your words, thank you.

     2. You have beautifully illustrated a crazy resistance that I can relate to also Sarah with your trolley full of ‘valuables’. I say it is time to give up this craziness and ditch them once and for all and step out of the cold and go home, to the ‘house down the road that’s got everything you have ever wanted (and more)’ .

        1. Yeah, I think going home is what we all want, its just harder to leave that trolley than one might of thought but home just keeps looking more appealing by the hour, especially when the suns going down and the warm lights inside are calling my name.

254. I have often pondered about living without all the material stuff, and did a big clear out when I last moved four years ago, and it felt amazing. But in the new house I can feel the clutter starting to build up again, and it takes great discipline and self responsibility to prevent myself adding things I do not need. However, reading your very challenging blog Joel, I am now considering what it would feel like to let go of all my emotional and mental stuff; I can’t take it with me either, there is no place for it either in the soul or beyond this plane of existence. I feel it would bring amazing freedom for me to choose love, but this could only happen by allowing myself to be vulnerable and own my hurts first so that they no longer have any importance. In our fragility and humbleness we find Love.

255. “Love on the other hand is free” – “Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals” You share much wisdom with us Joel – thank you.

256. So crazy that we invest so much in our hurts and holding onto wounds instead of choosing for love. The hurts and wounds then create the foundation that we take the next steps of our lives on, and we wonder how we ended up bitter, resentful and depressed. That was definitely the cycle I was stuck in until I heard Universal Medicine presentations and Serge Benhayon talking about choices and energy and then I could see I had choice.

     1. Great comment nicolesjardin – when we choose to get stuck in the cycle of moving through life building upon our hurts and our reactions it is a recipe for bitterness, resentment and an overwhelming dissatisfaction with life (and ourselves). Serge and Universal Medicine have supported me with developing the the ability to feel and deal with what is presented, and to see that I have a choice.

        1. If we keep moving forward in this cycle I can see that the only option in old age would be to check out.

257. Wow Joel, what you have exposed here is super crazy, without a doubt – but so very, very “normal”… Your article really helped me to see the attachment we have not only to our hurts, but our investment in repeating them – and the behaviour that dulls the pain of them – all in the name of identification…it is our pain, our hurt – our particular way of numbing or comforting it. The ironic thing is that there is nothing individual about the original source of the hurt – stepping away from the love we naturally are – we just bring our slight variations to how we avoid dealing with it.

     1. Great point Hannah,
        “The ironic thing is that there is nothing individual about the original source of the hurt – stepping away from the love we naturally are – we just bring our slight variations to how we avoid dealing with it.”
        It kind of reminds me of how we think we are being rebels when we go into disregard in our teens and drink and take drugs and ‘don’t care’….there is nothing original, unique or rebellious about these choices, in fact you would be more of a rebel if you didn’t get a tattoo or get trashed on the weekend.

        1. So true Sarah, true teenage rebellion would actually not involve drugs and alcohol – that would be truly standing out from the crowd.

        2. So true, it really is conforming to what society expects of you as a teenager to have an attitude problem, wearing hardly any clothing and drinking and smoking on the weekends. This behaviour does not stand you out from the crowd.

     2. Brilliantly said Hannah – ‘The ironic thing is that there is nothing individual about the original source of the hurt’ – as this exposes the illusion we are in, thinking we are individualizing our-self yet the fact remains no matter what we do we are from the same source, all connected by and all in essence Love whether we accept it or not. Our reactions, hurts and behaviours to numb and comfort the pain we equally experience are played out differently only to deliver a false sense of identification, yet in truth only highlights the point that we are in separation to the Love we are all equally from.

        1. Beautifully said Carola, and so very true – “..the fact remains no matter what we do we are from the same source, all connected by and all in essence Love whether we accept it or not.”

258. “…Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing)…” A beautiful description of Love. As I sit and read these words, it makes ‘Love’ so very tangible.

259. It is the investment in individuality that is holding us back. I can feel how this is such a deception, as it won’t bring true joy and everything else we always wanted. Surender is that what is needed, it brings the connection to that love, and leaves behind our individuality, I feel that is the most important, surrender, surrender, surrender..

260. I never, never, never realised that the stories I held onto were little or big energetic packages as real as something I could hold in my hands, and that I was carrying all of them – all of the time. All of the time – not just when I remembered them! This realisation is absolutely huge for me and an integral key to how to let them go.

261. These investments we have made in hurts and the stories we carry about why we have invested and the justifications of why, creep up on us and many times we don’t even realise that they are something we carry. It is like the hurts have hitched a ride on us and we don’t even realise that these hurts are real energetic packages that are as real as if we were physically carrying a package we could hold in our hands. Imagine even the lightest of packages becomes heavy after a while, yet after some time we are so used to the pain we don’t even recognise it a such.
     This is why esoteric medicine is so wonderful. It begins to take away these packages, it shines a light and awakens us to what we are carrying that is not love. We are like the person who has lost a lot of weight and exclaims it was like losing the weight of a whole other person, they feel so light, and we can see a person standing there – lighter – almost unrecognisable from the one who carried so much.

262. We are love, but we cannot own love, so even if it is a hurt or a suffering – as long as we can identify it as ‘mine’ from which we think we are getting to know ourselves – we opt for that. That is crazy.

263. “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it”. I had a lovely wry smile come to my face when I read the first part of this sentence. So true. It won’t as it is there equally for us all the time – I am only beginning to truly understand this and I love it. It is THE most amazing foundation you can ever ever stand upon.

264. That is so true Joel. What an awesome analogy. This blog cuts to the core and is very exposing because when I think of all my stuff and I imagine having to leave it, my very first response is no way. That really crept up on me. Why wouldn’t I just leave it? I realised the level of attachment to things when I recently needed to move house. This is yet another sober reminder.

265. We can hold onto investments that hurt us and keep us stuck in life. The only investment worth making in life is to be love consistently and be rewarded with dividends that are joyful and true.

     1. So true Anna, staying angry or upset just keeps us stuck in those emotions. I love how you have highlighted that the best investment we can make is to be love consistently. That is definitely more worthy of my time and effort.

     2. Yes Anna, there are great ‘dividends’ from a true investment but being ‘rewarded’ is something we earn and is just a by-product of our true investment in love which has no need for any outcome or reward. Any investment made with a reward in mind is not a true investment.

266. This is true Brendan. We often think it is the hardest thing to let go of our proud and our investments of hurts, and admit that we have gone off track and have chosen to live irresponsibly. But it is even harder to continue to live irresponsibly as this just feeds a life of pain and misery.

267. ‘Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself. Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it’, I love this part Joel, so humble, simple and true. Reading your blog again really highlights how crazy it is to choose to step away from love.

268. Well said Joel, how crazy is it that we live from our hurts, we allow those to dominate whether we let people in, love outwards to others to all, when there is only a few people we could count who probably actually hurt us. yet we carry that around every day, not letting people in. Crazy I agree.

     1. True Raegan, we set ourselves up to not live the love that we could very easily live, with everyone.

269. Investing in what is not true is going to lead us to hurt and suffering. It is our choice to choose the truth and the truth is choosing love in every moment.

270. It is indeed crazy and this blog gives me again a great insight in what’s making me make the unloving choices, it is an individuality that it gives. Knowing this and feeling that individuality is actually not it, i can work on and start to make other choices, love. Thank you Joel, for writing this so clearly.

271. It’s been a while since I read this heart warming blog. This sentence really touched me today “Although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing”. In reflection this just sums up for me how in past choices that that was exactly how I was living my life, so today it is with heartfelt appreciation that the journey traveled thus far feels more like a coming home to sit by the fire.

272. Wow, how we long to own knowledge, status, people and material things. Yet as you show, with such love Joel, when we see the world and ourselves this way it is us who is being owned.

     1. So true Joseph. We even seek to own love, blissfully and seemingly unaware that in seeking to own love, we become owned by all that is not.

273. Important questions you pose here Joel. It would seem a no brainer on the one hand but the reality is we still often choose the difficult, complex path all the time kidding ourselves that we are making our life better in some way, only to come up empty handed in the end. Knowing that it all boils down to two choices in the first place has supported me to more regularly choose love in the first place and simplified life considerably.

     1. So true Helen, knowing that in every moment the choice is simply love or not love brings an ease and a clarity to life.

     2. Helen, we are indeed “kidding ourselves: thinking “that we are making our life better in some way”. There is no point building on an unstable foundation and all we do is create a future out of the illusion of hope which distracts us from facing the basic fact that we started out on the wrong foot in the beginning. This will cause a lot of delay until we come around again to the same place and realize our life may seem better but it has not changed at the core and we have not let go of our issues but have just made them more complex.

274. Great analogy at the end of your blog, Joel. All that investment in that house which we have in truth outgrown and all the contraction we choose in our bodies so we fit that house! Double crazy! And the point well made and taken – true love can have no identification in it, as it is about oneness and we are already part of something that never needs us to be anymore than that.

275. Thanks Joel, In either direction, choosing love one way or not the other way, gives us return in each investment… Its a bit like superannuation, where one investment fund goes up, and the other goes down. Choosing love is simply, the greatest investment for us in the long term, for its return or renumeration to our body, in heath and wellbeing is obvious.

276. Thanks Joel for the reminder that Love is where it’s at. Life is not about investments in anything but our Soul.

     1. I agree Roslyn Mahony, Love is definitely where it’s at!

277. I know Brendan, it makes no sense at all. Sometimes in life you just have to accept you made a mistake and instead of thinking you have lost all that you have invested, realise that what you have invested was into a money pit in the first place that was not only siphoning you dry but would have eventually bankrupt you anyway.

278. Love brings freedom, no strings attached no conditions, just the freedom to be, and in that being- ness true joy is found.

279. Yes Joel it is absolutely crazy ‘How many of us have chosen to live in the house that’s falling down because of how much we have spent on it?’. Sometimes you have to just accept that what you have invested in has been situated in quicksand, on an active fault line, in both a flood and bushfire zone…. so no matter how much you invest in it it will always in vain so you just have to let it go, move on and start again on foundations that you can actually build on. Great blog.

280. You’re right Joel, it defies logic and feels like we hang onto pride and saving face. With who and what for? It’s crazy indeed.

281. this is definitely the issue so many people choose for, And I do to, and its crazy to feel, the hurt we got is just something to feel and let go, as it isn’t us it is just the house we’ve built and invested in. But love will bring true freedom that supports everyone. It doesn’t discriminate, it just is.

