42 – What Would Love Do? The Path to Mental Freedom

0:01Shailia StephensSo I'm gonna start talking and hoping I'm reaching the right language. Welcome to Time for You. My name is Shelly Stevens, and I'm with my beautiful friend and colleague, Leah Berndtley. Hi, Leah.

0:14Lea WernliHi.

0:16Shailia StephensWe just had the most funny experience. We were meeting to do the English episodes, and Leah forgot that she didn't have an episode ready for her German podcast. So we just did that spontaneously. It was fun.

0:33Lea WernliYeah, it was great. Actually, if you speak German, go and listen to it.

0:38Shailia StephensYeah, yeah, definitely. What are you going to call it, Leah, so they know where to go?

0:42Lea WernliIt's Abenteuer Leben. It's the name of the podcast. So you will find it, Leah Wernli, Abenteuer Leben.

0:50Shailia StephensYes, but I meant the episode name. Do you like— no, she doesn't know yet. She just sent it to her virtual assistant.

0:55Lea WernliAs my guest.

0:56Shailia StephensYeah, exactly.

0:57Lea WernliLook at that.

0:59Shailia StephensSo, as you guys know who've been listening to us for a while, and by the way, I've been getting some emails, Leah, I haven't even told you about, from some people who we know and love who have, who listen to our podcast like every single episode that comes out. Yesterday I got an email, I'm going to forward it to you, from someone who said, yesterday I just listened to 3 podcasts of you in a row. I spent time with Leah and Shellya because I really needed To just find my way back to my inner peace feeling. And I thought that was so sweet. And I just wanted to say, anybody who wants to write us, please do, because we enjoy so much hearing from you.

1:41Lea WernliAnd guys, I know you love Shelia, and I know you guys think that Shelia loves to write emails, but she doesn't. So If you want, you can write me too.

1:55Shailia StephensLea, you just told a sneaky secret about me there. I know we talked about it on the last episode too. Yeah, right. Either one of us, we're so happy to hear from you. It's, um, we, we do this more for ourselves than anybody else. Like, um, it's, it's our little also dirty secret that Lea and I, we like to spend time together. We don't have a lot of time in our real life, so we made up the podcast to hang out. It's so nerdy.

2:24Lea WernliFor us and you guys.

2:26Shailia StephensYeah, it's called Time for You, but it's actually time for us. So, so, Leah, I wanted to just, uh, today on the episode share, share something that I experienced yesterday evening. And it was, oh my gosh, I don't even know if I'm gonna find words for it today. Um, but it was so deeply touching and moving to me, and it went into my soul and my bones. So it's gonna be called like something like Love Is the Medicine.

3:02Lea WernliMm-hmm.

3:05Shailia StephensAnd I know you know this because we talked about it on one of our last podcast episodes that I've been really trying to find ways to speak with my clients about where to look when it comes to— they have a lot of thought storm going on. They can't get out of it. They know about the principle of thought. It's not that they don't know, they do know. They know that whatever thoughts they're putting their attention on is the experience they'll be having, the feelings they'll be experiencing.

3:44And they just tell me, I just can't stop. It just keeps going there in that direction. You know, we talked about that on one episode recently. And I've been trying to find just as we do as coaches, different ways of pointing in a different direction, different ways of looking to where the light is, because focusing on the darkness is not the answer, right? As we all know. And yesterday I met— we had our Thursday 3 PM Africa Homa Bay call with Harry Derbitsky, with Martha Marah, and Bishop Alloch from the Homa Bay Friendship Orphanage.

4:23in Kenya. We talk every Thursday and share wisdom, the wisdom of the 3 Principles and the insights coming through us. And we had a client, I had one of my clients come onto the call who was experiencing this, you know, not being able to get out of their compulsive thinking kind of a situation. And some of the things that were shared yesterday really Really were so amazing. And you know how it is when we give stuff secondhand, Leah, it's not always the thing that is resonating with the listeners on the podcast or even with you, but it resonated with me.

5:05So I'm just gonna share that. And what Harry was pointing the client to was so genius and from mind. It was so beautiful. He was pointing out that what we are doing in that moment that we are stuck in our dark thinking is we are sharing our problems with ourselves.

