How to stop holding back and lean into love!
What does ‘Lean into Love’ mean to you?
When you hear it the expression ‘lean into love’, do you feel contracted, neutral, or expanded? It doesn’t matter which one it is, but it’s important to note how the expression affects you. To me, leaning into love simply means making a conscious choice to be, express, experience, bring, receive, rejoice and BE in the state of more and more Love, and joy! The sheer joy of being alive brings us so much of what love means to us! When we ponder this leaning in, it can mean any form of love - do you want more meaningful relationships at work, or with your children, or to attract your lasting love partner or even feel more connected to The Divine?
As a Love Coach I help you lean into love, but what is a Love Coach?
What is a love coach? I see you living your deepest joy, and love, right now. I see and treat you as if the potential to love and attract exactly what you want into your life is already here! That is what a love coach is.
I think choosing to lean into love nurtures our love lives, creates happier moments, deepens relationships and raises the consciousness of humanity. It’s one of the 12 key steps I can take you through on your journey to lasting love. All of us, looking for love or otherwise, can lean into love by paying attention to our inner game, and by consciously sending love to all we meet!
My Journey
People often ask me how I came to do this work. They say we teach what we most need to learn and leaning into love is something I have been practicing my whole life. When I was a child I went to 9 schools, possibly more. I was always the new girl - I often felt down about not seeing someone again, and felt an intense feeling of not belonging as I often felt that everyone already had their group of friends. I would be welcomed, but always as a transient outsider.
Being friendly
These experiences helped me realise that it was really important to be friendly and open-minded. People can feel that genuine connection, so I always had friends wherever I went. At a bus stop several years ago I ended up chatting to a woman my age, and she’s still my friend to this day! This means I know many people as I make my way around the coast and the world! I’m so grateful for those experiences I had as a child, because they gave me a true understanding of the power of being optimistic, friendly and positive, which are some of the traits I support my clients to nurture.
How to Lean into love
Whether you are single and looking, or not - how can we all lean into love even more in our everyday lives? This is an eternal question and, I think deep down we all striving to answer it. Practise and repetition can make things easier, so here are some ideas for us to try out.
1. Street Connection
Smiling at people in the street is an oldy but a goodie. I say ‘the street’ but I really mean anywhere you have the opportunity to connect with people, even briefly. I still find it challenging - as sometimes I feel rushed, or shy, or I presume people don’t want to connect. Fear of rejection is also at the heart of shying away from this interaction, which is an issue that we can work with and clear. We can extend this practice to the supermarket check-out person, in other situations, even to the trees outside! I love how Dr Alex Lickerman calls extending a smile or a quick genuine connection to a stranger a ‘small act of compassion’ in a Psychology Today article. He says these small acts can make us more compassionate as a whole which I think helps us give and receive love more readily in our relationships and in life.
2. Acknowledge, heal and celebrate where we came from…
When we were growing up, there was this idea that children should be seen and not heard, which created a whole lot of trauma – as did the general level of unconscious child raising that was being done at the time and in many ways since forever. Mental and emotional maintenance is essential in the world we currently find ourselves in – due to this aspect of our history and because the pace is fast, the learnings are many and the patterns and traumas are real. I think this choice to do inner work, and experience the reflections, ah has and the transformational shifts is a way to acknowledge where we have come from. The healing and then celebration of all of the wonderful and the extremely difficult shadow stuff is one of the most important steps that helps us lean into love! I couldn’t say this enough times to express how important this is. This is the work that helps us thrive in life!
When I was 19 year old, I went on a journey from choosing partners with very stressful, difficult patterns, to choosing the opposite. For my birthday, my Dad gave me a transformational retreat. A month where daily, we reviewed inner thoughts, beliefs and patterns and began to transform them with world class inner work facilitators and modalities! I came out of that retreat knowing I was worthy of the love I was seeking. The next boyfriend after that very first retreat was so easy to be with. He had issues, like the rest of us, but not extremely destructive, debilitating ones. Regular mental and emotional maintenance is one of the most effective ways that we can release the valve of stress and patterns and thereby lean into more love and joy!
How does coaching support people who want to attract love?
I support people to focus on their inner game in my coaching practice to release the mental and emotional blocks that are in the way of them attracting love. I do this though empathetic listening, rapid results coaching, EFT tapping and a truly quantum and extremely effective technique called Matrix Reimprinting. I’m so excited about that my kitchen bench will be full of wedding invitations one day soon. I offer a free half an hour consultation to help you lean into love in more ways that you can possibly imagine so reach out and say hi to book your free consult!
Your one leaning in action today?
Today we have been on a journey which started with my own beginnings, learning about the power of conscious friendliness and intentional work on our inner game. What one action do you want to implement today to help you to stop holding back and increase your ability to lean into love? I encourage you to decide what action you will try, will you smile at people in the street, or get some support on your inner game? Reach out via email on shannon@welcomelastinglove.com, book your free consult and tell me what action you chose, I would love to hear how you go! Make a choice to actually do it, go out there and enjoy leaning into love!