     1. True Benkt, we invest so much we don’t want to see the freedom in letting go of our hurts and returning to love.

        1. The complication of feeling hurt and the separation that it brings V’s the simplicity of love and the unity that it brings. Eeny meeny miney mo………….

282. It is powerful to feel that love is just that, love. Nothing more, nothing less. We all know what Love is, we did when we were a baby and know how true it is. It is revealing to consider how much less than love we have come to accept.

     1. I agree, Josh. This is a real measure of our hurts when we do not allow ourselves to feel this love which we once knew as a baby -it is there for us but we do not choose it.

283. For me this highlights our total stubbornness due to pride at admitting we have been choosing to not be aware of what we truly know for so so long.

     1. Agreed Michael. We defend and protect in order to cling to the idea that we were ‘right’.

     2. Well said Michael and ironically when we choose this stubbornness over the love we are made of naturally, we miss out on everything that we claim to want and trade it for bitterness and a couple of dug in heels, really is crazy.

284. We do not surrender to love because we are so attached to our “worldly” goods and we choose the physicality of them over the unseen but heartfelt glory of true love. It does not make sense.

285. Thank you Joel, this is a huge offering about self and what we invest in. I agree we can come to feel very comfortable in our pain and even believe that if we endure something enough we will be rewarded. But as you express, love does not require suffering or pain or any other hardship to earn – it cannot be earned as it is essentially who we are. So yes to living in that house and letting go of the one which is such a drain to maintain.

286. Humbleness is the key, and true humbleness comes only when one starts to connect to the amazingness of our own being. It is too much, and so we realise that what we arrogantly think of as being ‘intelligent’ actually fails in comparison to the light of our own Soul.

     1. It’s a seemingly paradoxical journey, but perfect when you think about the humility that comes from appreciating our amazingness. When what is appreciated is intelligence the two are not linked, when it is the light of our soul, we can only but be touched by it’s equal measure of power and grace = humility.

        1. From what you share here Joel, what I get is that the times I struggle to appreciate are when I want to stay in the issues and thus have the individual recognition- a big aahh moment for me.

        2. Nice MW, that’s been my experience too… when I struggle I am still invested in the issue in some way.

        3. “when I struggle I am still invested in the issue in some way.” – Thank you Joel and MW for this dose of humbleness. If there are issues in my life then that is because I still want issues to be in my life. This is powerful because then I can ask – why would I trade issues for my glory? what am I still getting out of holding onto this thing that has not truly served anyone? and how would love address this? Even just sitting here with those questions the first ones were still attached where as the last one just lets go of all of it.

        4. “the times I struggle to appreciate are when I want to stay in the issues and thus have the individual recognition” I know this one too. It is really silly how much we can do to stay that individual and have ‘issues’. Great reminder.

        5. It’s true Lieke, and the next ever more insidious layer is the recognition that comes from ‘being naughty’, keeping things individualsed… not only do we get recognition for our issues but then for not breaking out of our issues!

     2. Our humbleness nourishes our true intelligence and wisdom, well said Adam.

        1. And it is through surrender that we access this greater intelligence we belong to, as we become a part of the all and not the security driven self.

     3. I can feel the truth in this Adam – why choose anything different? Why cling to ‘Intelligence’? as Joel has said – ‘HOW CRAZY IS THAT! If we are able to accept the amazingness of our own being then it is time to let go of the ‘imagined’ power of what we ‘think’. Feeling our own amazingness is truly humbling and such a beautiful thing.

     4. Gorgeous comment Adam. As it is when we connect to the Light of our Soul that we realise that the power of our Light is not from us but through us by the grace of God, for All of us.

        1. Beautifully said Carola, we are vehicles for the light to express through, not from us.

     5. Choosing to not be the love that we are is not such a wise move. Thus the intelligence we think is intelligent is exposed as not being so intelligent at all.

     6. Adam, I love how you have brought in the word ‘humbleness’: “true humbleness comes only when one starts to connect to the amazingness of our own being”. In feeling the wonder of that we also connect to the fact that we are Sons of God with purpose and we realize that our body is there to serve the greater whole, not our self. With this perspective there is no room for arrogance and no room for undermining ourselves and we just get on with life being available moment to moment to carry out what is needed whilst valuing what we bring and taking responsibility for what we do.

287. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ As always straight to the point Joel and a real Ouch moment for me to look at my investments and what I am choosing to allow to hold me back from Love. Thank you for the deeply poignant analogy of the 2 houses which illustrates our choice so well. Surrendering and letting go in order to return to love is always an option as soon as we are ready to let go of our hurts.

     1. Absolutely Helen. Clinging to the hurts that we have invested in allows them not only to fester and grow but also to literally define us. This festering can feed our poor patterns of behaviour as it imbues a sense of righteousness that incorrectly gives you the excuse to behave in a particular way simply because you have been hurt – regardless of how harming it is for yourself or others. Not only is this a messy vicious circle but totally crazy, for when you realise that just by letting go of those hurts you also will let go of the associated righteousness and behaviours that feeds the vicious circle in the first place. So when we surrender and do actually let go of these hurts we find the love that we all want to feel and be hiding underneath them just waiting to returned to, expressed and lived.

     2. And it is as simple as choosing to let them go and say yes to love and only love.

288. Love is there for me, no matter how much I allow myself to be hurt. This truth I can feel in my body, but not even vaguely understood with my linear thinking mind. This teaches me that I should avoid listening to the linear thinking mind by all means.

     1. Yes Felix, it also suggests that we are crazy if we do. There are no two ways about it!

289. Reading your blog the second time, there are still so many amazing reminders to feel into. You have such a way to describe and explain things that makes it so relatable and deeply inspiring Joel. I love this blog.

290. I feel challenged to let go my hurts and past investments and to fully choose love, to choose the house down the road which offers everything I will ever need and more. Why am I not fully surrendering ? That is the question.

291. Love is love is love; never held back; there equally for all. The choice is ours to choose all that is love; joy, stillness, harmony vitality and simplicity. It does seem crazy that, in general, humans do not choose this; preferring instead comfort, possessions , emotions, neediness, superiority, competition, individuation….. and the list goes on.
     Thank you Joel for exposing the two sides of the coin. The choice is ours!!

292. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ this made me ponder we have to become aware that there is nothing between us and love than our selfmade issues which are not real anyway, love is inside all along.

293. Yes , Joel, the amount of time and energy we spend on holding onto our hurts does not make sense when we could have love with no strings attached. So much for me to ponder on here and to let go.

     1. I agree Anne, there is a lot to ponder on and it’s exposing to realise when we have invested and identified with something it does make it so much more difficult to let it go.

        1. Yeah I agree, investments and attachments are a killer and keep you locked up.

        2. l realise Chan that l have been invested in my fathers healing. He is going in for a knee operation. So far l have been imposing, demanding, judgemental…etc. lnvested in a picture of the perfect outcome if only he would listen to me and my wisdom. That doesn’t feel like love. Time to let go and surrender to the absolute knowing that things will unfold how they need to without my controls.That feels so much more loving for both myself and my father.

     2. For me too Anne! In fact the holding onto hurts has not only been time consuming but exhausting! The interesting thing I’m observing however is the simplicity of coming back to love when we chose it, and how much more space, energy and joy there is as a result.

        1. I have noticed this too Angela. Carrying our hurts is definitely exhausting and harmful. Our hurts allows us to create more hurt for ourselves and for others. It can perpetuates and spreads like an infectious disease. So, by choosing to heal and let go of our hurts is an extremely loving choice and responsibility for us all.

        2. l still need time and space for this one.
           Those hurts are etched ever so deeply in my psyche. They are holding onto me for dear life. Or is it me holding onto them?

     3. Yes Anne we are so identified by our hurts that we feel if we leave them all behind we have nothing to identify ourselves with. We all say we want love but if we are not willing to give up the idea we hold of our self that we have built from our attachments, investments and our hurts we can never step into a life of love and this is crazy!

294. Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing).

     Love it Joel, thank you!

     1. I love this part too Suzanne. Love is never demanding, imposing, judgmental or seeks any form of recognition, therefore it is so clear when we are not choosing love. Whenever we display these behaviours they definitely take us further and further away from truth and love. But the amazing thing is when we become aware of these behaviours we can choose to be love in an instance, it is just a matter of choice and very simple.

        1. And awareness.

295. Leaving behind and letting go of our past investments is challenging but nonetheless essential for us all if we want to live the truth and life we know in our hearts is available to us all equally.

     1. I agree Suse! I’ve found that letting go of past investments and choices can certainly be challenging because it means I need to take responsibility for my choices and can no longer hide behind blame, drama, resentment etc., however I have to say, the more responsible I am for my choices, the easier it becomes to let go of these past investments and the easier it is to live truth.

        1. Yeah the more you make it about love and choosing what is loving the easier it is to surrender what doesn’t fit with that.

     2. This is a timely read Joel, as I am literally moving house at the moment and I can feel all the old patterns wanting to come in and patterns etc that I am hanging onto that no longer actually work for me and there is the pull to let them go but also a hanging on when I know that they actually no longer serve me.

        1. Moving house can be such an incredible healing if we really embrace the blessing presented to us in the letting go of the old and the past and the outmoded ideals, beliefs, patterns and ” things.”

     3. Absolutely Suse how true your words are resonating with me.

        1. I agree Irena, it is imortant to be aware with which intention we are leaving the old house and move into the new one!!

     4. An investment is only ever a true investment if it supports us to evolve. And part of evolution is discarding that which does not belong as we develop. Therefore, we need to be wary of any attachment we have and what it is we are protecting or defending at the expense of moving on to the next level.

        1. The best way to identify what is true and what is an attachment that may be holding us back from going to the next level, is using your body as a marker. If my body is tight or tense and my voice gets defensive on certain subjects, I know that there is something to let go of or look at.

296. So crazy, it’s so crazy that we even make our fallen down house look great on the outside to try and fool ourselves others that it’s a great place to live.

     1. I agree Kim, it is absolutely crazy, we spent all our time trying to make what is not love look appealing instead of simply leaving it behind and actually being love. Such is the hook of identification.

     2. We make our homes a palace in which to hide the true treasure that lies within.

297. Thank you Joel for a great blog, there are no strings attached to true love, it just is, it has no needs, as it is all encompassing, we can leave our struggles and hurts behind and with joy accept the love that is within, why not, we only have those things that are not us, to loose.

298. Great blog Joel making the whole process of coming to love simple if we allow it to be and recognise and let go of the hurts that only create more hurt.

299. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ Only then are we free from the charge, the hook that our hurts have over us. It’s true – it’s like getting rid of all your barnacles and possessions, so you’re clear of all the attachments and things pinning you down, holding you back. Love just is. It can’t be owned or stock-piled.

300. “Love offers no special treatment”, so as long as we have the need to feel or be special, we don’t chose for love. As love has nothing to do with self, but with all.

     1. Well said Mariette, just a matter of getting the self, that demands so much attention, out of the way!

301. So important Joel, it must be never about the loss of things, or money. It feels very important what you share with us, as this is one of the examples we override what we feel with ideals, thoughts and emotions. The example you had given: ”For example, if I choose to jump off a building and break my leg, my choice brings with it time off, attention and sympathy, that is directed towards me.”
     I wonder what will then come towards me, how does sympathy actually feel when it is coming towards me? And how is it feeling if I am receiving attention from others from sympathy and self-pity? What do I truly receive? As if I actually feel into it it feels so heavy and joy-less.
     I feel it would be way more simpler to just follow our feelings and let go of everything, whatever it takes.

302. The new house down the road is a beautiful opportunity to start anew – how crazy it is that we can refuse this preferring to hold onto the past and the old hurts because we are familiar with them. It is time to let go of the hurts and let love lead the way.

303. Thank you Joel for an inspiring blog, where you so simply spell out when we don’t choose love. A love that is never ending joy and harmony, and innate within us all. Instead we choose our hurts to identify us with, the total opposite to what love is, and it really is crazy.

304. Love is love, it cannot be anything else and we all know it and feel it, how else do we know what hurt is. Love is like the blue sky. It’s always there, even on a dark cloudy rainy day, above those clouds is the beautiful blue sky. This is the same with love. We just need to blow the clouds away and it’s there.

305. “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it”. Wow, this certainly helps define what we have fallen for … It wasn’t love after all!

306. I have read this one before but I will admit that only today have I actually sat with and questioned: What if I am invested in my hurts? because for the longest time I kept asking ‘what is keeping these hurts and drama’s in my life!?’ stamping my foot and expecting the answer to come. But without trying here it is once again as the conversation of investments is not new, just been ignored. I know my choices in situations can either greatly exacerbate things or cut the drama short and move on so then, what if rather than trying to tackle the hurts we were to address the investments and expectations of life and of and from ourselves?

     1. The hurts are the dividends being paid on the investments we choose to make.

        1. So true lindellparlour and an excellent reason to go to the root and examine our investments carefully rather than wallowing in our hurts.

307. Hi Joel, I enjoyed this blog so much, your writing offers a loving wisdom through your words. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” A big ouch here but such good medicine 🙂

308. I love the absolute simplicity of your sharing to Love or not to Love, what is the answer? Love is the answer. Thank you Joel for opening our eyes.

309. Having recently moved – there were far too many ‘nick naks’. I left most behind – have I missed them no! Did my love move in with me Yes. Great blog Joel

310. I like the simplicity and clarity that comes with your blog

311. Reading your blog Joel, it is crazy that we don’t choose the richness of love. So crazy that we hold onto thing that cause pain when divine love is equally there. Crazy indeed.

312. Love just is and it is crazy that we walked away in search of something else. Now I know what I have been missing I am on my way home.

313. Great timing discovering your absolutely striking blog! You pin point, how a part of us actually likes the separation a lot, we even need it to a certain point, because if we wouldn´t, then we wouldn´t have any excuse anymore to not be joyful…

     1. Agree steffihenn. We definitely like the separation part. I know I have identified wth my hurts and ‘struggle’ in life for years. I still find myself doing it when I let things get out of hand, and feel as though I can’t cope with life. But when I get a moment to come back to my body I am able to get perspective again, and realise that I’m contributing to the drama that keeps me separated. It’s not easy breaking the habit and remembering that in fact those hurts are not something I have to hold on too so tightly. I can choose to let them go if I want, it’s a matter of choice.

314. In various trainings I have done and books I have read we have been encouraged “to own our hurts”. I can see now how confusing this can be. Thank you Joel. It is possible that that message is still lurking inside me and getting in the way of being free to love – amazing.

     1. Its very interesting what you have shared elainearthey. Owning our hurts definitely hints as responsibility but at the same time feels like you are holding onto them and continuing to allow them to hurt you instead of simply surrendering to and working through them, and then letting them go. The latter sounds like a much healthier option to me for us all.

315. This is very interesting Joel and helps me make sense of life and our choices, ‘ love offers no special treatment for individuals. Love does offer joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity, but it is offered to all equally without any sense of reward or parade.’

316. It is crazy how we hold onto stuff which is no longer serving us and has no love. Often we have invested money and time into things and so we hold onto things even if it’s loveless . If we let go of that holding and start to connect to love which is always there, we are able to build a body that truly connects to love and build a true foundation.

317. It is very crazy, what we have put into our own hurts to be identified by them, I can feel how choosing love is a much better investment as it doesn’t bring the suffering. And it will always be there.

318. In a clear out I had before my last house move I was ruthless in shedding things that could have qualified for air miles. There was items that were only kept because of the perceived value I had placed on them. I went to a few car boots and accepted any price rather than take them home. The local charity shop loved me, for what I couldn’t shift at the car boots, they received. We have a Web site here call Freecycle, you list what you don’t want and people come to you and pick it up and take it away. I still have more to go but it is freeing to rid myself of stuff that is no longer me.

     1. Sjmatsonuk you make a great point, things are only valuable because we perceive them to be. Seeing the item for what it actually is and no longer having an attachment to it is very freeing indeed.

319. Thanks Joel for highlighting the fact that we have made huge investments in our hurts and also how love asks for nothing but also gives you nothing in return, it simply is. You help make sense why we continue to invest in the merry-go-round and once we are willing to admit how much pain and abuse we continue to inflict in order to reinforce our hurts we can finally let the floodgates of heaven bring glory to this life.

320. Choosing anything less than love is completely crazy, yes Joel, absolutely crazy.

     1. What is crazy that we always have had and still have the choice to either choose love or not in any situation or experience. Our lives are the direct result of all our choices and this is a truth we all need to accept.

        1. Ahhhh the ‘A’ word. Something very healing I have learned from Serge Benhayon and have been supported by Universal Medicine to live is that once we learn to accept who we are as beautiful, all-knowing and amazing beings, to accept that we’ve made ‘mistakes’ we can then accept responsibility, others, life and our own glorious true nature and start to live the love we are all equally. Acceptance is a key ingredient to personal development, to evolution.

321. It seems that many are on the continuum of looking for a result, reaction, an outcome, A continuum of what they have come to identify themselves with in some way. Some thing that gives a sort of stimulation to them to gives them a sense they are alive. Yet each result, reaction, outcome etc only takes them back to the beginning again left with a sense of emptiness and around they go again on their continuum. That in itself feels a bit exhausting. I know, I’ve done it for years, probably lifetimes. Love on the other hand, just is. It doesn’t offer anything more than the fact that you are home where you truly belong. A coming home to me. There is a real sense of joy in this. I can feel my home now, just around the corner.

322. I was once very comfortable in my old disheveled house, I had no idea my dream home was right near by. I remained inside that house even though I had to walk through so much clutter in semi darkness to get from room to room and would constantly bump into things and hit obstacles because the lights weren’t on and the curtains were almost closed. It was home. When I finally accepted the invitation to visit the house up the street I realised there was a completely different way to live, in a house free of clutter, full of spaciousness and light, with windows clean, clear and connected to the world around it. Where the welcome mat was always out and the doors open to all. At first I found the light almost too bright, and the spaciousness daunting, I would head for the safety of my familiar surroundings even though it hurt. But the invitations kept coming and I now find they are much too gracious and loving to refuse. I visit more often and stay for longer each time, the invitation to move in completely is always there, and I’m heading there, but I can still become waylaid by choosing to venture back to the old house to see how its going and try to fix it rather than just letting collapse.

323. Its time I moved out of my falling down old house, the one that has everything I have ever wanted has been in my sight for too long without me fully committing to letting go all of my little nicknacks. It has to be the craziest thing of all that we can cling to what is not love for a bit of identification.

     1. Yes identification and comfort. It is particularly strange that pain, hurts and falling down houses can feel more comfortable than love – which as Joel says “… offers joy, vitality, freedom and simplicity”. This is a great boo that highlights the ‘craziness’ of this and the ‘no brainer’ aspect to choosing love.

324. And, just to add, I am still developing, still learning and letting go of more and more every day. It truly is the most beautiful unfolding when we stay open to the all that we are, and can be.

325. It is crazy not to choose Love. Why would we not ? The uncovering, firstly of what love is, and secondly, why I have not chosen Love has been the most liberating ‘struggle’ I have ever been through. And the simplicity of it all, once we reach the understanding that we are all Love , no matter what, is so very obvious.

326. Ah, re-reading this blog is such a profound reminder of what the choices we make actually mean to the life we live. Try as we might to get into the nuances and complicated parameters of what different options might mean, it all comes down to choosing the glory we are or choosing to cover up the hurt of not choosing the glory we are. It’s ‘yes’ or ‘yes to something else’. Either way the choice is ours, the outcome is ours. And such a choice does not mean that once made you can never choose differently again. The option is there before us every moment in every breath. Love does not abandon us. It is we who choose to abandon Love.

327. Very crazy indeed…..that we invest so much in our hurts instead of choosing for love. We think that hurts protect us and give us some form of safety, but with love, we realize we don’t need any protection as with love, we are open and all we need is our connection. No protection needed at all.

328. It is bonkers that we hang on to our investments when we know that love is what we all want.

     1. Isn’t it just Fiona?! It blows my mind all the time, and I’m one of those people. I can see what I want, and instead I so often choose to stay in the hurt instead of let it go. It’s feels like I’m wrapped up in it tightly with rope. Every now and again I can see a way to loosen the rope and wriggle around in it, but I can certainly see how I’m using it to ‘protect’ me, even thought I KNOW it’s not doing anything other than holding me back from others.

329. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts’ – that is a big OUCH for me Joel. As Debra says it does feel scary to let go of the investments but by taking small steps my confidence is building and I am learning to trust myself.

330. The thought of letting go of all my investments feels a bit scary, but I can certainly see how they hold me back and keep me bound. I have had a taste of what it feels like to let go of an investment. The feeling of freedom is huge.

     1. Letting go of things that we have invested in does feel so freeing. The more we do this the lighter we feel. We can accumulate so much stuff around us and by holding onto them doesn’t allow space for us to even move or see beyond all that we’ve acquired. Letting them go is the best feeling ever and it reveals who we are with nothing in the way to shining our true self, our essence.

