Ruminating on Rumi

A little background about Rumi before jumping into the quote we are going to process today. Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet originally from Greater Iran, he was known for his work being transcendent of national and cultural barriers. 
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Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Let's break this down a little. I don't know about you but when I read this quote my whole body did a knowing "ohhhh yep" in recognition of how important this work is. Truly acknowledging and understanding our own walls and barriers is one of the most important first steps to truly moving through and processing our own thoughts, feelings, actions and emotions. The beginning of this quote acknowledges the act of knowing that you do not have to seek love, love is already around you, it is already there. You simply have to go within and look for the areas that you find yourself resisting, the areas where you think about doing the work and then go "oh no", those are the areas that are most important. Sometimes it is worth it to work through things on our own and sometimes it is more beneficial to work through things with another, either a friend or professional. Once you have found those barriers to love, the ones you thought were in your way, the next step is to recognize that those barriers are not keeping you from love, love is already there. Those barriers were most likely put there to protect you except now they are no longer serving you, recognize them, acknowledge them and then let them go. 

As always, if you or someone you know needs help working through this, finding their barriers to love and taking them down, feel free to contact me to set up a coaching session.