Love is the power podcast

Love Is The Power listeners, join us this week for a powerful inquiry of a fearful mind. Tom guides a brave, beautiful share through The Work on the thought, “I can’t trust life with the outcome of this situation.” If you can relate to ever feeling afraid (of loss of time, money, agency, freedom, or anything else), this week’s episode is for you!

This week we’re looking at the thought, “I have to survive.” To the mind, this is a concept that would be unthinkable to question. Of course we have to survive! But we’re meeting that seeming certainty with an “Is it true?” As Katie says, everything is questionable. Even things that feel so obvious, like needing to stay alive. How do you react? What happens when you believe that?

In this short but sweet part II from last week’s episode, the “our true nature is not beautiful” inquiry is expanding to hold, “I am not beautiful.” In a world obsessed with physical beauty, this thought is so painful for those of us who believe it. Enjoy this precious, brave exploration of that concept, and find out if it’s really true.

This week’s episode is an inquiry into the nature of humans. Is it true that who we are, deep down, is not beautiful? Even ugly? Do you notice a part of you that has that sneaking suspicion? Join us as we look at people, in all their ways of being, and see for yourself the true nature of humanity.

This week’s episode is a hilariously relatable vignette of how we can sometimes be in such a great place, letting go off all sorts of large-scale problems in the world, feeling very accomplished in our practice of meditation or inquiry or whatever peace-creating habit is our favorite…and then it all comes crashing down because of one tiny thing that isn’t how we want it to be. A chip in a chair th...

Can anyone relate to being afraid of being selfish? Accidentally hurting someone because you dared to explore what genuinely feels good to you? In this week’s episode, we look at the world of the concept, “What’s good for me will be bad for someone else,” that comes from a deeper belief in a win-lose world. (As in, if someone’s winning, or experiencing something good for them, someone else must be...

This week’s episode is a continuation of the conversation that started last week about needing other people to show up differently. As Tom points out, when we make something wrong, we automatically go to work on it, whatever it is. When other people show up a certain way that we declare “wrong,” we work on it by arguing with them (even internally). But we also declare things we notice about oursel...

Is there someone in your life you notice unlovingness towards? This week’s episode is an open-minded conversation and mediation on the experience of withholding love from the people we feel need to be different for the sake of our happiness. What’s it like being dependent on what someone else does or doesn’t do? As Tom puts it, everyone on the planet is fighting a righteous war. Everyone is on the...

This week’s episode takes a look at the stories we have about stories. Sometimes, in its precious eagerness to ‘get it right’ the mind jumps ahead and asks, “Isn’t the turnaround just another story?” And sometimes we believe that and become obsessed with what Byron Katie calls pretending ourselves beyond our own evolution. We assume that we should be constantly living in the blissed-out, meditativ...

This week’s episode is an inquiry into the thought, “I need to keep myself alive.” Something that’s easy to believe, and something we react to in small and large ways. From obsessively feeding the body to attempting to protect ourselves from emotions like disappointment or fear (ironically by living in constant pre-emptive fear), we’re unearthing what the life experience is like when we assume kee...

This week we’re exploring the thought, “I could do or be Me wrong.” What happens when we believe this? Does it give rise to self-condemnation, worry, and defence? A sense of having to constantly prove that I’m not doing ‘me’ wrong? It could be that this belief is a major player in a lot of scary stories we tell about ourselves. And what is it like without this thought? What do you notice as you fo...

In this week’s episode, we revisit a group inquiry into the thought, “I can waste…[fill in the blank].” It’s a popular belief held by most of us in one way or another. We believe we can waste time, energy, money, food, resources and a litany of other things, but as Tom puts it: what if the nature of the Universe is limitless? Meaning “wasting” could be a non-issue. Sound like a fantasy? Let’s find...

This week Tom leads a simple yet powerful exploration: What are some of the stressful stories you tell about yourself? “I’m not good enough.” “I don’t fit in.” “I’m just an anxious person.” “I’m too much, too intense.” And why not open it up to life? “Life is too difficult.” “Life is out to get me.” “Life is short (and therefore I can get it wrong).” How can we believe these stories without experi...

