Hello and welcome.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be sharing some of life’s curiosities with you and perhaps lend you a helping hand in attuning more deeply to yourself and the world around you.

Today’s topic of choice is… Leading With Love.  This topic is dear to my heart as it allows me to walk through life with as much love as possible, but also with as much awareness as I can possibly muster at any given moment.
And perhaps that’s where we’ll begin, with the awareness that attuning to the philosophy of leading with love brings.
For me, leading with love creates an awareness through cognitive considerations, and thought processes, that value the impact that I have on myself, on others, and on the world around me. This is a whole other level of awareness to the ‘self-aware’ spiritual aspects one might already be familiar with, as it is an awareness that considers and cares for the system of self, but equally so for the system of life and more specifically, the system of relationships with other people, with your environment, with nature and even the planet as a whole.
The concept of leading with love is on par with one of my favourite expressions, ‘Jesus, take the wheel’. Oh how I love saying that!
Now, Jesus, take the wheel has origins (according to dictionary.com) in the early 2000’s forum and sermon scene, but it wasn’t popularised until country singer, Carrie Underwood released a song of the same name, in 2005.

Jesus, take the wheel and leading with love expressions are, in effect, requests for divine intervention, for surrendering to something outside of yourself, for a higher power to have reign over a situation. These expressions and subscribing to the philosophy of leading with love, for the grace of god even, attunes to a strength, a surrender, a facilitation of setting aside of your ego so that you may move forward, take action or interact with self and others from a place of uninhibited knowingness unrestrained by needs or wants of control. Simply put, it is acceptance of all things coupled with an agency over yourself only.

To lead with love means to step into that space of knowingness, of consideration, of care and attunement to the whole being of you, the whole being of others, and the whole being of being in relationship with others so that a divine essence or energy or power or god or grace, is guiding you along your path. And it is the depth of acceptance and agency that leading with love instils, that removes influence, control, manipulation, and reactiveness.

Reactiveness gets us into trouble. Controlling experiences and outcomes gets us into trouble. Manipulative, obsessive thinking gets us into trouble. Feeling our way, however, trusting ourselves or more perhaps that higher part of ourselves, and choosing to allow love to lead the way, will generate healthier experiences internally and externally, with self and with others.
Love will generate connection, genuine interactions, acceptance, trust, momentum, and healing. Perhaps most importantly, it will generate the capacity to sit in the depths of your shadow, to familiarise yourself with them, and to walk out from the valley, hand in hand, knowing that you are safe, secure and supported in your own being. Yes, I said it. Leading with love generates a deeper capacity to accept yourself, which in turn, allows you to accept others in healthier ways also.

Now, what’s worth mentioning is the flip side to all of that, the red flags of leading with love if you will. Cognitive or thinking traps, learnt behaviour traps, that speak of misinterpreting what love genuinely, truly, authentically is.
For lots of us, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking, and perhaps feeling too, that leading with love means tolerating people, places, spaces and situations that are unhealthy or outright toxic to your being. That, my friends, is a fallacy.
“He loves me, that’s why he’s always checking up on me”, “she loves me, that’s why she is always suspicious”, “I know he hits me but he really does love me”. That’s not genuine loving behaviour and interactions. Those types of scenarios demonstrate love mistaken or confused with control, fear, manipulation, insecurity and more.
Therefore, what leading with love is not, is martyrdom. It is not about sacrificing your happiness, your safety, or your security, for the ‘love’ of others or because they say they love me. In fact, the opposite is true. Leading with love means that you are willing to call for your safety, to not only ask to be safe and secure within your relationships, for better treatment, for healthier treatment, but to choose it, embrace it, and embody it for yourself and in ways that will see you love yourself out of negative situations while leaving and loving others to tend to their own way of life or way of being, on their own.

So, to lead with love has incredible potential for producing powerful and positive effects on the way you perceive yourself and others, the way you experience yourself and others, and the way you carry yourself in this world. It can also have a negative impact if you are not fully invested in understanding what it truly means to embody love as a divine power, a higher power, a source of which is both within you and outside of you, that is omnipresent and attentive to you as much as it is to and for others.
Curiosity and exploration are keys to lead with love in your heart and your head. Trust that you deserve to be loved, held and supported in ways that feel right to you, that you deserve to experience life in partnership with others, full of communication, dialogue, behaviours and attitudes that support the development of you as individuals and as a partnership.
In a sense, and as a parting gift, to lead with love is to embody the essence of love itself, knowing that it won’t lead you astray so long as you, your ego state, get out of the way.

Now, I hope that you enjoyed reading through this article. I hope that it gave you food for thought and perhaps a means to exploring your feelings and attuning to the spirit of love more, or at least experimenting with love leading the way.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this article by leaving comments, along with any questions you may be mulling over, and your findings if you do or choose to, walk through life with love leading the way, and don’t forget to connect with me on my social media platforms @gemmaroseiam and that includes Spotify.

For now, though, that’s all from me and until next time, let love lead the way.

 

 

 

BONUS TIME: Reflect on these questions, answer them in the comments or over in the ‘Conscious Connections‘ group on FB.

Q 1: When I say the words Lead With Love, what comes up for you?

Q 2: What does it mean to practically embody the ‘lead with love’ philosophy?

Q 3: Do you see any aspect of ‘lead with love’ as a potential mind trap?

Q 4: What are your two takeaway’s from the leading with love journey to inspire listeners or readers?