331. It is crazy and I get very tired of carrying all those investments with me, so why not move to the house down the road, lets go!

     1. Yes Annelies- i move with you to the new house 🙂

332. I read every sentence of this carefully and with full attention, hanging for what would come next. This blog offers extraordinary wisdom, and is written in such a way that is perfectly simple to understand. In fact, to not understand, you would probably have to deliberately choose not to, which makes sense, because this blog in fact offers love!

     1. Absolutely Catherine. I considered dismissing it to read something else and nearly did, but then realised it probably had something for me to look at in my own relationship with love and myself. And it did. I’m so glad I stayed and read it again.

333. Reading these words Joel I wanted to select a phrase that stood out to me – but it literally was not possible as every sentence and statement shared more gold. You really captured the absurdity of the way we choose to live and the true nature of love. Thank you.

     1. Same for me Joseph, each word took me further to feel the truth of what Joel has presented here and what I have chosen for my self in life. Joel has simply offered me a healing in his words. Amazing! Thank you Joel.

     2. Yes I totally agree Joseph, this blog is pure GOLD. I love every part of it too, it’s difficult to just highlight a phrase, I can literally highlight the whole blog and it is simply a brilliant, brilliant read and re-read.

334. Wow, this is an amazing blog Joel. It can be confronting to look at our hurts as something we are gaining from somehow. I can relate to holding on to them and the stories that come with these and blaming other people etc. At times there is no one available to blame! I can see these behaviours more clearly now as barriers to my own love, like trying to move into that house with my old belongings. Thank you.

     1. “At times there is no one available to blame!” The truth is there is never anyone to blame, just an understanding that we made a choice which brought us to any situation. Hard to swallow but simply beautiful when we do.

335. Love, is love, is love. I agree why do we choose not to live love when it requires nothing from us except us living a true loving life. Unfortunately the majority are not living a true loving life and when they look around and see everyone living a similar life – living from their hurts then they think this is normal. What a blessing we have Universal Medicine to present a different way – a loving way and many people are now beginning to live love and people are noticing. One day living from love will be the majority, how awesome will this be.

336. When you say it like that Joel it does seem crazy.
     It seems a lot of pride needs to be swallowed before we would even consider packing up house and move on.

     Taking a long hard look at the house we built with rusty nails sticking out of the wall is one way to get an idea of the mess we created. If that doesn’t work one day we cut ourselves on one of those rusty nails giving us a shock to see the mess we have created.

337. It is pretty crazy. Attachment and control is what comes to me and both further complicate the life lived. Everything shrieks of coming from ‘what we have invested in’ with no returns but a deepening of the quicksand we can find ourselves in. Choosing Love feels so light, opening, free and warm – it is divine. Love this symbolism Joel.

338. Wow Joel, I love your blog. It is so powerful, revealing and inspiring. I can so relate to it, it is certainly CRAZY why I have chosen to live with my hurts and reactions in place of love. Reading your blog reveals how insane it was that I had chosen to invest in my hurts and it feels very sad really. What you’ve shared: ‘This means Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals, i.e. no identification. With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.’ This is amazing! Letting go of the identification and surrender to the investments of hurts. This is what I am choosing to work on. Thank you Joel, your words of wisdoms is extremely inspiring.

339. The one thing I find exquisite beyond words about love is that it asks nothing of you except for you to be you. It seems ridiculous that we would choose to deny ourselves something so divine.

340. Oh my god – this is so true and a lot to comprehend, for when we let go of our investments we are brought back to focus on the quality of our relationships.

     1. Particularly the relationship with ourselves, Abby, as it’s this relationship which allows us to feel how simple it actually all is. Not the complication we have made it to be.

        1. So true Elizabeth, our relationship with ourselves can be super simple – no complication required.

341. It’s quite revealing to feel into the investments we have made to keep us from being love.
     I like how you describe that love can “…only be returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals…

342. It is completely crazy and yet I can put both hands up to say I was that kind of crazy for so long – till now.

343. Agreed Brendan! It makes no sense but many of us are caught up in this… Time to let go of some of our investments I’d say!

     1. I agree Angela, it is definitely time to let go of our investments in our hurts and identification in them. I am starting to let them go and it is starting to feel lighter and more joyful the more I lovingly continue to do so.

344. The investment I have got in all kinds of things that are not love are indeed crazy to hang onto, when I now when I choose love there is nothing I have to hang onto, the support that love is is always there.

345. There is no hype or drama with choosing love, just connection and simplicity. We seek the hype and drama so we cannot feel the pain in not truly loving ourselves. That is crazy!

346. Wow Joel…great point. We put so much emphasis on our identification and what we get from things that we forget to value the true things in life and live simply without the need for constant recognition.

347. Joel you are a master in bringing simplicity and understanding to life issues that seem complicated but are actually not. What complicates it are the investments that we have and the games that we are stuck in. Your analogies show that it is always about the choices we make and that we can choose to make different choices when we realize that old way is not working.

348. Beautiful blog Joel. A great reminder to let go of the investment we have in our hurts, “With love, we have to surrender the investment we made in our hurts.” I’m off to the house down the road.

349. “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts”. Thank you Joel this reminds me that there is no room for love if I hold on to my investments. It’s time to divest myself of all the hurt.

350. This is the thing! – I have moved into that house down the road – and yes a few ‘trinkets’ came too – this is the part where ‘I am still a work in progress’.
     “With Love – we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts” so true. Thank you Joel a joy to read and feel what you have shared with us all.

351. To choose to be me is a never ending story. Whenever I get the feeling I want to reach somewhere, I know, that I haven’t been choosing love or me.

352. Joel, what a brilliant way to describe love, it makes it all so clear and logical.

     1. I too feel the simplicity truth of the way Joel describes love. It demystifies the word and brings a practicality to it that can be lived if you choose.

353. Oh Brendan that is a good point it is really ridiculous how difficult it is for us to let our investments go – I wonder why humanity is playing this “investment” game . . .

354. I agree Joel, it is crazy, having made an investment and then guarding that, becomes our life long goal regardless of the cost to our bodies. What is even more crazy is the fact that we know life doesn’t have to be like that i.e hard, suffering, an endurance test but we still hang on defending our choices.

     1. I agree Julie, we do know that life does not have to be hard, stressful and pushing through, but yet we cling onto it. And when it comes to look at it we never really want to get to the core of it but instead defend our ill choices.

355. This is such a joyful confirmation for me, since I just gave up living in a home, that was very comfortable for me and moved to a different place to live more love, just having me and a few clothes. And all I was welcomed with was love. Well done, Felix!

356. I just really got this from reading your analogy used here Joel, its brilliant, I realised love doesn’t offer any recognition, it is just love, you are love and its not going to jump up and down and say whoohhooo your love, where as anything separate from love is either boohoo or whoohoo but to ‘just be’ has no rah rah, its just love. Joy, vitality, love and somehow we have got so caught up with the ‘what is not love’ like you share what is ‘ours’, we have to let them go to be able to be love. Crazy it is!

357. It is crazy, I agree Joel. When we realise that the choice is ours, every day, to choose love we can begin to heal and let go of our hurts from separating from love, and return to living the love that we all naturally are, in all our grandness.

358. Very true Joel, how crazy are we to invest in that which is not true, when all along the amazing house full of true love is ready and waiting for us all to embrace.

359. Absolutely brilliant. Brilliant example of the houses, you got me right there back on track. It is so true. I am on my way to that forever home.

360. Another awesome exploration and exposé of how we will so often choose the what is not over who we really are. I love your example of the houses as it so clearly shows how we would so often rather stay with our beliefs and hurts rather than choose the truth of who we are. I’m starting to see the value of the new house as it lets me be without the baggage!

361. Very Crazy Joel how much we can invest in the wrong type of love, “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it”

362. The world is just upside down with the choices to be something we already are that cost nothing and allows us to be joyous or fight it and cause pain. Is it because we have become vary of things that are free and that there must be a catch? Or, is this just the trick to keep us distracted from who we have always been and will be?

363. I am renovating the ‘old house down the road’ literally. It is to be a rental property and have cleared out all the clutter and starting with the foundations (literally) replacing windows to allow light in and removing walls to create flow in the living space, each room in the house is being ‘ loved up’. This is an investment in reimprinting this ‘old house’ with love in every detail and the reflection is divine.

364. I agree, Joel, it’s totally crazy to invest in things and people and feed our pride instead of leaving the falling house and make ourselves free. With love what else do we need?

365. Dear Joel, Thank you, “And so the other direction can only start with the pain of separating from that love – it can only start with a hurt. This means that each step is looking to either cover up that hurt, or alleviate it.” This sentence stopped me in my tracks, and I took it as a moment to ask myself ‘If i feel I am struggling lately, what hurt am I not looking at…but more specifically, what hurt am I HOLDING onto?’ Identification, familiarity, simply to not accept, have understanding and step forward, from the mud. Love, profoundly stated.

366. When you put it like that Joel it does sound crazy and yet it is our reality for the time being. For so long we have claimed these choices as who we are, that because, that individual choice gets an individual response or reaction. It’s like a constant high of ‘look at me’, be it getting into an argument, creating a tension between people, breaking one’s leg, it’s all ”Look at what I have created”.
     However, what I am learning more and more, is that when focusing on the body and how my choices affect the body, those patterns that bring up an issue into situations, or make a mountain out of a molehill, bring nothing but harm to myself mentally and physically, and to others and our relationship with them, then their relationship with others.
     Even after having felt and seen that love is always there for us, then making excuses about not living in that house, is still a ”Look at me I can’t possibly live over there because I have all this stuff here” – it’s all lies at the end of the day. How can we say we own an emotion when everyone around us is doing the same? – we are not individuals we are all part of a group – be it the love group or the hiding and building up hurts group. Our house isn’t a studio flat, it contains everyone who is choosing to be in the same place.

367. The way you have described our private sufferings and personal hurts as “trinkets” that we dread to leave behind is a very apt analogy Joel. They may be trinkets that we hate to look at, and stash at the back of a closed cupboard, but nevertheless they are “ours” and they are familiar to us. Even if we rarely see them, they are always there and they belong to us. That sense of ownership, even if what we own we do not like and it is crumbling around us, gives not only a mistaken sense of identity but a mistaken sense of safety in the world – even when we cannot lock the warped doors or shut the broken windows. There is a strange sort of attraction to familiarity. Even when that familiarity produces a life that is less.

