Infinite Love: What Those Who Have Left Can Teach Us About Loving Those Who Are Here

Love is forever

A Glimmer of Infinite Love
​This morning, I was working on my remembrance wall—a collection I have begun creating to honor members of my soul family who have transitioned. As I sat looking at their faces, remembering their lives and contemplating the experiences we shared, I felt something expanding in my heart. The words infinite love started moving through me...

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There is a different kind of love and appreciation that can emerge when we allow ourselves to truly sit with those who have gone before us. It isn't always easy. There can be grief there. Regret. Longing. Things we wish we had said or done differently. But if we stay with it, perhaps something else begins to appear beneath all of that.

Love.

Love that is somehow still here.

Famous in Our Inner Worlds
We have an interesting idea of fame in our culture. Someone is famous because millions of people know their name. But I think there is another kind of fame—the people who become famous within our own inner worlds.

Bill is famous to me.

The people I have loved are famous to me.

They may have lived lives that most of the world knew nothing about, yet within the landscape of my life, they are enormously important characters. Their faces are instantly recognizable. Their voices live somewhere inside me. Their personalities, peculiarities, gifts, struggles, humor and ways of being became woven into my own experience.

As I look through the faces on my remembrance wall, I think about how much I learned from each soul separately. Some of these people never knew one another. Yet each participated in shaping the person I am today.

How extraordinary that is.

The Souls Who Walk Beside Us
Sometimes I imagine what it will be like when my own time here is finished. I imagine these souls—many of whom never met one another on Earth—somehow together.

I imagine them in their light bodies, smiling.

Perhaps welcoming me.

Perhaps saying, Here you are.

I don't know what happens when we cross from this life into whatever comes next. None of us can know with certainty while we're here. But I find comfort in allowing myself to contemplate the possibility that love and consciousness continue in ways we cannot yet fully comprehend.

And somehow, contemplating loss keeps bringing me back to life.
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Love is not lost

Will We Connect Again in the Ethereal Realms?

If I Could Love Them Again
Looking at those faces makes me think about what I might have done differently.

I would have shown more love.

More appreciation.

I would have wanted less from people and perhaps given more. I would have observed more. Listened more. Needed less. Relaxed more.

I wish I had sometimes allowed myself simply to be in awe of the soul before me.

Because what an extraordinary thing it is when you really think about it: a soul incarnates into a body, enters this enormous world, lives an entire life—and somehow our paths cross.

And sometimes that soul allows us close.

We get to know them.

We get to hear their stories. Watch them change. Laugh with them. Argue with them. Learn from them. Love them. Be disappointed by them. Forgive them. Hurt and be hurt. Grow alongside them.

We get to participate in a small portion of another be-ing's journey through this life.

Perhaps we don't realize what a privilege that is until some of them are gone.

A Gift Hidden in the Greif
Maybe this is one of the gifts hidden within grief.

Those who have transitioned can teach us something about how we want to love those who remain.

I find myself wanting to sit back more. To relax into my relationships. To be in awe and gratitude for the souls I have the honor of knowing deeply.

Rather than continually asking, What am I getting? What do I need? What isn't happening?, perhaps I can ask:

Who is this soul before me?
What is beautiful about them?
What can I learn from them?
How can I see their Light more clearly?

Maybe loving someone isn't always about helping them. Sometimes it is simply about seeing them.

Seeing the Light within another person may be one of the greatest gifts we can give.

Thinking About My Mother
These reflections make me think about my mother, too.

They make me want to let go even more. Forgive even more. Release even more of the hurts, traumas and turmoil of the past.

Not because those experiences didn't matter. They happened. They affected us. They became part of our stories.

But they are not the entirety of who we are.

What if I can increasingly allow the happenings to be the happenings—and the soul to be the soul?

Then perhaps I can sit with my mother and simply see her.

Know her.

Love her.

Appreciate her while she is still here.

There will come a day when I would give anything for one more opportunity to sit beside some of the people whose photographs I now hold in my hands.

I don't want to forget that while the people I love are still sitting beside me.
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Loving my mother

Love Them While You Have Them

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Are there Walls Around My Own Heart?
All of this makes me curious about the places where my own heart is still protected.

Where are my heart walls still active?
Where am I withholding love because I am afraid of being hurt?
Where am I holding tightly to an old experience?

Our experiences can certainly hurt. Our bodies and emotions can respond profoundly to what happens to us. Yet I am increasingly interested in something beneath those experiences—a part of us that perhaps cannot ultimately be damaged by them.

Emotions move through us. Experiences happen around and within us. They are real, and they deserve our compassion and attention.
But perhaps they are not the totality of who we are.

And perhaps they are not the totality of the person who hurt us, either.

That possibility creates room for forgiveness without requiring us to deny what happened.

A Remembrance Wall Heals the Heart
My remembrance wall began simply as a way to honor those I love who have transitioned. I add a photograph, a name, dates when I know them, and little notes or memories I don't want to lose.

But I am beginning to realize that I'm creating something more than an archive.

I'm creating a place to practice love.

I can look at a face and remember.

You mattered.
You taught me something.
You were part of my life.
I am grateful that our paths crossed.

And perhaps someday there will be another face added, and another. Eventually, someone else may be ReMembering me.

There is something humbling about that.

Opening to Infinite Love
Today, I don't feel as though I understand Infinite Love. I feel as though I have caught a glimmer of it.

And I want to allow that glimmer to expand as much as possible—as much as my heart will allow, as much as my Body-Mind-Heart-Soul-Spirit complex is willing to open and receive.

More love.
More forgiveness.
More appreciation.
More listening.
More seeing.
More awe.

Less holding back for some imaginary future in which there will finally be enough time.
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The One Infinite Love
I am grateful for the One that is Infinite Love, and for the countless ways that Love manifests itself through our lives—through partners, mothers, cousins, friends, animals, strangers, teachers, and the mysterious souls who appear along our paths and somehow become part of us...
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If I may be of service

May I Have an Open Heart for The One Infinite Love to Move Through

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Thank You

With Gratitude
Perhaps the people we love are never ordinary simply because the rest of the world doesn't know their names.

They are famous within us.
They populate the sacred inner landscape of our lives.

And whether they are sitting beside us today or have already traveled beyond our sight, perhaps our work is the same:

To see them.
To appreciate them.
To forgive where we can.
To learn what they came to teach us.

And while we still have the opportunity, to love them with a little less fear and a little more freedom.

May we recognize the sacredness of the souls beside us while they are still here.

May we remember with tenderness those who have gone before us.
And may we open ourselves, little by little, to Infinite Love.

Thank you for reading.

Be blessed.

​​​​​Jennifer Michaels, M.A., RYT200
Founder of The Art of Love Counseling ⎹ Mooresville, NC
Holistic Counselor, Spiritual Life Coach, Energy Healer, Artist & Author of What is Love? My Question... God's Answer
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P.S. A little gift for you 🎁

If you would like to rest for a while in the energy of  Infinite Love, I invite you to listen to this one-hour guided meditation of gentle I love you affirmations—a space to open your heart to Love.

🤍