Ep 451: Revolutionary, Liberatory, and Soul-Satisfying Love

Today’s episode weaves together lessons on love inspired by the words and perspectives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Jaiya John, Alana Fairchild, Tosha Silver, and Rumi. As we navigate through a world that is plagued with atrocities and heavily warped by what we see on social media, staying in love has become more and more of a difficult task.

Throughout our sermon, we dive into the intricacies of love, including the concept of fierce love and why love isn’t always polite, considerate, or comfortable. We also explore the multifaceted nature of love, the significance of embodying love in your actions, behaviors, and choices, as well as how to view the world through the eyes of love

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In episode 451 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:

(4:24) Understanding the seasons and cycles of love
(5:29) An excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam”
(10:23) The universality of “Love like Love loves” by Jaiya John
(14:01) Reflections on the difference between love portrayed on social media and our messy real-life relationships
(16:16) Why love speaks truth and doesn’t seek comfort
(19:10) How to embody love and use it see through distractions
(23:13) Highlighting The Lover and The Beloved Rumi Oracle card as a representation of weaving love
(29:03) A prayer for infusing more love into our hearts

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Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:

I do my best to keep my mind and heart open to guidance and wisdom about love, how to be loving, and how to embody love.

Sometimes the most loving things we can say are things that people are not going to like hearing or not going to be on the receiving end of.

What if we did everything like love would do it? See like love sees. Listen like love listens. Move like love moves. Trust like love trusts.

How can we speak as lovingly as possible to as many people as possible every single day in as many contexts as we find ourselves in?

How was this episode for you?

Was this episode helpful for you today? I’d love to know what quote or lesson touched your soul. Let me know in the comments below OR share the episode on Instagram, tag me your stories @elizabethdialto, or send me a DM!

About the Embodied Podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto

Since 2013 I’ve been developing a body of work that helps women embody self-love, healing, and wholeness. We do this by focusing on the four levels of consciousness – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

In practical terms, this looks like exploring tools and practices to help you tune into the deep wisdom of the body and the knowing of the heart, which I believe are gateways to our souls. Then we cultivate a new relationship with our minds that allows the mind to serve this wisdom and knowledge and soul connection, rather than override it, which is what many of us were taught.

If you’ve been doing self-help or spiritual development work for a while, these are the types of foundational things that often people overlook in pursuit of fancier concepts that often aren’t practical or sustainable. Here, we will focus on building these strong foundations so you can honestly and thoroughly embody self-love. If you’re feeling it, subscribe to the show, and leave us a review wherever you listen from. You can also keep up with show updates and community discussions on Instagram here.

Transcript for Episode 451 “Revolutionary, Liberatory, and Soul-Satisfying Love“:

Elizabeth DiAlto 00:00

Love can be fierce, it comes back to the line here that love is not always polite, and does not consider comfort, because sometimes the most loving thing we could do, or the most loving thing we could say, buy things that people are not going to like hearing, or not going to like being on the receiving end of.

