Love Liberated – Reflections on an Unreasonable Love

I am at a stage in my life where I have mostly burned through the desires of needing to prove myself, wanting excessive wealth, or craving attention and approval by the world. I am blessed to have enough resources and support to live comfortably and even enjoy life. Reason would say just sit back and relax, but this irresistible force of love that compels me forward is completely unreasonable.

It is only an unreasonable love that would ask me, a woman in her 50s, who has lost hearing in one ear, who has balance issues from a benign brain tumor and who has deeply conditioned body shame to become a belly dancer. It is only an unreasonable love that would ask me, a woman who built a thriving career and business on being an experienced facilitator, to switch directions to write a poetry book – knowing nothing about poetry or publishing. It is only an unreasonable love that beckons me, an extremely private woman, to write essays that disclose my most vulnerable reflections. It is only an unreasonable love that asks me, a woman who prefers a simple anonymous life, to attempt to build a platform to call leaders into a different conversation sourced from a higher consciousness.

Despite my mind trying to convince me that my efforts are pointless and that I can’t affect change, love moves me to passionately commit to igniting the desire in others for liberation. Though my mind fervently attempts to keep me safely subdued and hidden, love moves me to be wilder, take bold risks, and surrender into the unknown. I have learned to trust the calling of this unreasonable force because I know that this divine love desires to draw us all into true belonging, as described in this poem “Love Liberated”:

Love Liberated

Love liberated does not abide by any human construct
Goodness and purpose only exist to appease the mind

Love liberated does not assure safety for the human mind
Solace only felt in releasing the desire to hold onto anything

Love liberated allures austere transcendence with desire
Consuming both pleasure and pain in raw ecstatic rapture

Love liberated invites deeper trust in her divine vibration
Completely devoting to the fullness of this one moment

Love liberated dances freely adoring the untamed disorder
Whirling a vortex of radiance drawing all into true belonging

-Tejal Tarro

Unreasonable love asks me to release leading my life from fear or aversion of any form, as tempting and temporarily satisfying as it may feel. I cannot source my power from judgement, worry, expectations or rationalizations, which would tell me to push people or opportunities away to stay safe and only play within norms I established long ago, even when they no longer fit. An unreasonable love pushes me beyond these well-worn patterns and habits that do not align with my highest self, and calls me to alchemize my fear, anger, resentment and distress into wildly creative authentic power.

You may ask, how do we perform this alchemy? The “how” is still mysteriously unfolding for me each day and is deeply personal, based on my lived experiences, circumstances, history and purpose. I offer no specific advice, as my strange and winding journey is unique to me. However, the commonality, it seems, in my own and other similar journeys of unraveling the tangles of conditioning is learning to find and listen to our deeper soul callings: the whisper to learn something new, the impulse to listen to new perspectives, the desire to rest in stillness, the nudge to ask for support, the courage to have a hard conversation, or the grace to allow what no longer works to fall away.

Alchemizing what feels dark within me can feel extremely challenging because of my addiction to quick fixes, superficial positivity and emotional bypassing. My busy, distracted, fast-paced, sensory overloaded environment makes this work even more difficult. I also have that particularly delicious challenge of codependency and people pleasing that keeps taking my focus away from following my own soul calling and places it into endless attempts to make everyone around me feel okay.

However, amidst all the challenges, I am practicing alchemizing the darkness within me to create space for a divine love to guide different, more powerful choices. I practice melting harsh judgement into gentler compassion for the messiness of being human, and from this space a detached discernment arises allowing me to respond with greater clarity. I practice infusing habitual worry with loving acceptance of the imperfect now, and from this space joyful gratitude arises allowing me to trust in the mysterious unknown. I practice stirring up fixed expectations with curious wonder about unseen possibilities, and from this space arises intuitive listening allowing me to release my wearisome need to control everything. I practice disrupting righteous rationalization with deep humility, and from this space arises radiant energy allowing me to resiliently keep learning and evolving.

I am not suggesting pulling away from the pain and injustices of this world. What I am suggesting is to consider that to thrive in this uncertain and chaotic world, and to sustainably influence change as leaders, we must learn to walk the tightrope of acknowledging the various realities of this world while creating space to expand our awareness beyond habitual ways of reason. Reason alone cannot cut through the haze of twisted rationale that triggers conflicting and often dangerous versions of reality. Divine love is the only force powerful enough to cut through the murk of the darkness that exists within us and expresses itself outside of us.

Over the last few weeks, I have had the honor of being in intimate spaces with amazing leaders, and truthfully, I am in awe. Though their voices speak with heartbreak of external actions causing great suffering to our people and our planet, they also speak with courageous vulnerability of their own internal reckoning of misguided actions. They speak of their resilience despite overwhelming challenges and an openness to tear down old paradigms, making space for new ideas that serve us all. In their voices and actions, I see them alchemizing their pain, allowing divine love to flow through and create more access to freedom and belonging within their spheres of influence.

When I sense this irresistible force within me and see it within my peers, I cannot help but imagine – what if? What if a critical mass of us, especially leaders who carry some influence, consistently listened to our intuitive soul callings, courageously practiced alchemizing our darkness, and boldly trusted our unique expression? Could we collectively transform oppression into liberation, division into unity and scarcity into abundance in this world?

Unreasonable love would say – yes.