Love is the power podcast

This week’s episode is the 300th episode of Love Is The Power! So we thought we’d tackle a big question: What is real? At Tom’s invitation, we are looking at our own direct experience in this moment to see if we can actually find a border between ourselves and anything – or anyone – else. The tendency to refer to things outside the body as “Not me” is a long, long habit of humanity. But what if it...

This week Tom invites participants to share some of their favourite stories to tell that make them miserable. One share uncovers the thought “I could lose something” which becomes a group popcorn-style inquiry. If you know what it’s like to live from the fear of losing something, or out of fear in general, this contemplation is for you. How do you react when you believe you could lose something vi...

In this week’s episode of Love Is the Power, Tom invites participants to contemplate this question: Is it true that what you’re living right now – whatever it is, exactly as it is – is not the best thing for you? Can you absolutely know that? This profound group inquiry delves deeply into the question, all the way to the worst imaginable realities one might live. One of these situations is one Tom...

Byron Katie says there’s nothing so dark that we cannot put it on paper, question it, and set ourselves free. She also says that we live in a friendly Universe. Those two statements are really put to the test in this week’s episode of Love Is The Power, where a participant brings up the trauma of getting news that two of her community members had been murdered. This is intense, heavy inner work to...

This week’s episode begins with an invitation from Tom to pick something in your life you don’t like, and to see if you can notice what story you’re living by experiencing it. For example, if you’re experiencing a difficult work situation or financial hardship or a frustrating relationship. The underlying story you’re living might be “I’m a disappointment,” or “Nobody cares about me,” or something...

Last week we looked at the belief in the seriousness of life, especially related to being a parent. Parenting is one of the big things that we can tend to use as proof of the serious nature of everything. But that inquiry revealed the truth of what the belief was creating in the parent’s life: stress, both for herself and her kids. What about other situations, though, the mind wants to know. Surel...

If you’ve been listening to Love Is The Power for awhile, you know that one of host Tom Compton’s favourite concepts to bring up for inquiry is “It’s serious.” After all, it’s maybe the most deeply held belief on Planet Earth, this idea that life is serious. This week, Tom facilitates a parent on this story. She experiences stress and anxiety when she believes that being a parent is serious and, t...

This week’s episode begins in a conversation around the idea of pleasure. What the group notices is that the experience of pleasure can be purely joyful, but that when we become attached to good feelings, we (ironically) suffer. Another thing the inquiry group notices is this idea that pleasure is somehow wrong. This leads to a deepening of the contemplation and a popcorn-style inquiry on the deep...

This week Tom offers this prompt: imagine that you have just arrived in the body you’re in, with exactly the same memories and name attached to it. What is it like imagining that none of the memories, images, or identities associated with this body-mind actually have any relevance to who you are? This little thought experiment leads to a profound group dialogue inquiring into our real nature. Acco...

This week’s episode is a group inquiry on the thought “I need my discontent” and in the exploration of what it’s like living from this belief, what surfaces is the real reason we hold onto it so tightly: feeling like we need justification. Notice: without the idea that you need to justify something (maybe ending a partnership, choosing a career path, making a big move…) do you still need to hold o...

This week’s episode looks at an old faithful belief: He/she/they took advantage of me. From having cab drivers hold back five bucks from your change to being hoodwinked in a business deal or transaction, we’ve all likely experienced something that caused us to pick up this belief that we can be taken advantage of. In some cases, like one of the brave and vulnerable shares in this episode, that bel...

This week’s episode brings you a beautiful and profound group inquiry that begins with considering the possibility that who and what we are is actually good. Tom has brought up this line of inquiry many times before, but in this setting what comes up is one of the main fears that blocks us from experiencing ourselves as good: the fear of getting hurt. It seems logical, right? If we’re loving and o...

This week’s episode begins with an invitation from Tom to try on the statement “I’m ready to devote my life to serving what serves Love.” Notice what comes up with that sentence. Is there a willingness? Or is there some sticky fear that still takes precedence? In a group setting, this episode is an exploration of what thoughts still hold us back from serving Love in our lives (thoughts that insist...