Have you ever noticed living in a perpetual state of “no”? Pushing against what we don’t want, declaring we never want this, that or the other to happen… Sometimes we hang onto this belief out of fear that if we let go, everything we aren’t interested in experiencing will rush into our lives right away. This week, we’re having a good look at our To-Not-Do lists and seeing if we really need them to...

In an exploration of what Tom calls “feeling the burn” – the sensation of embarrassment at a memory that disrupts our self-importance – what comes up is a beautiful inquiry into the treasured story “I am a loser.” While there is so much pain and self-condemnation in believing that, there is also a significant payout of never having to compete. Join in from wherever you are on the popcorn-style inq...

How do you react when you believe that you have to hold onto something—anything? Does it bring peace or stress into your life? In this episode, we’re exploring the mind’s tendency to want to hold onto things. We’re looking at what we think we’re holding onto (a happy life, health, harmony, joy) versus what we really hold onto (fear, scarcity, anxiousness) with this belief. We hold onto this holdin...

This week we’re looking at not just accepting reality exactly as it is, but welcoming it wholeheartedly. A common argument of the mind against this peaceful way of being is “But if I love everything as it is, I won’t ever be motivated to make a change!” This is especially convincing when looking at the wider scope of the world and all its events. Dive into this meditation on the sense of dependenc...

In the world of gaining and losing, one of the main things we hold tightly to is the health of the physical body. We believe it’s something we can lose if we have it, or something we can strive for if we don’t. Either way, this belief creates an intense experience of fear and not-okayness. One of the sub-questions in The Work is “What physical sensations arise when you believe that thought?” In th...

Come with us into an exploration of the world of opposites. Tom guides an inquiry on what it’s like believing in the dualities that present themselves as real guiding stars (unacceptable-acceptable, success-failure, fair-unfair, competent-incompetent). These concepts hold hands and skip together through our experience, often without our realizing they are concepts. This week, we’re having a good l...

This week we’re looking into the taken-for-reality story of separation. It’s a concept most of us have readily accepted as just the way it is, but what might it look like from the perspective of the Don’t-Know Mind? Does the story of separation as we believe it create peace or stress in our experience? Are we even allowed to question something that seems so obviously true? It just might be that we...

Last week we explored the illusory past and experimented with being free of identifying with it. In this part II, we’re questioning the fear response that, according to Tom, often shows up when we get close to the truth of who we are. In this episode, fear comes up around needing permission to live the way we’d like to live. Could it be that, in reality, we don’t need anyone’s permission? We notic...

What is life like from the vantage point of the past? When we hold onto and identify with the past images we call memories, we unknowingly lose touch with reality here, now. This week’s episode is an experiment with freeing ourselves from the illusion of a past, and it’s a profound one. We are fearlessly looking at the nature of memories, stories, thoughts, images and feelings and asking: Is that...

This week we’re exploring the desire for, and the fear of, allowing what is. On the one hand, we want to be peaceful, open human beings. On the other, we are afraid of what will happen if we truly relax and let go of the need to be disturbed as a path to creating change. We hold onto our unhappiness to prove our goodness. Many of us learned to hold the suspicion that we are secretly uncaring, inse...

We can all find within us where we believe something shouldn’t have happened. Someone shouldn’t have gotten sick, someone shouldn’t have treated us the way they did, the list goes on… This week’s inquiry takes a look at what happens to our life experience when we take for absolute fact the belief that something shouldn’t have happened, and explores the peaceful empowerment that shows up without th...

In this week’s episode we are invited to give ourselves, every person, and the entire world the freedom to be as we and they are. We invite you to follow along and use examples from your own life as you hear the group participants share and explore their own stressful concepts related to this invitation. ‘The Work’ as meditation is a living practice — all that is needed is an open mind and a willi...