For the last two weeks, except for a quick one last Friday, Talk to Sean has got lost in the song lyrics.  Thanks for all your input there, keep it coming. I have a promise of a choir, I think that next we will need Carnegie Hall.

I often talk about love in all kinds of settings.  Sometimes it is with managers who need to appreciate their staff and make them feel loved, and with teachers who need to create an environment where the kids in their care can blossom in the warm glow of loving safety.  Sometimes it is nurses caring for patients and even the security staff who need to protect the site.

When I talk about love, there are two common responses.  The first is, “Oh, love.  I thought you were talking about sex” and secondly, “Love, that’s ok, but what about when you hate people?”  In the first instance, I define the difference between sex and love; for some people, not an easy distinction.  In the second, we climb back into the ideas of forgiveness and letting go.

You know, I think that everyone that I work with who is stuck and feels unable to progress in life, has a piece of emotional elastic that holds them attached to an unresolved past.  Most times, this can be described as dislike, strong dislike or hatred, though many people do not find it easy to own or acknowledge hatred and choose to give that energy another name.

I was thinking about this today and I have several clients where their negative attachment is because they want to change others.  It is the idea that if “they, he, she or it” would just do it my way, then everything would all be alright.  Often this is true.  If all the communists had actually practised communism, the system would have worked well.  Sadly, true communism, when all people are equal, has never been tried.   Equally so, if everyone practised Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc, all would be in balance.

I decided today that the thing that really expresses the love that we have for others is summed up in the Law of Allowing.  Allowing others to be what they need to be is the ultimate expression of all that is good and giving.  As Sting put it: “If you love somebody, set them free.” This is tolerance in action.  Think of all the people that get on your nerves or cheese you off.  Ask yourself why this is.  The next stage is to consider why the person is as they are.  The next is to allow them to be as they are, without needing them to be anything for you. Most importantly is the realisation that we can never change other people.  People change in their time, not in your time.  Tolerance and allowing enable you to be calm and relaxed.  When you are driven by the need to change others, it is very difficult to feel calm and relaxed.

For me, love is summed up in the tolerance of allowing.

Be happy.

Sean x