Shortly after I began giving massages for a living, I began holding the thought that the person on my table is loved, deeply loved. I did not say this aloud, but I concentrated on these words and sent their power into the person's body and consciousness. As I did this, I visualized and then felt the loving energy of the universe enter my crown and travel to my heart and then down my arms and out my hands. As I held this thought, I, too, felt deeply loved.
This is a very powerful meditation, as it does not name the person, so the "you" who is deeply loved is both the client and me. In fact, the "you" seems to disappear until only love, pure and limitless and unspecified, remains.
Also, the lover is not named, so the love is not contingent upon this or that person's affections. "You are loved, you are deeply loved" is a statement of each and every person's birthright. In this way, it is far more powerful than "John loves Judy" or "John loves Jack." Love is, always and forever, though it's form may change.
Over the years, I have often whispered "I am loved, I am deeply loved" to myself when I was feeling left out of romantic love or when friends were hard to find. Sometimes this helped me feel better, and sometimes I just felt worse, berating myself for having to be the one to say these words to me.
But I kept saying them nonetheless, adopting the fake-it-until-you-make-it strategy. In time, I shifted in this respect as in many others, and the words turned from mockery into an expression of joyfulness. At such times, I enter into the space of the non-specific lover, and I feel love eminating from the moon and the trees and an evening breeze and a ray of sunshine. All are animated, and all seem to be saying, "Heidi, you are loved, you are deeply loved."
Then a few weeks ago, I had a beautiful insight. For decades I have been affirming that with every day that passes, the man who is matched to me is drawing ever closer. I have also asked that he visit me in my dreams and, by so doing, reach out to me in waking life. The insight that came to me when I was actually feeling quite a bit down about spending yet another year boyfriend- and husband-less was that the man who is matched to me--wherever he may be--deeply loves me. Just as I deeply love him and reach out to him through my prayers and affirmations and dreams, and by so doing, deeply love him, so, too, is he reaching out to me and loving me through his prayers, affirmations, and dreams. What a fascinating kind of love that is! Worth a short story, I'd say.