368. Lovely writing as usual Joel.
     “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it.”
     It is just normal and ordinary and placed before us at every turn, leaving us free to make a choice towards it, or not. Unlike emotional love which seems to have a hook in it somewhere. I’m choosing that sentence as a reminder to be open more to the choices offered me.

369. So true Joel, we hold onto investments with pride, because we know if we are to leave them behind, we have to admit that we invested in something that wasn’t true… Why live in that house, when all it takes is to simply admit that ‘whoops’ that wasn’t it… and then move into the glorious house that could have been ours all along.

370. Love it Joel, you capture so visually well, the hold that investment has and which prevents us from moving on in spite of the fact the walls are falling down, the foundation sinking, and everything needs repairing, crazy indeed when you look at it like that. Especially liked your line here and what I got to feel was the clear power that love is: “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it” – because unlike the other type of love we’ve invested in, the emotional kind, it doesn’t have any need for itself or for its recipient to have any need either. Love celebrates love; not congratulates need.

     1. I love this Zoifa….naming the emotional love we have invested in, that comes loaded with need.

     2. I really love your last line Zofia… “Love celebrates love; not congratulates need.” Lovely indeed!!

371. The beautiful thing about Love is that it also respects our choices. It does not punish us for choosing to separate and actually welcomes us back with open arms if we so choose to return.

     1. The door to our true home is always open. It never asks “where were you?”…although we may ask ourselves.

372. This blog very simply explains why we would choose pain and suffering. We get something out of it and get to feel ourselves as being an individual with our ‘special’ issues. Yes that is crazy, but for most of us it is a process of unraveling ourselves from the web we have created.

373. This is great Joel, there is no identification with love at all, and it seems like this is the trick that we are all falling for – that we need to be told or recognised for what we do, and when love doesn’t do this, we think it is not love! That is crazy!

374. Your analogy is perfect, and as you say, it’s completely crazy. Why would I stay in a house that’s falling down, that I KNOW is not supporting me …… because it’s familiar? But I always have a choice …….
     Time to take a stroll down the road …….

     1. Yes Alison, we have that choice and we don’t need to put up with or make do – we can actually choose the real deal – LOVE – who we naturally are. : )

375. Love the analogy Joel. I’m applying that analogy to my wardrobe at the moment. How many of my clothes were invested in for reasons other than loving and honouring me, to then create clutter because I really do not enjoy wearing them, and impulse me to go and buy more because nothing feels right!

     1. Yep, same wardrobe ‘issues’ over here, we can apply the analogy to all aspects of our life.

376. Another great story Joel. You are so wise in your day to day simplicity. I so can relate to have been identified with my hurts and pain. It was empowering and a releaf to leave that behind. That I am not the victim in my life, but the creator.

377. Such a great analogy. So true we live in a house that is falling down and use knick nacks and possessions to distract us from the fact that the house is crumbling around us and shut our eyes and heart to the fact that their is another way to live.

378. Love so beautifully expressed.

379. Love the house analogy at the end – it really does show the absurdity of the choice to hold onto our old hurts and ways of living that aren’t serving anyone.

380. Brilliant Joel, and the amazing house down the road has everything we ever wanted but we cannot own it as it is shared with all. So how many of us will cling to the falling down house, so to speak, simply because it is ours alone?

     1. Thank you for taking the analogy of the house one step further andrewmooney26.

381. Thank you, Joel, for so eloquently expressing the qualities of love and the understanding of why it is is so common not to choose love and the ridiculousness of that choice.

382. Ridiculously crazy Joel! I love your analogies. To return to love, we have to let go of all of the things we have identified with – all of the things we thought made us US. I remember becoming aware of a couple of my ‘major life identifications’ and being all ‘OH. That’s not Me… But.. But… But…!!!’ – the need to hang on to them was so strong because I wanted to feel like I was in charge, that I was creating something… but all they really brought me was hardness, pain and suffering – even though they looked ‘good’ from an outside perspective. Being love, who we truly are, requires no effort or energy and feels so lovely and amazing – my experience of this is that it far outweighs any of the things I have identified with, any of the things I think I create in life.

     1. I love this…. ‘OH. That’s not Me… But.. But… But…!!!’ …can sooooo relate to this dance at times.

383. Ha! So crazy! I get what you mean about no rewards for choosing love. It seems so normal and natural when I am love that until I choose identification again it seems like the difference is subtle because love is a slow building process. It’s once I’m in the push and pull of life that the difference of love and not love seems so significant to me.

384. It certainly is crazy Joel. Thank you for your house analogy, pointing out how utterly crazy it is.

385. Yes, that does sound super crazy Joel. To hold into something so tight because you’ve put so much effort into it- even though you can tell it’s not working.

386. We have completely sold out to something so much lesser. Thanks Joel.

     1. That we have Melinda, well said.

387. It is very crazy!? Crazy how we allow so much to get in the way of truly just being Love. A beautiful sharing Joel – thank you.

388. Joel a great blog as usual, thank you. I really found it inspiring to remember that no matter what we do that love is always there without judgment. No matter what our choices are.

389. I love the second last paragraph it makes it so clear that we have the tendency to hang on to things just in case. But what if there is no just in case needed when we completely open up to love?

390. An awesome way to look at our investments in hurts and the choice to have love in our lives, thank you Joel.

391. I agree Brendan when we look at all the ways we have lived, all the investments and identification many of us can see it does not fulfil yet hold onto it. The simple analogy Joel presents of the two houses provides a great point to reflect on. Love is simply love.

392. I really enjoyed reading your blog Joel and was inspired by the simple yet powerful message, thank you
     Love is love is love …..

393. I was thinking along the same lines Brendan, that it’s hard to come to terms with making investments that aren’t working – so it’s our own pride that stands in the way of letting love into our lives.

394. Well said Brendon and yes it is totally ridiculous. And the ways people act this out, and even repeat same said behaviour is even more ridiculous.

395. Such a beautiful Blog. Love, is love, is Love. It is so simple, yet we continue to allow our hurts and the need to protect ourselves from more hurts to hold us away from our own simple choice to choose our love. My experience, one that is deepening daily, is that my body aches, feels tense, hurts, feels crocked, feels heavy when I am in the defence of more possible hurts. Yet the moment that I choose my love. My body opens, my mind clears, I feel tall, I my body adjusts and immediately some aches disappear, my body feels light. This is such incentive to choose love as the off shute of me feeling such lightness is that I be light, with myself and with others. I hold myself tenderly, lovingly. I am my greatest support. I am then an awesome support for everyone that I connect with.

     1. Beautiful leighstrack, it is so clear what happens when we choose love. It feels so amazing yet why we don’t choose it is certainly crazy. What you have shared I can relate to, my body feels the same way, it communicates everything choice that I have made. So, by simply listening to my body and choose love, all the hurt and sadness will fall away and no longer exist.

        1. Dear Chanly88,
           “So, by simply listening to my body and choose love, all the hurt and sadness will fall away and no longer exist.” This is so very true. As I sit and ponder what you have shared here I find myself feeling just how much I have changed my approach to the feelings of sadness that arise in my body. Where once I would allow the feeling of sadness to take me over, I have come to realise of late that this no longer happens. If I feel sad now I am really aware of it, as it feels so very different to the love that I hold myself with. Being able to clearly discern the difference has allowed me to feel it and let it pass. There have been times where I have cried in the bath to help it to pass, but also times where I feel it and it has passed in a matter of moments. This I call a true miracle.

396. Joel you are the master of analogies ! They really do help me to ‘see’ things more clearly. I’m off to the house down the road, see you there.

     1. I’m walking with you Alexis!

     2. I agree Alexis, they make your findings on life Joel so much easier to understand as well as being an absolute joy to read. I still visit my ‘old house’ full of investment to get rid of my bits and pieces and clear up the rubble but I’m totally sold on the love house, for this is the only place to truly be.

        1. I love this analogy of still having an investment at times in the old house… What I’m also finding is the less time I spend at the old house, the freer I am to explore the new house!

     3. Love your analogie too Alexis.

     4. I agree Alexis and I love that you are off to the house down the road.

397. Great blog again Joel Levin. That first hurt that took me in the opposite direction to love only leads me to more pain and the more I cover it up and pretend it’s not there, the more I invest in the house that is falling down around me! Phew, much to ponder here about home maintenance.

398. I so enjoy reading your blogs Joel. It is crazy that we live in the old house when love stands so strong and beautiful for all.

399. Great little example Joel. Detaching from all the things in your life you call ‘yours’ that are not working, not serving and not supporting you to deepen your love seems like a wise way to go when you put it into this practical context.

400. I found this so profound Joel! “love on the other hand is free”, that means that we always have a choice and no matter what hardship we have in life we can always choose it. It is the easiest thing we can do in life. It doesn’t require money, effort, experience, it just requires us to constantly choose it, and let it be our way.

401. So simply put Joel – its either choosing love or everything else that is not love. I love the analogy with the falling down house and always having an opportunity to walk away from it.

402. Joel you have explained love so simply it is maddening why any of us would choose to stay in the hurts and dramas and have life complicated. Love is about love for self and humanity which is difficult to understand when we have come from a world that is entrenched in individualism/self. It is like digging yourself out of the mud to discover the joy and love of another way.

403. Love this blog! “This means Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals, i.e. no identification. With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” True let go of our hurts and simply choose love.

404. Joel I always find a great message in your analogies. I have found it true that love is always there waiting if we choose it and are willing to let go of what hurts us.

405. another beautiful analogy Joel. The investments we have in the life we have built, the relationships with their arrangements, the safety and protection mechanisms we have build in..it is somehow not so easy to leave behind, but you are right it is crazy and it should be the easiest thing in the world to cross the lawn and move in to the castle 🙂

406. A cracker of an article Joel. The clincher at the end is fabulous, but painful to feel also. It’s that hanging onto our pain that keeps us in our old house, because it brings us many things even though we say we don’t want that in our lives. You are absolutely right….How crazy is that?

407. Love your blog Joel. Refusing to leave a falling down house because of all that’s been invested in it – so crazy, and so what we do!

408. Beautiful put Joel, love is just love and it is always there for us to choose without any judgment to us if we choose it or not. I can relate to the last part where you state that we withhold ourselves from choosing for the love because of the investments we have in our lives. It sounds crazy when I read your example about the house falling down but for me it is quite a challenging process. It is a slow process in allowing myself to feel where I have investments in and from there to let them go. It is such a freeing to let go of the old way of living and to embrace the love that is always there for me to choose.

