‘When humans truly discover the power of love, it will prove more important than the harnessing of fire.’
––Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Love is like sunshine. It’s life-giving and helps everything to blossom and grow.
We all need it. But we don’t always have enough of it in our lives.
And sometimes, we even forget how important it is.
And as with sunshine, a lack of love in our lives can have some serious negative consequences, not only for ourselves, but also for the world around us.
But the good news is that we always have the power to choose. And so, we can always choose to let love in.
And to the extent that we do, every area of our life benefits as a result.
But before we look at why love is your superpower, and how it can supercharge every area of your life, let’s get clear on what love actually is.
Is Love the Same as Affection?
When we hear the word love, our minds automatically conjure up images of couples who’re in love, or of friends, family, or pets.
This is because we equate love with affection.
It’s true that love includes affection. But as we will soon discover, it is much more than that.
To understand the nature of love more fully, it is helpful to understand its opposite, so let us do that.
Love Vs Fear
‘There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear.’
––Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
This quote echoes a popular belief that love and fear are the two primary emotions. This view treats all other emotions as offshoots of either love or fear.
Fear takes many forms, including: divisiveness, separation, lack-based thinking and poverty-consciousness, extreme competitiveness, control, manipulation, envy, neglect, apathy, indifference, pessimism, hatred and so on.
Fear is a contractive force.
Love, on the other hand, manifests itself as unity-consciousness, harmony, cooperation, freedom, abundance, care, passion, enthusiasm, optimism, gratitude, appreciation, empathy, compassion and so on.
And love is expansive.
As you can now appreciate, love doesn’t always relate to affection, or to being ‘lovey-dovey.’
It encompasses many other feelings and states.
Why Love is a Superpower
We’re spiritual beings having a human experience.
But when we’re in spirit (and not incarnated as humans), love and joy are our true states of being.
So when we feel love and joy, while in human form, we’re allowing our true Divine nature to shine forth.
This has two major implications.
The first is that, when we’re in a state of love, we’re allowing spiritual energy to flow freely through us.
We feel good.
Spiritual teachers Abraham and Hicks teach that this is because we’re opening our ‘spiritual valves’ and allowing Source energy to flow freely through us.
And when charged with this Divine energy, we become stronger.
Our physical health and mental wellbeing both benefit.
We don’t get tired so easily, and we’re able to accomplish much more than usual, and with less effort.
We’re more clear-minded and optimistic.
We’re also more creative and have better ideas.
Most importantly, our capacity for life and our capacity for enjoying life are enhanced, exponentially.
The second implication is that, since we’re on a closer frequency to Source, we become more powerful.
We’re able to communicate more clearly with The Field.
The power of our intentions is amplified.
And our capacity to receive useful information through our intuition is boosted.
We’re more successful–with far less effort.
That’s because synchronicities and unforeseen opportunities allow us to manifest our heartfelt desires with ease.
And we experience more magic and miracles, as a result.
Therefore, we could say that:
Love = High Vibes
If you struggle to imagine what being on a high vibe frequency is like, just think back to a time you were in love.
What was it like? How did you feel?
Joyful, ecstatic, strong, powerful and invincible, perhaps?
And for most of us, very little of what went on around us had the power to bring us down, when we were feeling this way.
But that’s still lovey-dovey and not superpower-ish enough.
So, let’s look at some other examples which show us how powerful love can be.
The Granny Who Lifted A Car
It has been said that love can move mountains.
While we’re a little short in terms of documented evidence on that front, I can happily tell you that we do have evidence to show that love can move cars.
Let’s go back in time to 1977, to Tallahassee, Florida, and to the home of 63 year old Laura Schultz.
The story I’m about to share is said to have first appeared in the National Enquirer.
It was later covered in Jack Canfield‘s book, ‘The Success Principles,’ and Jack writes at page 44:
‘In 1977, in Tallahassee, Florida, Laura Shultz, who was 63 at the time, picked up the back end of a Buick to get it off her grandson’s arm. Before that time, she had never lifted anything heavier than a 50-pound bag of pet food.’
By researching this story a little more, I learned that Laura had been at home with her six year old grandson that day, while her husband had gone out.
Unbeknown to Laura, her grandson had been playing outside with a ball and crawled under their car to retrieve it.
The car was under repair at the time, and was propped up on supports.
While underneath the car, Laura’s grandson had accidentally dislodged one of the supports and the car fell, trapping his arm under its weight.
Hearing her grandson’s cries for help, the frail and slightly-built lady rushed out to his aid.
Without thinking, she simply lifted the back of the car with one hand, while dragging her grandson out with the other!
Talk about superpower! What an amazing lady!
But onto our next story. This time, set in Iraq, during the first Gulf War of 1991.
