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LOVING FROM
YOUR SOUL
Creating Powerful
Relationships
By Shepherd
Hoodwin
|
PREFACE
In our growth and healing as human beings, our
core issues usually involve love: being loved by others, loving
others, and finally, loving ourselves. Today we often explore our
relationships with our parents, what our parents were and were not
able to give us of love, and the effect that had on us. Some of us
investigate issues around love from past lives. This is all very
important work.
This book goes to an even more basic level:
exploring the nature of love itself--what is love, and what is it
to love and be loved? Seeing ourselves as being love, which is
perhaps the ultimate perspective on love, puts our inner work in a
different light. It doesn't eliminate the necessity of doing the
work, but it does make it easier.
I have had some mistrust of the word love;
perhaps you have as well. It is often associated with behavior
that seems, well, unloving. The bickering and even violence often
found in romantic relationships, and the hurts inflicted by adults
on children, supposedly in the name of love, are prime examples.
It is useful to recognize that love and truth cannot be separated.
What is not truthful is not loving, and vice versa. Defining love
this way makes it clear that the word is often misused. We human
beings do not yet really know all that much about love's
reality.
Working with the material in this book,
however, has given me more acceptance for our human condition, for
the fact that we are still quite early in our process of learning
love, this primary lesson of life. If we could do better, we
would--this seems the most loving of attitudes.
I accessed the material in this book through a
process called "channeling," working with a nonphysical entity
referred to as "Michael." Before beginning reading the channeled
material, you might find some background helpful.
MICHAEL CHANNELING
Channeling is a process of allowing a
nonphysical intelligence to express through a person who is the
"channel" or "channeler." It can be in words, energy, emotion,
movement, and/or music, among other things. Michael is the name of
a group or "entity" of 1,050 individual souls or "essences" who
have completed the physical and astral planes of creation, and
teach from the causal plane. [See the Glossary for
definitions.] This is why they refer to themselves as "we."
They are not the same as the archangel Michael or other Michaels
who are channeled. However, there are several other Michael books
by other channels and authors who work with this same
Michael.
Most of the other Michael books deal with the
Michael teachings, which is a complex and fascinating body of
information about the way we set up our lives. The Journey of
Your Soul: A Channel Explores Channeling and the Michael
Teachings is my contribution thus far to that body of
information. Loving from Your Soul, like the other books in
the Summerjoy Michael series, does not attempt to cover the
technical aspects of the Michael teachings in detail, although the
teachings' principles pervade it. The few terms associated with
the teachings are defined in the Glossary.
ORGANIZATION
More than half the material in this book is
from lectures, most of which were given as part of the New York
City "Michael Speaks" series. The rest of the material is from
private sessions. Some of the chapters are compilations of
passages from various lectures and private sessions. Most of those
passages are in their own subchapter. If there are two or more
passages in a single subchapter, they are separated by double
spacing. Questions are italicized and are also separated from
Michael's responses by double spacing. Some chapters or entire
sections contain material directed to specific people, yet have
universal relevance. Unless implied by subtitles or questions,
these are noted: To a Specific Individual, To Specific
Individuals, or Mostly to Specific Individuals.
EDITING
I channel consciously. That means that I am
awake and fully present during the process. While the material
does not originate with me, Michael makes use of the contents of
my consciousness, and, to some degree, is limited by my
limitations. Transmitting information that is too foreign to a
channel is difficult. Although this material is well beyond what I
could produce on my own, in a real sense it is mine, and I take
full responsibility for it. In general, I treated the original
transcripts like first drafts, and polished them as I would my own
writing, cutting, rearranging, and rewriting as
necessary.
Some passages needed little or no editing,
while others required extensive revision. Most of the book's
material was originally spoken, and what is clear orally may not
be clear when it is transcribed, because speaking and writing are
different media. Also, there was sometimes a need to translate
from the personal to the universal, so that readers can
relate.
Finally, some editing was necessary simply due
to my imperfections as a channel and the difficulties inherent in
extemporaneously translating complex concepts from the invisible
to the visible. However, before publication I "brought in" Michael
to get their modifications and "stamp of approval."
Using "s/he," "he or she," or alternating "he"
and "she" all seemed awkward, so I decided to stick with just
"he." The Elements of Style states that over time, "'he' has lost
all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances." I hope that no
one is offended by this choice.
This book does not contain Michael's
comprehensive thoughts on any subject. I simply used the material
I had, which came forth in response to specific individuals and
groups.
Loving from Your Soul presupposes we
each are a soul who has lived other lives, but believing in
reincarnation, or even in channeling, is not necessary for an
enjoyable and profitable reading of it. You can validate most of
the ideas in it for yourself, and Michael encourages you to do
so.
Interchanges with Michael are magical: full of
healing, clarification, and upliftment. May you experience this
magic as you read their words.
-- Shepherd Hoodwin
INTRODUCTION
We are all expanding and deepening our
knowledge of love. Love is the primary force of the cosmos. As we
learn greater love, we further our movement toward the great goal,
agape, which is the ability to love fully and unconditionally. In
our relationships there is great opportunity to open ourselves to
love.
The soul is an expression of the Tao, which is
the source of love. By loving from your soul, you are loving
truly. By loving truly, you are letting the Tao come clearly into
your relationships so that they are transformed and contribute to
the unfoldment of love's journey through the cosmos. This is the
great purpose of existence.
This book is a collection of explorations on
this subject. We hope that you find it both practically useful and
spiritually illuminating.
-- Michael
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