Elizabeth DiAlto 00:28

Hello, everybody, welcome to episode number 451 of the Embodied Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth DiAlto. And this is our second episode in our new 2024 winter season format of the show, which might last beyond the winter, maybe not, we’ll see. And this morning, as I was reading over the transcripts from the sermon that you’ll hear later in the episode, I realized something I absolutely love about this new format. It allows us me as the host, and you as the listener to not just talk about stuff, but to talk through stuff on my ends. Now that I’m giving a sermon on Sunday during our wild Soul Sunday services. Before I record this episode, which I always record on Mondays, a week ahead of when it comes out, I get to review it, I get to review the transcript, to elaborate add some nuance where I may have missed it the first round through or share thoughts that have bubbled up since whether those thoughts are within myself, or that were woven that emerged after receiving people’s reflections during the Sunday service. And so this opening part of the podcast is already a few layers into the sermon. Whereas the sermon itself is like layer one, right. And then when you listen, you get to experience your own layers. Beyond that, if you’re a person who’s as passionate about depth and learning and transformation, and the power of words as I am, I love listening to this podcast. I hope you’re just as excited about that as I am. And as well. I also want to let you know we have a new membership that we’re opening up in February, called RE wave. And reweave is a membership for spiritual seekers oriented towards collective healing and liberation. So it’s a place to attend to your visions and your wild dreams. It’s a place to remember sacredness. And so if you’re looking for spirituality, healing work, and embodiment practices to help you be in and with the world, during these revolutionary times reweave might be the place for you. It’s also a place for doing your own work, while also staying engaged with the realities of the world. And doing so with as much grace as possible in community that understands that yes, many struggles are real. And also, as my friend Aaron Telford puts it, we also always keep the miracle on the table. If you want to learn more about reweave know when it’s opening, check it out. Once it’s available, go to untamed yourself.com forward slash interest dash reweave. Getting into the episode today this year. more deeply than in years prior. I treated Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a day of contemplation to read and reread some of his most pivotal writing and speeches. And in a moment, I’m gonna share an excerpt from his speech beyond Vietnam, which particularly moved me today because over the last few years, one of my biggest struggles has been staying in love. I know how to do it, especially from a musical perspective. And yet here on Earth where atrocities run high, it can be hard. And I’m sure some of you can relate to that. For this reason, I do my best to keep my mind and heart open to guidance and wisdom about love, how to be loving how to embody love, even as I continue to teach it. And today’s episode is weaving lessons on love for many different luminaries from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jaiya John to Rumi, Alana Fairchild and Tosha silver. And I give them my deepest thanks for their words for their spirits and for their unique devotion to love. Also, as I was reading over the transcripts of the sermon from the wild Soul Sunday service you’ll hear later in today’s episode, I was just thinking how there is no perfect lover on the planet. And like all things, there are seasons and cycles, when it’s easier to love, seasons and cycles when it’s more difficult seasons and cycles, like the current one I’m in personally, when it’s both really both. And I’m willing to hypothesize that for a lot of people being in the place of both is a pretty dominant life experience. Because most of us learn such conditional ways of loving and a lot of us are raised by people who didn’t know love themselves, not real love anyway. Or who think codependency is love. Who wouldn’t know healthy, interdependent ants are healthy love, if I sat next to them at the kitchen table for breakfast every morning. So how could they possibly pass it on? When we have difficulties showing up in loving ways, as in everything we can beat ourselves up about that feel ashamed or inadequate, where we can identify our gaps and go about the healing or learning or practicing better communication that will help us do better. And obviously, that’s an oversimplified statement, as each one of those things I just listed has its own complex parts, but you get the point. So back to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here’s the excerpt from beyond Vietnam. He said, Now, it should be in Cannes desperately clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. And I’m going to pause here, because he was talking about Vietnam. But everything he says can also be applied to Gaza, and to other places in the world that we’re watching. wars and conflicts and genocides go on right now, back to his words. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be our our lead down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. As if the weight of such a commitment to life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954. And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before, for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry, to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who asked me why I’m speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men, for communist and capitalist for their children and ours for black and for White? For revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loves his enemies so fully, that He died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong, or to Castro or to Mao, as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with them my life ends quote, he says that in such a beautiful way. And what he’s saying is really quite fierce. And we see this in our current times when people want to trash folks for talking about war, and calling people out of their moderate stances. But what so many are really talking about is liberation. Because we can’t get free without talking about all of the ways in which oppression is currently occurring, all of the ways in which we are not free, and the ways other members of our human family are not free. You don’t go to the doctor and talk around the pain or the symptoms you’re experiencing right now. You get right to the point and you tell the doctor What’s wrong, so they can help you heal the issue. In today’s sermon, at one point, I talk about how love can be fierce, because sometimes the most loving thing we can say are things that people are not going to like hearing, or not going to be on the receiving end of two things, we hear people talking about a lot, our accountability and responsibility. When it’s time to engage with both things, it can be really, really uncomfortable when we’re coming from love, though. And love is the goal of the pathway and the inspiration, we can really alchemize our discomfort or hurt feelings about our actions, behaviors and choices being brought to our own attention, truthfully. And I would hope that everyone listening here has been on the receiving end of a communication like this, because it means that you have people in your life who love you enough to tell you the truth about how you’re behaving and who you’re being. Such things are not attacks, right? And let me put a little nuance on that, depending on who they’re coming from, if they’re coming from folks who take responsibility for themselves, do their own part, especially proactively. People who lean into conflict and repair and in fact, aren’t constantly trying to blame others avoid or shirk responsibility for their side of the street and my eyes. That’s not an attack. And those are the qualities that make people more trustable. Some of the most pivotal conversations of my life, big turning point conversations, were friends coming to me and helping me to see the way I was showing up. wasn’t good enough, in some cases, wasn’t what I thought it was that I wasn’t having the impact, or the effect that they knew I was intending to or in general just wasn’t good for anyone including myself. So with all of that, here’s today’s sermon and prayer on love. I And just a note on the audio, I am still getting used to this format, we’re still working out the kinks. And I forgot to use my podcast mic for the sermon part of the episode. And I use my teaching mic, which works well for teaching classes. But the audio doesn’t sound great on the podcast, not as good as this microphone I’m using right now. So enjoy the sermon. And I’ll be back to check in before we wrap up.

