LOVE Is Always the Answer — A New Podcast Exploring Love as a Way of Living
For as long as I can remember, I have believed something that sounds remarkably simple:
Love is always the answer.
It is a phrase I have carried with me through different seasons of my life and work. It even found its way into The Elemental Soma, where I write about Love and Free Will as Principles of Life.
But recently, I found myself returning to those words differently.
Not because I had finally figured out what Love is.
Quite the opposite.
I began to wonder if I had only begun to understand the question.
What Do We Mean When We Say Love?
We use the word love so easily.
We love people. Places. Food. Music. Work. Experiences.
We speak of falling in love, making love, choosing love, sending love, loving ourselves.
And yet, for something so central to the human experience, Love can be remarkably difficult to define.
Is Love a feeling?
A relationship?
An action?
A state of being?
A choice?
A principle?
Is Love always gentle?
Does Love always stay?
Does Love always forgive?
Can Love say no?
Can Love create a boundary?
Can Love ask us to leave?
Can anger exist alongside Love?
Can grief?
Can disappointment?
Can truth?
I could attempt to begin this new podcast by telling you exactly what I believe Love is.
But I no longer think that is the point.
Perhaps Love is something we come to know through living.
Perhaps its meaning reveals itself differently through our bodies, relationships, choices, losses, joys, mistakes, beginnings, endings, and everything between.
Perhaps we do not need to agree upon a single definition before we begin.
Perhaps we can simply become willing to inquire.
Love as a Way of Living
That inquiry became the beginning of my new podcast:
This is not a podcast about romantic love.
It is not a podcast about being positive, agreeable, endlessly forgiving, or “choosing love” when something difficult happens.
And it is not a place where I will position myself as someone who possesses the answer.
I do not.
I am living the question too.
Instead, I want to explore what happens when we bring the lens of Love into the places where our lives are actually being lived.
Our relationships.
Our bodies.
Our money.
Our work.
Our grief.
Our ambitions.
Our boundaries.
Our creativity.
Our rest.
Our spirituality.
Our relationship with the Earth.
Our relationship with ourselves.
Because if Love is always the answer, then Love must be relevant not only in the beautiful moments, but in the complicated ones.
The conversation we have been avoiding.
The relationship that is changing.
The body asking us to listen.
The work that no longer feels true.
The dream asking for courage.
The bill sitting on the counter.
The grief that has no resolution.
The decision for which there appears to be no perfect choice.
What does Love ask of us there?
That is the question I want to explore.
Beyond the Mind
If you are familiar with my work through The Elemental Soma, you probably already know that I am rarely interested in understanding something only intellectually.
I want to know how it is lived.
How it feels.
How it moves through the body.
How it changes our relationship with ourselves and the world around us.
So while LOVE Is Always the Answer will include reflections and, eventually, conversations with guests, it will also make room for the Soma.
For embodied inquiry.
For ritual.
For questions from you.
For pauses in which we move from talking about something to noticing what is actually present within us.
There will be moments when we explore Love through the EarthBody and our relationship with support, safety, resources, and the material world.
Through the WaterBody and our capacity to feel.
Through the BreathBody and our relationship with presence and regulation.
Through the LightBody and the ways we choose, create, and move toward what matters.
Through the FieldBody and our experience of connection, boundary, relationship, and the subtle.
But The Elemental Soma is not a prerequisite for entering this conversation.
Being human is.
Love Is the Principle. Free Will Is the Choice.
There is another idea I know we will return to throughout this journey.
If Love is always the answer, why do we not always choose it?
Because we are free.
We can choose from Love.
We can choose from fear.
From habit.
From protection.
From obligation.
From scarcity.
From what we have been taught.
From what once kept us safe.
From what we believe will earn approval or belonging.
And sometimes we may not know what is informing the choice until much later.
This is why I have come to hold Love and Free Will together:
Love is the principle. Free Will is the choice.
I do not believe a life oriented toward Love is a life in which we always make the “right” choice.
Perhaps it is simply a life in which we remain willing to notice.
To listen.
To question.
To return.
Again and again.
An Invitation Into the Inquiry
I do not know where this podcast will take us.
I am intentionally leaving room not to know.
There will be solo reflections. Somatic explorations. Rituals. Your questions. And, in time, conversations with people whose lives and experiences may reveal something about Love that neither you nor I could discover alone.
Some episodes may affirm what we already believe.
Others may complicate it.
I hope some make us uncomfortable enough to become curious.
Because I am not interested in proving that Love is always the answer.
I am interested in discovering what becomes possible when we are willing to ask:
What would Love have me know here?
And perhaps, eventually:
How does Love ask me to live?
I suspect the answers will be different for each of us.
And perhaps that is exactly as it should be.
We will allow Love to reveal itself in its own way.
In its own time.
Through the lives we are actually living.
LOVE Is Always the Answer is now available on Spotify and YouTube, with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Come as you are.
Bring your questions.
We will begin there.