409. Thank you Joel. that stripped away the seeming tension in my mind. When I choose love, there is not tension but ultimate clarity; and when I want to cover up my hurt of not being love, days and tangents can be spent with nought true joy.

410. When you put it like that Joel, it sounds completely crazy.

411. The house down the road that no longer serves – I have spent a long time running back and forth between the falling down house and the dream home that just needs me to rock up to it and leave everything else behind. A true reminder that love is simplicity.

     1. Yeah I love that Lee. ‘Love is simplicity’ and it is we who make it complicated.

     2. Beautiful Joel, Love will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it. So true.

     3. Hello Lee – your simplicity got me – isn’t it funny that we choose to make the world so complicated.

412. Thank you so much Joel! You made my day :o)
     I just had the feeling to come back to your blog this morning and reading it again has opened up a deeper level inside of me. The vivid picture of the house falling down has made it graspable for me what I have chosen in the past and where I am just now choosing to leave everything behind except myself – and that this is the only way that will truly work. Committing but still trying to pull something with you because of attachments, comfort or habit is simply not committing at all. Thanks for sharing this deep wisdom :o)

413. Great blog! I love the analogy with the house. We have so many investments into our own creations that when love comes around we want it but we don’t want to let go of the investments, so we miss out each time it knocks on our door.

414. ‘With love, we have to surrender the investment we have made in our hurts’. Such a powerful statement Joel. When I read it I felt the ‘Ouch’ deep within me. It is very crazy that we choose to hang on to the house that is falling down around us because of what we have invested in it when we can simply choose Love instead.

415. Thank you for sharing the simplicity and beauty of what was presented Joel. Is it really that simple? The choice between love and what is not love? It leaves me to ponder about the moments I don’t choose love and what it is that I am avoiding or trying to cover up.

416. Joel I have to say I love reading what you write and this is no exception, a true gem of a blog keep them coming.

417. Yes, it is that simple. All we have to do is choose the quality of the energy we align to and the rest is offered to us. Love never goes even if we don’t choose it. Giving up our old house of individualism and accepting 100% responsibility for every choice is what is needed.

418. The investments we make in identifying with our hurts are definitely a crazy thing, compared to the freedom of love and all the joy it brings .

419. I really enjoyed reading your article Joel, your writing is easy to read and carries so much truth

420. Everything about this blog carries such a powerful and welcome message. I especially love the comment; ‘with love we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts’. Thanks so much Joel.

421. Great blog Joel… and the house is a great analogy! I’ve moved house, but I think I may have brought a few old trinkets with me I really don’t need anymore lol! Time to clean the new house…

422. Thanks Joel for sharing your wisdom,I love your truth of staying in a house that is falling down around us just because we have invested so much in that way of living.

423. Love the analogy of the houses Joel, either I can choose the house I have invested all my hurts in which can only finish in disaster or deal with my hurts, let them go and leave them behind and choose a house of love – me – my true essence, which is free. Simple, I choose love wouldn’t I be crazy to choose otherwise.

424. You know what I think is crazy, the fact that there are only 130 comments on this blog. Your writing Joel is as timeless as you are.

     The idea of throwing in the rag and starting from scratch, building a new home is just too scary for most. Or you really really want the home but you convince yourself you can just take a few old treasured items with you. It turns into a few too many garbage bags to hold…..you need a shopping trolley to wheel them down the street to the Love development that is going up. You made it!! Its amazing…you invest in a block and try to start building and wonder why construction is slow. Turns out your building ground has turned into a junk yard of your old favorites, your trolly and its getting in the way of everyone being able to work and move around safely. People on site keep saying there running into it and tripping over it but you convince yourself it is their fault for being careless and you are offended by the suggestion of getting rid of it. What will go in your new home if not these few things you have had forever and taken with you?? In that process of having “nothing” you feel vulnerable and exposed. The question of whether these old things are really helping or hindering starts to stay with you… as you let go of them, much like you did the crumbling house the more that will open up for you on site. The big crumbling old house was the easy bit in a way, it’s the little things the old favs that are hard to shake but as you slowly let them all go you find you are eventually living in your dream home. I know I am, although my husband still finds little nests that he lovingly reminds me are not needed anymore.

     1. I agree and second all you share Sarah.

     2. Hahah, Sarah, it is their fault for tripping over the trolley, isn’t it? Really? Now you have gone and exposed us even more as if Joel’s exposure wasn’t enough for one day. Can’t you let a girl just go back to the old place and sit for a while? Seriously, it is really crazy what we cart around and refuse to let go of and want to blame others for if it gets in their way! Well said. Loved your comment and loved this blog Joel.

425. Non-imposing, steady, constant, never withholding love. Why wouldn’t we choose that? Because we were a little blind and thought we could live happily, if only we tried hard enough, in the house that’s falling down.

426. A lovely and simple reminder of the simplicity of what true love is.

427. Cool Joel, just so appreciate the analogy with the house. Why would we stay propping up a falling down house when we know there is a lovely house waiting, and we just have to move in.

428. Joel what a brilliant explanation of why we often hold onto hurts. Not leaving the dilapidated house when there is always an amazing house all decked out for us is crazy!

429. Love this blog Joel and the simplicity with which you have presented such a great truth. “ Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only returned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals”. So very true, and if chosen to be lived; life changing!

430. Wonderful blog Joel, The simplicity of what you have expressed is indeed a poignant reminder for me to pause and consider my choices – in all their layers.

431. I love this blog. So simple and true. I just remembered an English class from many years ago where we were asked to come up with adjectives to describe our dream house, as in “my dream house has to be____” – big, beautiful, clean, modern… then someone said ‘mine’ and everyone stopped, and agreed that was the most important one above all the others.

432. Wow Joel, you really know how to tell it how it is. Yes that does sound crazy when it’s put like that.

433. I read this and was stopped in my tracks by the beauty of how you have expressed the truth of love and not love! I can relate to the not wanting to let go of the edifices I have so painstakingly built to protect my hurts and also how freeing and light and easier to connect with others it feels each time I let a wall come down.

434. Yes, Joel, it is pretty crazy. I particularly loved your line – With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts. Clinging to past hurts no matter how painful is crazy but in society it has been the way people connect with each other, feel identified, attract attention and sympathy.
     Sharing the same hurts, puts people into a group where they think they belong, and can be distracted from feeling the separation from who they truly are. I am seeing more and more how people become addicted to drama. Living in the new, beautiful and solid house up the street is amazing and means freedom, openness, nurturing and love. I chose to shift and am forever appreciative of the move.

435. Thank you Joel for presenting us with our choices.

436. I love the simplicity of this blog Joel. Thank you for sharing.

437. What a great exposure of the love and the not-love Joel. When you shine a torch on our choice to not be love because we have more invested in this lesser way of being, it really brings it home how crazy this choice is – particularly because all that ‘stuff’ invested is done so out of a lack of love in the first place!

438. I am still learning that Love does not want anything. It is so simple to say but to live that truth changes everything.

     1. Thank you for your honesty Elizabeth, as at times I don’t feel what Joel has so beautifully described. This further confirms what you say about living IT – as until we live something and know it inside out, that’s where things can really start to change, as we become living proof.

439. This blog makes what Love is and is not so simple. And a great reminder Love is always there no matter what – “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it” Thank you, Joel.

440. Great blog Joel, it’s simple love or hurt and investment – this is no other choice.

441. I love the way you make it all so simple Joel. Love is love is love…

442. I love this blog Joel! You have made it so clear that LOVE JUST IS and by choosing love we let go of a great deal of stuff that has never served us in the first place.

     1. I agree Katinka, and I LOVE the way Joel so aptly puts it and makes it farcical the choice not to choose love, yet knowing full well it is something we have done and choose at times!

443. Joel I love how you ask “how many of us have chosen to live in the house that is fallen down because of how much we have spent on it: How crazy for sure. Great blog.

444. Joel – I just loved reading all of this. Thank you for pointing out the obvious and making it so clear.

445. Love this blog!! “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts”. Love just is, no individualized treatment, offered to all equally. How much have we invested to not be love and only to get recognition and identification in return and so much suffering, thats totally crazy!

     1. Rachel great point, with so much effort going in the other direction yet as you point out its our own investment in our hurts. It makes no-sense when I think about it like that.

     2. Cool blog and cool comment, how much pain and anguish I have suffered from not letting go of that pain and anguish or choose to Be Love!

446. All those attachments, that become familiar possessions that are held so tightly, even though they become such a heavy weight for the carrier. And all the while Love is patiently waiting, whispering, release your grip and be ‘Light’. Yes, crazy!

447. Yes Joel its crazy, we cling to our hurts when the love of our essence is like you say, freely available.

448. There’s so many powerful ‘punch line’s here – which playfully exposes what love is and what love is not. I particularly value this – “Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives” – this is so true, so every time we are angry or upset about something we can know that it’s just because we are focusing on something that is not us.

     1. This is so true Danielle, ‘every time we are angry or upset about something we can know that it’s just because we are focusing on something that is not us.’ A very simple reminder, thank you.

449. On re-reading this blog the part that stood out for me today was “Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself.” How beautiful the freedom that love offers and that it is equally available to us all.

450. Your analogy Joel of the falling down house is awesome and highlights clearly our investments that we hold onto. I love (excuse the pun) how you write that “Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself, ” the penny dropped for me when I read this to see all the things I am still wanting out of love, therefore the wanting is withholding me from actually feeling love.

451. Joel you have made this so simple to understand and yes when put like this it is CRAZY. It seems we have made life all about hurt just so we can have something to call our own, rather than make life all about LOVE and be one of the crowd. When put like this it’s easy to see how as a group of humans we’ve got ourselves into the mess we’re in because we’ve been so self-focused. After years of feeling empty and with periods of experiencing deep loneliness I am now choosing love and the connection that it brings with all and it feels lovely.

452. What I felt with reading this blog is: I can choose the way of not-love and got all for me, the pain, the hurts, the satisfactions and so on. Or I can choose love – but thats for all equal, I can’t have it just for me. So it is really the choice of being with ME or with US.

453. ‘ Love can’t be bought, it can’t be earned, only retuned to by allowing and accepting ourselves and others as equals i.e no identification ‘ .Through Universal Medicine I have found that the love I having been looking for is within me and the more I return to it , letting go of the hurts, the more I feel and see it in others, feeling that connection and equality of us all.

454. This is a brilliant article Joel, reading this helps to understand why we don’t choose love and this being that there is no reward, no sympathy, ‘no identification. With love’ ,love just is, very beautiful.