Elizabeth DiAlto 10:22

So here’s what we’re getting into today. We’re talking about love. The topic here is love, like love loves, which is inspired by an author named Jaiya John, that is his quotes. And I’m going to read you a whole thing by him in a moment, and I’ll pull it up on the screen too. For those of you for whom seeing things visually works better than if you’re listening to this on the podcast, there’ll be a link to that image on the show notes. So love is not really a definable thing, right? Same as God, we could do our best to try and explain these infinite, intangible and endlessly powerful forces. But there’s no right or final definition. There are so many things said about love, right? Like most of us have probably all heard these quotes. Like Love is always an appropriate response. Or only love is real, or love is a verb. But as I was feeling into today’s sermon, it felt more exciting to me to weave a conversation around love, so that anyone who listens might walk away with some new truth or inspiration, or practice or curiosity, about how to love or be loving, or maybe some new standards. There’s so many possibilities. Okay, so Jaiya John from one of his books, says love like love loves, and how does love love, without condition? For humans, this is the most difficult way of love to follow. But love does not like enable or forget. Love loves. Love loves boundlessly brilliantly, boldly, subtly and seeping, sublime and soundless love, loves and boringly, hopefully, faithfully, fearlessly privately, publicly, with grace, not seeking glory. Love weaves, blankets and baskets of the past, present and future blankets that hold and do not fray. Love appraises you and find you where the Love Speaks. The truth is not always polite, does not consider comfort. Love obliterates ego and meth. What love touches heals. What love reaches, feels, what love bows to Neil’s love glances at sewage and turns it sacred. Love changes slander to praise, love as a sacred storyteller, love destroys all castles, drains and moats, rubbles royalty and thrones, love answers, prayers, poetry, passion fires, love revolts, love constantly births. Let’s go remembers wick sure embers. Love is not romantic blindness. It is searing vision. Love sees love kills what is already dying, diseased, polluted, corrupted, love makes all things new. Love is not in you, you are in love. And all of this is love. So I highly recommend all of Jaiya John’s books. I have downloaded several of them on my Kindle. He has a podcast, he has the most amazing voice. Some of you might already be familiar with his work. But So now tell me here in the chat, I have a few of my own notes about what stood out to me. So I’ll share mine as you gather your thoughts. The top thing that stood out to me was not seeking glory. Because since the dawning of social media, how many posts? Do we see? How many professions of love Do we see on the internet? Between all kinds of people, friends, lovers, family members, but we know that in real life behind the scenes those relationships are real messy, right? And it’s not to say people can’t profess these things and mean those while also having very complex and complicated things going on in their relationships. But it could be very performative out here on the internet streets when it comes to love. So in the chat for me, I’d love to know which lines really stand out to you. And if you want me to mute, you say unmute. I’d love to hear from you. What stands out? The not seeking glory also reminds me of many years ago, this was 2016. I was living with someone and I had gone to a five day intensive energy medicine training or four day intensive. And afterwards, I was living in California, I drove out to a place called two bunch palms, to have a like integration by myself. And my partner at the time, wanted to come see me. He’s like, I really miss you. I’m, like, been gone for four days. I’ll be home tomorrow. But he really wanted to come. So he drove all the way out. Then, you know, we’re at dinner. He’s like asking the waitress to take a picture of us. And I’m like, Okay. And then the next day, he wrote this whole posts online with the picture. This was a very narcissistic person. And it started out with I missed Elizabeth’s so much. I drove three hours to be with her and I was like, got it. That wasn’t about me at all. That was a follow up. That was an opportunity to show everyone what a great boyfriend you are. And I also highlighted love speaks truth, hills, what is already dying. Those of you who come to our Sunday services regularly, probably remember it was just two or three weeks ago when we talked about laying things to rest. Blooding, some things die, right? Giving things the dignity of allowing them to be complete. Love does not consider conference that stood out to me because this is something we talk about in the School of sacred embodiment, so much, how it’s actually not loving, to constantly be asking or needing or wanting people to be different. So we can feel better. Right? That’s our work. If we can’t be with people the way they are, and they’re not doing anything differently, after conversations, you know, I stopped loving to constantly try to force people to be what they’re not. So let me see what some of your notes here. What are you all sharing? Love appraises you and find you worthy. Love loves and during the love glances at sewage and turns it’s sacred. So this person is saying glances are not a big thing, a gentle, easy action. Sewage equals the dumpster fire of the world. That love can turn that dumpster fire into something holy with just a glance, gives me hope and also reminds me to surrender to love. Love is more powerful than me. And also that love can work through me. Amen to that. Somebody else had these really got me Love Is that always polite does not consider comfort, and love as a sacred storyteller. Someone else said love revolts stands out for me. very timely for the times we’re living in. Yes. And speaking of Jaiya John The inspiration for this whole sermon. His posts have honestly been my go to, during this whole time of new are the next layer of this revolution that we’re in right now. He just writes so incredibly about freedom and liberation and sacredness to someone else said the same quotes you just spoke truth and letting things die. Someone else said love kills what is already dying Absolutely. Destroys castles emotes love weaves. What love touches, heals. Love speaks the truth of constantly burps, I understand and feel these things deeply now, the healing the breaking down the rebirthing glances at sewage and turns it sacred also good. It’s like pulling you out of a deep hole into light. Allowing you slash supporting you to be your truest, cleanest and clear yourself. Someone else said love weaves, baskets. Such a beautiful image, past present future. Thank you all so much for sharing something I wanted to add. That’s not here in this beautiful passage. For me. And this is probably related to the line that Love seeks truth is that love sees through

