The Only Thing That Matters Is the 1 Thing We Fear

What matters most? Your actions, the conversations you have in your head all day long… When you step back and look at the core motivation behind everything, it’s easy to see if it’s coming from a place of love or a place of fear.

These motivations come from fear:

1. Work hard to impress your peers, to gain that relentless stamp of approval from your parents, to confirm that you are important and brilliant and worthy... Solely based on what everyone around you says.

2. Keep your shoulders tight and rounded to protect your heart while carrying the weight of the world in fear that the moment you exhale, everything will fall apart and you’ll be left totally alone and unloved.

Be motivated by fear, and burnout or suffering aren’t matters of if, but when.

Take a deep breath right now.

Did you let your belly expand, or did you hold it hostage in your sternum?

Take one more deep, slow breath: an inhale that floods every cell with fresh life, and an exhale that plants your body firmly on the earth, a little softer and a little lighter.

Your breath is the fastest way to check in with what your core motivation is for whatever you’re doing in the moment.

It’s hard to breathe deep and slow when the body is ready to fight, flee or freeze.

I used to have asthma so bad that I was never more than a few meters away from my inhaler. I used to throw my back out regularly from working too much and carrying the happiness of the world on my shoulders. I used to run every time I felt my feet planting a little too firmly into the life I was living.

I used to let fear motivate my actions.

The signs were all there, clear as day, but I kept myself clueless. I couldn’t see how I was holding myself back from experiencing love in its most magical form, all because I didn’t think I was worthy of giving it to myself.

At the end of the day, at the end of your life, the only thing that matters is how much we love.

Nothing else matters!! Because anything said or done from a place of fear only makes life harder. We are here to love, to learn what it is and to spread it far and wide. Everything else only keeps us from our true purpose.

I thought I was living from a place of love, and in many cases I was. But fear still took the driver’s seat more often than I realized, making my life harder than it had to be.

Then… there was Lea Luna.

It took me over a year to get truly comfortable with the love I feel for my little girl. When she first arrived, I kept waiting for someone to tell me it was all a big mistake; that it wasn’t real, that I wouldn’t get to keep her. I was almost waiting for someone to take her away.

Because how could it be true, a love like this?

We accept the love we think we deserve. For me, this was just too much of it. Then it dawned on me: I don’t think I’ve ever loved myself the way I love her. So when she was born, she had to teach me.

Loving her has taught me so much about loving myself; about being in love; about dwelling in love. She’s helped me peel away things I was conditioned to believe were prerequisites to love, that I had to act in a certain way or be a special person to receive it. She’s taught me that the love I hold in my heart for her—and it’s an infinite amount—I can also hold for myself.

For the first 15 months as her mother, I was in training. Even now, I find love getting a little easier with each day spent with my wise teacher.

I’ve noticed this love take form in ways that may seem trivial but represent a DEEP uprooting of self-harm:

1. I let my belly soften, even when I’m wearing tight dresses.
2. I don’t lie awake at night thinking about mistakes I’ve made.
3. I ask for help much more often.
4. I’m more gentle with myself.
5. And that little voice in the back of my head telling me all that I don’t deserve... It gets a little bit quieter each day.

And, this is the biggest growth of all: I’m no longer obsessing over the ways in which I might lose my daughter.

She and I are here because we’re meant to be here. Love is here because it’s meant to be here. And maybe thinking I wasn’t worthy all along was here because it was meant to be here, too.

Maybe I needed of lifetime of finding my way to truly figure out I was already home.

Each step in our journey is divinely timed to teach us what we need to know, when we’re ready to grow. Spiritual growing pains are REAL! Reconnecting with your heart, letting it expand to hold even more love, and relaxing your shoulders to give your heart space room to breathe can be the hardest life lesson to master.

But the love that’s waiting for you once you do is unlike anything else in the whole universe—it’s everything, and it’s the only thing that matters.

The way my belly looks in a dress sure as hell doesn’t matter, but the way I enjoy watching the sunset with my family does. One is fueled by fear, the other, by love. I bet you can guess which one makes life blissful.

I look at my daughter, Lea, the Bringer of Light. Her smile tells me that life is unbelievably beautiful, her little arms wrapped around my neck tell me our love for each other is the one thing we are here to give and receive.

Love more. Love yourself, love others. We are all worthy and it is always worth it; it’s safe to know that now: all that matters is how much we love.

How have you loved today? Share with me below!

X,

Rachel