Love is the power podcast

This week’s group inquiry is on the fear of being boring. Whether with friends, partners, or ourselves, a lot of us can probably relate to this fear. What if somebody thinks I’m boring? What does it mean to be boring? A rich inquiry emerges around the idea of just being, something the mind tends to be terrified of. What if, underneath the panicked action and frazzled doing that can come from the f...

This week’s episode is an exploration of true compassion and unconditional love, revolving around the topic of abusers. As an example, when we see a person abuse an animal, it’s easy and understandable to become upset by it. We mentally hold that person responsible, and we probably think they should be punished. And doesn’t that just seem fair? Right, even? But if we get really honest and take a g...

In this Part II episode on the theme of romantic relationships, following last week’s profound inquiry on the idea of unattractiveness, a couple works with Tom on a common pitfall that occurs in committed relationships: trying to control what your partner does and how they show up. Many of us can relate to this, even outside partnerships. Parents, children, friends…there’s a whole variety of relat...

This week’s episode is part one of a deep dive into romantic relationships – the interest in them, the fear of them, and the frustrations of having them. In this first half of the two-part series, a participant speaks to the belief that men will not be interested in her romantically. When Tom asks what her mind is using as proof for that concept, she identifies the thought that men only look at th...

This week on Love Is The Power, Tom invites participants to notice the habit of trying to control things in life. Money, love, security, health… You name it, the ego will attempt to control it. It can be so liberating to look at this pattern and notice what it actually does to our lives. Does it empower us? Does it relax us? Or does it cause stress and fear? As Tom points out, living is like surfi...

This week’s episode brings you one of Tom’s favourite questions to pose: What, if it were true, would give you a big fat ‘YES’ to life? In a popcorn-style meditation, the group explores this question and comes out with some profound answers to what the nature of creation would have to be in order for it to feel good. For example, it would have to be true that no one can actually be permanently har...

This week’s episode explores the popular concept of having a fair share. As humans, we can get pretty touchy if we believe someone is getting more than their ‘fair share’ of something, and pretty stressed if we believe that we have more than our fair share (whether of money, time, privilege, luck, etc.) One of the great things about self-inquiry is that we get to really get into these commonly hel...

Welcome back from summer vacation, Love Is The Power listeners! We’re easing into September this week with a meditation and group style inquiry led by Tom on noticing some of our favourite ways to stop ourselves from living in harmony with life, and questioning those root beliefs. The inquiry goes from looking at the simple belief that it isn’t possible to live in harmony with life given specific...

This week’s episode is an exploration of the search for freedom. For those of us who find ourselves on some kind of spiritual path, practicing techniques that allow us to expand into truer, fuller expressions of what we really are, it can be tempting to identify as ‘seekers.’ Usually what we’re seeking is a sense of freedom. One such seeker poses the question in this episode, “Is there such a thin...

This week’s episode explores subconscious beliefs and how to empty the reservoir of the unconscious mind. Using self inquiry, we’re continuing last week’s exploration of the mind’s tendency to divide things under the labels of ‘me’ and ‘not me.’ How do we live when our life experience is ruled by those concepts? What if what we’ve been believing ourselves to be is nothing but a fictitious characte...

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...