Limitless Love

photo credit: Ugur Tandogan

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to ALL THE PARTS OF YOU…

Last week was my younger son’s 20th birthday. I love him so.

And his brother too.

Gifts beyond measure from the start.

Who (or what) fills you with love?

While our paths are many, mine includes motherhood, and so I am reflecting on this experience as a touchstone towards our universal connection with the boundless love that resides within each of us and is our birthright.

Having children is such a profound experience and one of the things that shocked me most was the love that poured into me when they were each born. This was most pronounced with my first child as it was the first time I had experienced this. I was going happily along and then he was born and there was just this flooding in of love. I loved him with every fiber of my being. It was instantaneous and magnificent and new. And as much as I am trying to use words here, it is truly indescribable.

I always knew that I wanted to have children but I was still surprised by the actual experience. I loved my husband but I hadn’t yet experienced the truly unlimited expansiveness of love until Jack was born. I suddenly had room for acres more love than I imagined. It was unfathomable until it happened.

What are the physics of that? I have no idea. Everything seemed to be re-written all at once. And then, when Billy was born the same thing happened. I had been a little worried that I might love Jack too much and there wouldn’t be enough for the next child, but there it was. It was like my insides expanded to fit oceans more love all in the blink of an eye. It was intoxicating. Exquisite.

And once you’ve experienced this - whether through love for a child, a partner, or a pet; through experiences in nature; or through intentional practices like meditation or prayer - you are changed. You know that you have the capacity for boundless love. That anything less than that is a lie. And yet we go through life in a scarcity mindset. Day after day we live in fear of not enough time, not enough money, not enough shoes, not enough knowledge. Not enough. But we live on the grounds of abundance. Love is our foundation and it is limitless. And our capacity to hold it is limitless as well.

We can even take that boundless love and keep expanding its gifts within us. We can experience motherhood or fatherhood on the inside - over and over through Internal Family Systems (IFS) Parts Work.

IFS allows us to reclaim parts of ourselves that have been abandoned and shoved aside and hidden in dark corners of our minds as a result of the frightening, shaming, and upsetting experiences of our childhoods. Even when our childhoods were not dramatically traumatic. I am grateful that I never experienced the extremes of physical or sexual abuse, but the chronic stress of growing up as a highly sensitive child in a dysfunctional environment can build a dark confusion that can be quite challenging to unwind in its own right. Growing up is hard. And harder for those of us who live with parts that remain stuck in the past.

I am still finding lost aspects of my younger self that are grateful to come out of the shadows. Each time I connect with one of these parts, I am freed from some of the shame or fear or rage or sadness that I’ve been carrying and I regain lost capacities for creativity, joy, lightness, humor, and wonder.

It is magic.

And it is unlimited.

Every time we connect with an abandoned part, we have a huge surge of love for that part that has been hurting for years upon years upon decades. And it never gets old. We never run out of love, affection, warmth and kindness for these parts as they appear one by one.

Love is limitless. For me. For my clients. And for you too.

We are amazingly powerful beings.

Scarcity is a lie.

Scarcity is a lie that makes us small and obedient and afraid. Healing the abandoned parts of ourselves helps us come back into our knowing – back into our power.

What might you do today to reconnect with your birthright of love, joy, and connection?

What stands between you and a life of abundance?

How might you embrace the parts of you that are hurting and bring them out into the light?

What reminds you of all that is possible and all that you are capable of?

Learn more about Internal Family Systems - IFS Parts Work:

https://www.colletteantoine.com/services-ifs-parts-work