Colin Armstrong and Bravo Two Zero
Colin Armstrong (a.k.a. Chris Ryan) was a member of Britain’s elite military unit, the Special Air Service Regiment, or SAS.
Colin was part of an eight-man team that was airlifted into Iraq to gather intelligence ahead of the US and its Coalition’s invasion of Iraq.
But shortly after arriving in Iraq, things started going horribly wrong for the team.
In the ensuing chaos, Colin became separated from the rest of his team.
Sadly, all the others either perished or were captured.
But Colin managed to escape to neighbouring Syria, travelling 190 miles on foot.
He encountered many difficulties, including radiation poisoning, and his trek took him eight long days to complete.
This is considered the longest escape and evasion by any soldier within the SAS and the British military.
Colin was awarded the Military Medal ‘in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Gulf in 1991.’
According to Colin, what kept him going, despite all the challenges he faced, was his determination to get back home and see his two year old daughter, Sarah, again.
And so, Colin’s story reminds us once again what a strong motivator love can be, and how it can help us to unleash the true power that lies within all of us.
But let’s move on from the dust and heat of the Middle East to sunny California, and meet our next set of heroes.
Silicon Valley Billions
The Apple Computer Co. (a.k.a. Apple Inc., and Apple) grew from a small home-based business, that catered to computer hobbyists, to an international tech giant.
It created multiple millionaires when it went public in 1980. And decades later, it consistently tops the list as the most valuable company in the world.
But what made Apple what it is today?
Retracing its history, it becomes clear that it was the ‘love’ of the people behind it, and of three men in particular, that led to the creation and phenomenal growth of the company.
Let’s see who they are.
Act I. Enter Stephen Gary Wozniak (Steve Wozniak, or ‘Woz’).
Steve Wozniak
Apple’s co-founder, Steve Wozniak, loved computers.
But he couldn’t afford to buy one.
So he simply built one.
And launched a revolution in home computing in the process!
Wozniak’s home-brewed machine is what led to the creation of the Apple Computer Co. and the Apple I.
But initially, Woz couldn’t even afford the parts to design and test-build a prototype. So he kept designing and iterating on paper!
He would sketch plans and then see if he could improve them.
He constantly challenged himself to re-design the machine using as few components as possible, in order to keep costs down.
And when he finally finished it, Woz being Woz, and being such a lover of people and computers, wanted to give away all the plans for free.
He wanted to teach and help anyone who was interested, to build a copy of the machine for themselves.
But someone he knew had a better idea. It was to set up a company and make money selling computers!
Enter Steven Paul Jobs (Steve Jobs, or ‘Jobs’).
Steve Jobs
Unlike Woz, Steve Jobs wasn’t enamoured with computers, or with sharing technology for free.
His true love was business: creating and bringing great products to market.
And, as we all know, despite his early hiccups, Jobs proved that he was a genius in his own right when it came to this subject.
Jobs wanted more than anything to create a company that created and sold products that were ‘insanely great.’
He wanted to ‘make a dent in the universe!’
It’s this passion for creating well-designed products and providing a fantastic customer experience that led to Apple’s ultimate triumph.
And although Woz played a vital part in Apple’s early days and was a worthy business partner, it was someone else that helped Jobs to achieve some of his biggest triumphs.
It was someone who shared his fanatical obsession with creating the best possible products. Someone who also cared equally about about simplicity, and seemingly unimportant details.
Enter Sir Jonathan Paul Ive (Jony Ive, or ‘Jony’).
Jony Ive
Jony didn’t particularly care about computers, or building mega-corporations.
But he did care very deeply about good design, and doing things well. And this was where his particular genius lay.
The two met when Jobs returned to Apple as interim CEO and they hit it off immediately.
Jony is one of the very few people who could wow and impress Jobs––and that’s saying a lot!
He quickly rose to the rank of Chief Designer and became Jobs’ right hand man.
And when it came to design choices and budgeting, it was more or less a case of, ‘anything Jony wants, Jony gets.’
The two men poured their time, energy, love and care into creating products that were beautifully designed, easy to use, and had stellar build-quality.
They brought us the iMac, the MacBook, the MacBook Air, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and so much more.
Together, they changed the way we live and communicate.
They made a dent in the universe.
And it was all down to love!
There are so many quotes I could use to illustrate this point, but I think this one from Jony sums up the Jobs/Ive ethos perfectly:
‘I want to buy from somebody who’s fanatic, not indifferent. You know they’re going to put that amount of care into the details.’
Care (a.k.a love) was what mattered the most and it was at the heart of everything they did.
Concluding Thoughts
We’ve gone from a granny performing superhuman feats of strength, and a soldier surviving the horrors of war, to entrepreneurs making billions––all through the power of love.
So I hope that you now understand why love is your superpower.
In my next post, I’ll cover some ideas on how you can harness this power to create a happier life experience and make your dent in the universe.
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