Welcome back, Love Is The Power listeners! This week’s episode is a lively and profound group inquiry beginning with questioning the thoughts, “It’s serious,” and, “What I do matters.” From there, the line of inquiry brings to consciousness the need to be special, and Tom points out that eventually…the body dies. So with that awareness, he asks, what becomes important now? If your answer falls som...

This week we're bringing you another old favourite episode from the vault (November 2021!) as the Love Is The Power retreat last week meant no new recordings. Enjoy! We'll see you next week with a brand new episode. Have you ever considered that desire, lack, and fear might go together? For example, you believe something’s missing from your life (like a romantic relationship) and then you desire t...

Hey Love Is The Power friends! This week we're coming to you with an old favourite episode from all the way back in 2020: The cost of careful living. When we know who and what we are is good, we want to see our blind spots. We stop living carefully and live more honestly. Which pretty much guarantees that someone will be offended. To the mind, the path of unconditional peace can look like silence...

This week’s episode explores an experience that’s probably familiar to a lot of people who practice self-inquiry or another spiritual practice. On any kind of ‘spiritual’ path, it’s easy to experience a lack – a desire for what you might call ‘enlightenment.’ We can hear about and understand the idea of oneness, that in reality nothing is separate, and want to know that for ourselves… sometimes to...

This week’s episode is a group inquiry into what it’s like when we believe we have to change something about ourselves. Whether it’s big (like an addiction or relationship pattern) or small (like a tendency to leave wet laundry in the washing machine), most of us tend to pick up this idea somewhere along the way in childhood that who we are, exactly the way we are isn’t enough or acceptable. What...

This week’s meditative contemplation begins with an invitation to notice what comes up internally in response to Byron Katie’s statement that just when you think it can’t get any better, it has to – it’s the law. You might notice the mind brings up every opposition possible. It seems so backwards, doesn’t it? On planet Earth we’re accustomed to thinking, “Well, it can always get worse,” and trying...

This week’s episode is for anyone who has ever felt the paralysis of trying to make a decision while the thought “I could get it wrong” is playing on a loop in your mind. In this group inquiry, we’re looking at that thought; whether it’s actually true, how it affects us when we believe it, and who we would be without it. What if life isn’t constantly measuring us and judging every action or inacti...

This week’s episode is an inquiry into our concepts of time and space. We can be very devoted to our belief in time and space, to the point that we begin to see ourselves as dependent on it. The body may be subject to the rules of time and space, but is the body you? Or are you the awareness that the experience of the body is located in? That pure awareness, as Tom puts it, is the location for eve...

One beautiful aspect of working in a group setting like the Love Is The Power meditation calls is that one person’s brave and vulnerable share can create a whole ripple effect of profound awareness for everyone. That’s exactly what happens in this week’s episode when one inquirer’s childhood comes up to the surface and exposes the universal experience of wanting to be wanted. Whether by a parent,...

This week’s episode is a deep dive into the world of body odour–actually, better said: it’s a deep dive into the world of doubting our goodness. You may be asking yourself, What does that have to do with B.O.? Well, have you ever sat next to someone with what you might have experienced as an unpleasant smell? Some people in the Love Is The Power inquiry group have, and many experienced the awkward...

When we find ourselves in a process of self-inquiry, the way that our perspective shifts is truly miraculous. We see things differently. The people in our lives, the situations we’re in, the resources we have, and most of all, ourselves. In this experience of seeing life differently, one of the fears that the mind will often bring up is the fear of going ‘crazy’ or losing our minds. (It’s actually...

In this week’s episode, Tom begins with an invitation to notice what comes up internally with the sentence, “I’m ready to be honest about my yeses and nos.” As in, I’m ready to notice what my genuine responses are and live them. Often when we hold onto giving a dishonest yes, it comes from the idea that by doing that, we’re making ourselves show up as kind, caring people. But what does it actually...