Elizabeth DiAlto 19:23

distractions. So I also love this form of love, like love loves. What if we did everything like love would do it? So see, like love sees Listen, like love listens, be like love is move like love moves. Trust like love trusts. So many of these other words that are in here we could say revolts like love revolts. And when I think about love seeing through distractions I took, like half the year off of social media this year. And I’m always constantly navigating how to be with social media. And my time away, allowed me to really see how distracting it is, especially as a person with ADHD, where folks focusing can sometimes be a huge challenge for me, I can sometimes be easily distracted, just as much as I could hyper focus on something to pull me out of that focus. Sometimes nothing could possibly do it. And other times any little thing depends on a lot of factors, which I’m sure some of you can relate to. But especially during the times we’re living in and seeing how people are using social media, one of the things I always say about social media is that it is both a miracle and a dumpster fire. Seeing how people mobilize, and how people are able to connect is an incredible thing, seeing how we have access to the worst things that are happening on the planet, in volume, but also the most amazing things that are happening on the planet. In Volume. These things can take us in so many different directions, right? And so I want to add to the list, use social media as well uses social media. That’s something to ponder right? Someone said be as love BS, allow grace as love allows grace, live and live fearlessly as love does. Yeah. Let go of your fears like love lets go of fears. Believe in possibility, like love believes in possibility. There’s so many things here speak like Love Speaks. Ah, that’s a good one. Speak Like Love Speaks. And, you know, something we’ve talked about. Not in a Sunday service. But certainly on the podcast and other workshops over the years is fierce love. Right love could be fierce. It comes back to the line here that love is not always polite, and does not consider comfort. Because sometimes the most loving thing we could do, or the most loving thing we could say are things that people are not going to like hearing more or not going to like being on the receiving end of somebody wrote here hold accountable, like love holds accountable. Yes. And love is not manipulative. Love is not passive aggressive. Love doesn’t guilt, it just is, is just a raw invitation to do the thing and make the choice that is in the highest and best interest of the most people, right of everyone involved when possible. But few things are actually for the best of everybody involved, right. But if anything is going to get us to making choices that are in the highest and best for the most amount of people. It’s definitely going to be love. So few things out in the world have connected me to divine love. The way that this Rumi Oracle deck by Alana Fairchild has. I talked about this thing all the time. I know there’s a couple people in here right now from my power program in 2023. And this was required reading for power people, because there’s just power is about journeying into the mystical heart. And honestly, it’s not just Rumi, all the Sufi poets. There’s a way that the Sufi poet speak about love, and the beloved and their mystical way. That is like a connective tissue. Oh, and you know what, I didn’t want to pull a card there was a specific one I had in mind, the lover and the beloved card number 35. When you move beyond consciousness, you caress the beloved. When you move into the unknown beyond everything, the beloved caresses you. Oh, sweet, beloved, the divine, the great beloved, has a passionate desire for you, to love you to touch you to make the divine presence known to you, so that you will cease to fear the darkness. take delight in all of life and become mesmerized by the beauty of love, and its endless emanations. But how we resist love at first. Oh yes, we have been burned before have we not? Abandoned betrayed so painfully disappointed? Casts aside and have suffered at the hands of some unworthy lover? Can this great divine love affair be tarred with the same brush with the same bitter expectations that keeps the heart closed? You are too beautiful too. be hidden