455. I always love your wisdom Joel!. Very true, by choosing not to be love we get something that that we can own, that ‘belong to us.’ That is why we ‘love’ to invest in it. The truth though is the other way around. We belong to love.

456. Pride has a lot to answer for here, I remember for myself all the times I would “dig in” with a single-minded focus because of an idea that I should. Nowhere in that did I stop and ask myself “where is the love here?” I can’t go back but I can choose the path that asks that question of myself everyday.

457. The falling down house is all the investments and pictures of what we want our life to look like, and are blinkered to see what is all around us if we so choose. There are always many options, if only we can give up what we get drama and attention from.

458. I LOVE your analogy of propping up the falling down house just because its yours when the glorious house of love is right next door waiting for you to simply step over the threshold – as long as you take only you. How many times I have been unwilling to relinquish something familiar & comfortable in order to get to the truth (and to freedom) … ouch!

459. I love the metaphor of the house. So simple, clear and yes, crazy we choose for the run down house!

460. Thanks Joel, isn’t it interesting how we would rather stick with ‘normal’ than change what is falling apart around us.

461. Yes really crazy. In reading this “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it.” I also felt Love doesn’t give you recognition, and how when we are growing up and at school it becomes about recognition. So essentially being educated to move away from Love!

462. It feels like the very thing you need to know about life is on this page! Joel, your sharing here is simple but powerful. Even though it is simple we’ve created an entire creation away from this love and life now ‘supports’ us to live separated from our connection to our essence. For many, life is so loveless and joyless, yet we have many comforts to lean on and carrots of ‘happiness’ dangled in front of us to keep us chasing the happy ever after, while we accept existing, as opposed to living our natural fullness. There is so much here for me to feel and reflect on, including how I keep myself in a spin, a negative focus, or some kind of chaos so that I don’t simply live from the truth you’ve presented here.

463. Thank you Joel, so much truth and clarity in your blog. I know now with growing clarity how when I make it about my hurts I made it about self. There is no love in either and thus, there is no service to humanity.

464. Joel, you ask such great questions of us all. Why do we hold onto those familiar things even though we know they hurt us? Why are we so attached to our hurts? In truth everything built away from love is based on a hurt, the hurt of leaving love and until we truly acknowledge that, drop our pride and let go, we keep chasing out tail. Ultimately we are all love, it’s time we stopped chasing the tail of that thing out there that is not us – so as Penny asks above I now have to consider what are those things I keep which are old and not love, not me and never were? Time for another clear-out me thinks.

465. Hi Joel, your blog has me considering further what choices do I still make that are not love? And more importantly, what is it I get from those choices that has me continuing to make them? What knick knacks do I still want to bring from my old house to my new one?

466. Joels blog stirs up in me the awareness that I do choose many behaviours and actions in my life, not because they provide joy and harmony, but because they enforce beliefs like, it is important to suffer and that if I have, I must be getting somewhere. This notion of “I” getting somewhere and that it is better to get from A to B, even if it has no greater quality of love in it. Yes, true, CRAZY.

467. Hi Joel, what got me while reading your blog is that I want to live Love and also want to show that I do live Love all of the time. Where The Truth is, that I don’t and that I (and nobody) have to. Life only requires me to understand myself as being Love first and not the identifcation of the what is not me = the choices I’ve made away from Love. The more I am living that, the more insidious a life from not love it. So I do agree, HOW CRAZY is that;-).

468. “Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it.”
     What a wonderful definition of love, and how far away from the type of love most people live. It is so refreshing this deep truth about love that makes me definitely want to be permanently in this type of love, what a huge difference it makes to feel this love that “just is”, no strings attached, no suffering, no turmoil. Thank God, you and Universal Medicine for making this a real opportunity for everyone.

469. What a beautiful way to express what love is. Thank you Joel.

470. This is an amazing blog, Joel. It’s simplicity is just beautiful. I too love the analogy of the house falling down around our ears, that we choose to stay in just because it is familiar.

471. Joel I love this house analogy, and how true that is, we so ‘invest’ in all of ‘our’ hurts it can seem untenable to be without pain in this life, and for sure this is crazy!!

472. Dear Joel, what you write makes so much sense. We can feel justified holding onto living in that house that is falling down because of what we have put into it. I have lived my life in this way until Universal Medicine where I have been offered endless opportunities to follow what I feel is true and allow the Love that I feel out. It is only from feeling and letting Love out that we can let go of our hurts. In truth we all know what Love Is.

473. Joel, you lay it bare, if we choose identification in any way, hurts, pain whatever, we don’t choose love. Love doesn’t play ball with any of that, and it’s there ready and waiting that beautiful house with the key in the door ready and waiting. Now the question I have is why on earth would I now always choose it (I don’t), what am I so invested in that hurts, that I’ve spent time on that is more important than love. The truth is nothing, except admitting I left love in the first place and everything I’ve built since no matter how good it looks is fake and I know it. And love is just there always waiting. Thank you for reminding me again.

474. How totally truth-full is this blog. Wow how we choose individuality over love – that certainly is crazy.

475. Awesome analogy Joel about not wanting to leave our comfortable familiar houses because we have spent so much on them, even though we know they are falling down around us. It does truly expose just how ridiculous this is when we all also know that just next door is the house we have always wanted waiting there with the key already in the door just waiting for us to arrive and turn the key and let ourselves in. But as you so beautifully put, we can only do this when we have completely left behind all the attachments and investments and belongings that we have amassed along the way.

476. The way human life is constructed makes us put a lot of effort and investment into what we do. We base our whole lives on it because we look to fulfil a picture of an ideal. But that picture is in our heads and we believe fulfilling it will makes us happy. It’s not real and does not exist. Hence why it is always out of reach, making us exhausted in a drive to get it. Let go of the picture and you have contentment and fulfilment – not because of what we do, but because of who we are in the way we do things.

     1. Yes Jinya, it is as simply as that. . . just a matter of letting go of the totally out of reach ideal we are holding in our head of how things should be.

477. It’s indeed very crazy that we can choose to stay living in a house that is falling down around us simply because we have invested so much time and money in it. Yet at the same time we see a house full of life, vitality, joy and love knowing it is true yet not wanting to leave the one we have already built.

478. This line: “each step is looking to either cover up that hurt, or alleviate it” is so spot on. This encourages us to feel all our hurts, which can seem crazy in itself, why would we want to feel hurt? But actually feeling them does let them go, and the depth of love that is then released and set free to express is worth all the pain of feeling that one original hurt.

479. Great blog Joel, it is complete madness how we would rather own a hurt over just being love. You have such a great way of looking at things.

     1. I agree, it is madness. Thanks Joel for a great blog.

480. I love the analogy of the house that is falling apart Joel – and I can really read here how you see love in a completely new way. Whats so amazing for me is that, like you say, love is always there for us to choose – at our highest high or lowest low.
     It does not judge or chase or reward. It simply is. And it is only our choices that let it in or not 🙂 Gives responsibility a whole new meaning huh.

481. Whoa! So simple, Joel, how complicated we can make it.

482. Great truths, awesome blog.

483. Joel, great great blog. I love the simplicity with which you write, and yet the clarity and profoundness of what you share. The house analogy is so apt, it describes how we are with love so beautifully, we can get so caught in our little creations and yet they’re not needed, it’s just us that is, that’s all, so it’s daring to be us and drop all else to move to the house that is love. Thank you for reminding me today.

484. Great blog Joel, sharing some simple truth. We come from love and love is free, always there not expecting anything back. So beautiful.

485. This is a profound article and one that holds much truth in how we truly are, for we are simple beings and naturally come from Love.

486. Dear Joel, thank you for another blog filled with simple truths. The house analogy is very apt and one that I will be referring back to.

487. Have you ever seen the bewilderment on a child’s face when he is holding a toy in each hand, he is offered a third, he goes to take the third toy, but does not want to let go of the other two. He just can’t do it. It is a very funny situation.
     We have the similar situation in life, with tight grips we are holding on to our hurts, strategies for getting recognition, a host of ways to keep us individual and separate from everyone, then we decide we want to experience love, joy and harmony in our life. But to experience that we need to be prepared to let go of all the things we are holding so tightly which take us the exact opposite to the love, joy and harmony.

     1. Love your blog Joel and the way you have expanded it Golnaz. Being prepared to let go of my hurts and investments has been a gradual process of uncovering and choosing differently but this is such a brilliant reminder that I can simply choose to live from my essence and release anything that is not Love right now. Thank you.

     2. A beautiful analogy Golnaz, between a childs bewilderment at not been able to hold a third toy, while he is already hanging on tightly to one in each hand, and the bewilderment that can beset us as adults, when we choose to stay in the comfort of familiarty, in preference to letting go, and embracing our true selves.

     3. That is a beautiful example Golnaz.

488. As always Joel, your blog inspires me. I love the “The crazy part is that in the choice to NOT be love, we get something in return: it might be pain, hurt and suffering, but it is OUR pain, hurt and suffering”. This really sums up the craziness that almost all of us demonstrate. It makes no sense but that doesn’t appear to be enough to stop us all choosing it.

     1. Yes Doug, and I feel we do not stop choosing the hurt because the pain and suffering are in some way comfortable and make us feel alive, because we identify with them and that makes us feel special, whereas we know deep down we are all equally special, and as you say, Joel, we don’t have to earn it or a reward.

489. I loved this blog Joel, especially the house analogy. It is true there is always something to be gained by reacting to life, getting recognition in what ever form that may present itself.

490. Dear Joel,
     I love how simply you spell out our whole situation…how we got into it and how we can get out. You present that Love can’t but help but require the pure accountability & responsibility that can be very hard to handle at first…

     I totally felt the house analogy; it brought tears.

     You say -“With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.”

491. I invested in my hurts, who remembers the word ‘woundology’ in the 1990s ? I was into that, constantly picking away at my childhood issues…..
     Now I realise that “LOVE will be there for me equally now as it was in those moments when I did not choose it”
     Inspiring words Joel.

492. Reading your blog again, Joel, I understand it at a deeper level. it is so simple and it reveals truth in a way that my complicated self finds difficult to fathom at first. So I went for the brilliant analogy of the house in my last comment, but this time what really struck home was the “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing),” and I realise how much I identify and live from my hurts, whereas your words give me a feeling of the expansion and warmth of Love in my body that I know is available for me all the time if I choose it.

493. Yes Joel, for a long time I was living in a ‘house falling down’ crazy huh? and in letting go of the hurts and complications I have used as my navigator of life and opening to love and it’s possibilities, I am feeling myself freeing and unburdening much of what did not really feel like truly me.

