By Dina Evan, PhD

Love Is….more important than breath at this moment. We have survived an avalanche of prejudice and hatred, lies and domestic terrorism. Love is the only thing that can heal this nation and our hearts at this moment. This entire last four years has been a holy moment for me and it was all about love or the lack of it. Our experience can be the greatest teacher we have ever had, if we open our hearts and are willing to see the lessons.

Love starts with loving ourselves, taking stock occasionally of who we really are, what we believe and whether we are living what we believe at our core. It starts by noting the lives we have affected with wisdom and tenderness or pain and suffering, or even by our absence. It is about loving our bodies, a current challenge for me, at the soon to be age seventy-nine. It’s about the challenges we have survived and overcome without bravado, the majority of which may have gone unnoticed and not shared.

When we think about love we think about Valentines, chocolate, teddy bears, and an increase in the bottom line at some jewelry store, but that’s not what love is. Love is about scrutinizing our beliefs and instead of just saying we are not prejudiced, love demands that we are doing something about the horror of how much pain from prejudice there still is — and how it cripples the hope of those affected by it. Love is about making sure we do not embody it or teach it in any way.

Love is about questioning our quickness to judge without knowing more. For instance I am, as most of you can tell, not a supporter of Trump. However, recently I read somethings about him and I became acutely aware that all the shame and responsibility for everything that has happened because of him, falls directly at the feet of his father who was heartless and never saw any good in him. He was destined to fail and I felt sorry for him for the burden he now bears and cannot even understand.

Love is also about priorities

It’s about looking at what we believe is most important in our lives. Is it power? Is it the accumulation of money and wealth? Is it acceptance? Is it growth, both personally and spiritually? What are we working on the hardest to achieve? We need to look at that because if we are not the working on our soul work, we have missed the point of this incarnation because those are the only gifts that we take with us when leave this planet and begin our next incarnation. They are also the most loving gifts we can give to our families, those struggling with sobriety, in fact, those in any kind of pain and most importantly, in the effort of evolving ourselves. All of which is about love in its purest form.

Love is also about joy and defining what brings joy into or lives that we might be missing. The energy of joy is akin to that of love. It opens our hearts and lifts our spirits, which is why donating time and energy to improve the lives of others is so important and a way to feel joy. It’s a gift that is also a critical teaching we need to make sure we share with our children. In this time, when everything seems hard, there is nothing that will lift your spirits more that reaching out to share your time energy and love with someone who needs it.

Surely, we have grown up a bit in these last few years. Perhaps the point is, that it is time to reevaluate what really matters in our lives and if your response is not something that embraces the power of love, you may miss this lesson. The most important take-aways for us can be…the importance of real and meaningful connections and showing gratitude for each of them. It can be giving from the heart, our hesitancy to prejudge, the need to examine our own beliefs on the value of each person regardless of his or her skin color, gender or belief system. It’s about releasing our own merciless judgements of ourselves and others and embracing the fact that we are still standing and we are still learning and committed to changing. If this is not the time and these are not the lessons…. then what is?

Dr. Evan is a marriage, family, child therapist and consciousness counselor. She has presented nationwide seminars and workshops, written several books and created meditation CDs for couples, individual and mental health professionals. She has also won national acclaim as a human rights advocate. Visit www.drdinaevan.com or call 602-571-8228.