away behind a bitter and gated heart that is unworthy of you. So then can you allow the great beloved to reach for you to receive that sacred touch every day, to be spoken to with words of love to receive you who give of yourself? Can you recognize the beloved wishes to give to you too? These need not be mutually exclusive happenings. Come now deep down, you know the genius of the Divine is such that and being received much is given. You shall not be selfish and letting yourself be seen and loved. Allow it rejoice in it. Take delight and allowing yourself to receive life. And let the world soak up the ardent glow of your sensual surrender into the great beloved’s embrace. Someone added, it’s wild to think how powerful these words are, how impacted I imagine we are all feeling right now soaking them in. If these things were more normalized, shared, taught, discussed, how the world could be. And listen, this is love. We’re weaving, right? We are weaving. Who knows? This is the last thing I’ll say about love before we pray. And before we get into our movement, part of today’s wild Soul Sunday service, I’m going to say we’ve like love weeds. I recently wrote a new tagline for the School of sacred embodiment reweaving, the wild and the sacred into a forgetful world. When I gave my TEDx talk, the core of that message was that separation from sacredness is at the root of much of the world’s trauma, pain and suffering. And that when we connect to the sacredness within us and around us, it becomes much easier and more natural to make choices that honor, respect, protect, and include people and much more difficult to make choices that would violate oppress or abuse them. And so when I talk about sacred weaving, when I say weave, like love weaves, that’s what it’s about, weaving, threads of sacredness, enhancing improving our vision, for seeing the sacred in ourselves, in each other, and all of life. That is definitely a way of love moving and being in the world. And when you think of it that way, when you feel into it that way, all these little tiny things, we’re all familiar with random acts of kindness. How can we speak as lovingly as possible to as many people as possible every single day, in as many contexts as we find ourselves in? It’s just all these small, little incremental changes over time. Yesterday, we had our final integration call in the sacred shift experience for winter. And we were talking about this, some of you were on that call, how these little tiny changes these little one degree, one degree, one degree, one degree shifts, really add up all the time. And that visual the image of a boat, that can just shift its degree, shift its degree by one knot, but that will change the trajectory and where it lands by an enormous amount of distance. So all these little ways that we see it, and sprinkle and thread and weave love, through all of these ABCs actions, behaviors and choices that we have every single day can actually do so much more than any of us could possibly imagine. And when we think about that, we don’t need to be as concerned with how many people there are out there doing it. Because we realize that the influence of love is so much more voluminous than it often feels. So with that, let us pray.

Elizabeth DiAlto 29:06

Divine Mother Goddess, bless us, lead us and protect us with your endless an infinite love with the inner workings of love into our hearts. So it can emanate, permeate, and just create all throughout our lives. Allow us to be both receptive and generous with our love. Be open and available, willing. So so willing to be courageous, especially when love is showing up in ways that make us uncomfortable, which happens all the time. Let us be humble and curious so that we can be feel do give and receive. We have more love and let us To remember, always, that we are made from love. We are love, and that we’re really, really here to be loved. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Amen. A man All right everybody. I hope that was a valuable lesson for you. If it was please share it up on social or with your friends family loved ones, however does it you share things among your people. A reminder I mentioned it earlier, but check out the reweave membership coming in February at untamed yourself.com forward slash interest, dash reweave and we’ll be back next week.