494. Another top blog Joel Levin – I love your writing style and I love the way you describe Love. The bit that made me laugh was “Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it”.
     How true is that.
     I too have attended this Universal Medicine Livingness one day workshop and it brings things back to basics and it is super simple and makes sense.
     Your last bit about why on earth would we choose to live in a house that is falling down just because of how much we have spent on it really is crazy crazy. I say its time to let go of our ‘investments’ in the old house and move on.

495. Thanks Alison for drawing my attention to this article – as has already been commented it has a great analogy that shows the choices we make so clearly.

496. Wow, I love the simplicity with which you write about Love, Joel. ” Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in…” When I read this, I felt its Truth and then I felt how much I’ve held others to ransom effectively saying to them with my behaviours, “If you let me in, then I’ll be Love” and withholding my version of ‘love’ until they did, rather than just allowing Love to be with me, for me. Another line which resonated Truth for me was: “But love offers no special treatment for individuals” – how long did I hold out for that special treatment, thinking that somehow I was more deserving than others because I tried so hard to be ‘everything for everyone’? Only through attending Universal Medicine workshops and events have I been met with the consistency of Love that I had been holding myself to ransom for. And its been there all along simply waiting for me to let go of all the identifications and the “knick-knacks” of my hurts. It’s a process, but I can now see that ‘house down the road’ and it is ready for me to move in.

497. Love it Joel, and yes that IS crazy! Very clear and simple account of the two different ways we can choose to go… I know which way I want to go and am currently in the process of realising quite how many ideals and beliefs I have that try to sneakily get me to choose the route of covering up my pain that is so eager to come out to allow me to feel that amazing love, inside me, that as you quite rightly say, is all free!!

498. I loved this blog, Joel as I love all your blogs. You have an art of making things that feel complicated, simple and much easier to look at. It made so much sense, and even though I have asked the question “Why?” to myself many times when I have found myself on the path of separation, your analogy with the falling down house was great to give me an understanding of those little knick-knacks and hurts that I have held onto and not been able to move on from, that have stopped me completely moving on from the dilapidated and falling down house and into the house that would really support me.

499. That’s a great analogy about the life we live in being a house falling down around us. All too often, it is easier to ignore the ‘falling down’ because it is a comfortable pain we have become accustomed to. By taking better care of myself, I’m increasing my sense of self-worth and gradually learning that life is actually a lot easier if I choose the other way.

500. A beautifully written and very inspiring blog…thank you Joel.

501. This article is very powerful and clearly shows the crazy way I have chosen to live most of my life. The words you use that resonate so strongly with me are:
     “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing).” Thank you Joel.

502. I love re-reading your blogs Joel, you portray such profound messages with simplicity and ease – very inspiring and yes time to fully leave all the ‘old’ house, unloving ways of being and hurts behind!

503. I love this blog Joel, so clear, simple and profoundly inspiring to be the love that we are – beautifully expressed with your paragraph –
     ‘Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing).’
     Thank you!

504. Brilliant Joel, I love the clarity with which you write.

505. I love this blog Joel, so simply put across. I have certainly spent money on that house that was falling down but I am moving into the one I’ve always wanted, clearing out the old furniture and accumulated stuff. I like how you show that in not choosing love we get something in return, something we can identify with, this is very true and something I can relate to.

506. An awesome understanding of love.

507. Loved the summary/metaphor at the end, really captured what you where saying Joel and how stubborn we can at time be about things. It is amazing how we can spend our whole lives wanting love, and yet not wanting to do the one thing that would bring us back to the love we natural are, and that is give up the identification of being hurt, because we don’t have love!

508. Great analogy Joel – I love the image of the house in disrepair falling down, knowing that we could move into the house with everything we have ever wanted yet being stuck trying to repair the house with false foundations, that is beyond repair – its extremely exhausting doing that, its something I have done most of my life!

509. So beautifully written Joel, with absolute simplicity that just makes sense “With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.” It makes me stop and realise that we gain so much identification from our hurts, yet Love stands there asking for nothing in return. Love just is.

510. Hi Joel, your house analogy makes perfect sense; it would be great to just be able to step away from the old house and leave everything behind that is not love.

511. How crazy is that? Your blog starts to make sense of the crazy world we live in. Thanks Joel.

512. Thank you Joel, for the house analogy, just what I needed to read this morning! I was at a workshop last weekend and about four walls fell down suddenly all at once! Reading your blog I had a feeling of how that let the Light in, and of being able to step over the debris freely and start building new foundations in the Street of Love. And that street, and those foundations, are alongside many others doing the same, all working together to build something for everyone, not the isolated house I had built in the Street of Pain.

513. How crazy that is indeed Joel. And a simple analogy of how life can be. Beautifully expressed, thank you.

514. What a fabulous analogy with choosing the fallen down house to encapsulate something so profound that you have initially explained so eloquently. You have a marvellous way, Joel, of making something that can be very complex simple, direct and understandable. Thank you.

515. I can see why I’ve been clinging to my crumbling house. I realise that I deeply want to avoid admitting I made the crazy choice to walk away from having joy and simplicity in my life.
     A great eye-opener, Joel, thanks for sharing.

516. Thank you Joel, I love how you describe love! And the analogy of the houses is brilliant.

517. This is awesome – I know which direction I’d like to go in. Thank you Joel for such an interesting blog, I could read it over and over again.

518. Joel you write with such clarity on this topic. That closing paragraph is very poignant. Yes when we have invested ‘our life savings’ in a way of life, we don’t want to give that up.

519. Thank you Joel for this profound and playfull article. It made me stop to consider how tiring and exhausting is all the effort to not chose love. You brilliantly exposed some of the reasons why we may do it.

520. Beautifully expressed Joel, it is totally crazy that we don’t choose love just so we can get something back in return whatever form that comes in. Love is definitely free and available all the time if we so choose it. Thanks for sharing.

521. This is an amazing revelation that you share, Joel. I love the fact that Love does not ask for anything, but when we do not choose love we are asked for so much. Namely, our investment in the non-loving activity/ belief/ etc. which we cling onto to identify ourselves.
     The part of this that really hit home for me was the very last part: what are we holding onto, when all that we want is right there if we just let go and allow love to be?

522. It’s crazy how we complicate our lives to not deal with our hurts.

523. How easy it is to deny love and choose to smother it and cover it up, a messy miserable process, and how easy it is to connect back to love and be open to living with joy and simplicity.

524. Thank you Joel, another great and exposing analogy about the human condition – been in that falling down house for sure!

525. From all the blogs and work of Universal Medicine I have felt that I am, we are, all love at our core. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was ‘Why am I still choosing to not be love?’ a madness that completely stumped me.
     ”With love, we have to surrender the investments we made in our hurts.”

     The analogy with the house is a brilliant way to describe such choices. Rather than stopping and focusing on the fact that the house is falling down around us and leave we put all our efforts into panicking about and REMAINING in the crumbling house!
     When a hurt rears its ugly head, rather than going into the drama and/or reactions I have gone into automatically, I can choose to say ”That is NOT me, I am Love.” That hurt can stay in the house and crumble with in because I know where I am supposed to be living.

526. I felt you were describing my life Joel. I have turned my back on my house and the stuff in it and walked away from my past choices. There is only one choice…Love.

527. I love how you so clearly describe the craziness of our attachment to investing in things that truly do not support us or serve in any way and how easy it is to choose another direction… that of love, joy and true expression. So beautifully simple. Thank you Joel.

528. Love your descriptions about love and the analogy of clinging to a crumbling house just because you’ve spent so much money and time on it. I can relate to that crazy behaviour.

529. “And so the other direction can only start with the pain of separating from that love – it can only start with a hurt. This means that each step is looking to either cover up that hurt, or alleviate it…” Whilst reading this I felt directly exactly what I use to cover up my hurts, reading this has clarified how simple it is to choose love again. Thank you Joel.

     1. That is beautiful Sam.
        Such honesty makes it all so simple and opens up the ability to choose Love again!

530. I particularly resonate with the words, ‘Love, on the other hand is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself. Love won’t congratulate you for choosing it – it will be there as equally for you now as it also was in those moments that you didn’t choose it. It doesn’t care about race, skin colour, wealth, intelligence or life experience.’

531. Yes at the moment the world can most definitely be back to front! I love the way, Joel, you expose the craziness of what we invest in and are so very clever in these investments, instead of pure and simple Love. Magic!

532. Joel, thank you for your expression of the meaning of Love. It has really made me question what my experience of the world has created as love – not the beauty I know can be true and the Love I have felt through my connection with Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon, his family and fellow students.

533. How awesome are you!

534. After reading this article there are a lot of people I know, me included, who are crazy. Crazy because we often invest for far too long in something that does not truly support us.

535. “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it. Love is free: it doesn’t ask or require you to follow anyone or become anything other than yourself,” – beautiful words to describe a constant, ever-available and wondrous feeling of connection we can have with ourselves and with others.

536. Awesome Joel. Your blogs always offer such love and the simplicity of truth. I loved reading this as you have put a massive realisation into a simple yet profound expression.

     I have to say I’m feeling I still have a few ‘knick knacks’ hanging around but you have offered the inspiration for me to take a look and turn them out. Thank you.

     1. Love your response Beverley and I feel I have the odd knick knack to turn out too! Love certainly is.

537. Wow Joel… Thank you so much… the way you have defined Love has brought great clarity… I love the paragraph “Love, is love, is love…” – it is something that just ‘is’ – the point of view that comes from love is so very opposite to when it is not… and hence why life can feel like a punishment… especially if you’re trying to get somewhere!

     This tells me life is about surrendering, accepting, allowing and enabling love in all that one does because that is all that one is… nothing more nothing less… that feels glorious!

538. Awesome blog Joel… the standout paragraph for me was “Love, is love, is love… Love is never withheld, it never asks to be let in, it never offers incentives or expects to be chosen and it certainly doesn’t punish those that don’t choose it (although living outside of love can feel like a punishment, but that is of our own choosing)”. Love it!

539. It is incredibly crazy, Joel! What a beautifully composed article on the simplicity of life’s possible paths – down the Love street, or down the street of pain. You will inspire many to choose the Love street I’m sure. Thank you.

540. Thanks Joel, I totally connected with your words, simple and profound.

541. I love your analogy of the falling down house – your article highlights how crazy it is to choose the investment in our hurts. It also clarifies for me the rewards I get from choosing my hurts over love. Thanks Joel for this rave.

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