5:34Lea WernliHmm.

5:37Shailia StephensOh, it did do something for you, Lee. I see him. Yes, we are sharing our problems with ourselves. And oftentimes, we are sharing our problems with others.

5:50Lea WernliMm-hmm.

5:52Shailia StephensThe thing that is on our mind and that we're sharing with ourself is often also the thing that we're sharing with others. I hear this so much from clients who say, my husband can't even hear it anymore, me coming and talking about these internal thoughts that I'm having, this insecurity, these doubts, this stressful feeling, right? And there's something in there that I was doing last year that I also see my clients doing. I can't recognize something in someone else unless I've done it myself, really.

6:26And it's that sometimes we're sharing our problems with others because we're trying to convince them that it is absolutely a problem. It is painful. See my pain. See my situation. Believe me, it's terrible. It's awful, right? Like, sometimes, sometimes people who are stuck in that darkness of thinking and can't get out of it, they want to convince their coach that they're talking to. No, but this is really, really bad, right? Other people have thinking, other people have thought storms, but mine are particularly bad, particularly habitual, particularly compulsive, particularly hard to get out of, right?

7:12Lea WernliYeah.

7:15Shailia StephensAnd so we're sharing our problems with ourselves and with others. And then what Harry proposed as the medicine is— you ready for it?

7:29Lea WernliYes.

7:30Shailia StephensHe said, sharing love with yourself and sharing love with others is the answer. And that really touched me so deeply. It really spoke to me to what I'm anyway trying to do. It's like, we know the principles are a psychological understanding. And we know that they're a spiritual understanding, right? Sid talked about mostly the spiritual understanding. The psychologist picked it up and started talking more about the psychological understanding. We think.

8:11Lea WernliAnd it's a practical understanding as well.

8:14Shailia StephensSuper practical. Super practical.

8:17Lea WernliAll of, all the 3 layers are woven in it.

8:21Shailia StephensOr 100%. I love that, Leah. And so when you're, when you're caught up in this, you're, you're getting stuck in the psychological part of it. The only place to go is the spiritual side of it. And when Harry said sharing love with yourself and sharing love with others is the answer. To me, he was pointing directly, unfiltered, undiluted, to that which the universe is made of. Like, to the deepest, most essential, final thing, which is love. And I really— that really hit me when we were talking about that. And I, I started to imagine anyone, but I was, you know, we're always more, more thinking about how would I feel that. And I started to feel the feeling of I'm loving myself.

9:30Lea WernliMm-hmm.

9:31Shailia StephensI'm sharing love with myself.

9:34Lea WernliYes.

9:35Shailia StephensI'm focused on all that is juicy and good about me and creative about me and compassionate about me. All that is amazing about me, right? Not in I'm trying to think myself good or whatever. No. Like the truth of who I am. I'm loving that truth of who I am. God through me, in me, right? And I, and then I was thinking, well, if I'm in, if I'm loving myself that way, I am, I'm feeling so good. I mean, it just makes me smile even to talk about it. As you can see, Leah, for those of you who are watching on YouTube, you can see it too.

10:18Um, and then when I, when I go out into the world and I do my business, Mm-hmm. I'm gonna be sharing that love with my clients. I'm gonna be sharing that love with anybody who reaches out to us, wants to talk about Yeah. The podcast. I'm gonna be sharing that with you, Leah, right? I'm gonna be going on a walk with my 2 dogs. And when they're taking all the time in the world and not wanting to move forward, 'cause they're sniffing like crazy, and I'm— no, I'm not gonna be impatient.

10:50I'm, I'm gonna be sharing love with them. I'm gonna be looking at them and seeing their beauty and how cute they are and how adorable and how, how they're sniffing and how, How, yeah, it's just, it'll fill me up, right? So yeah, go, go, Leah, go.

11:06Lea WernliIt, it, it's in the, in the question, what would love do? And what, but what you, what, what you talk about is what, what would love do if love is? Yes.

11:28Shailia StephensYes, yes, I love that. I never heard the question, what would love do? Is that a, is that a typical question?

11:33Lea WernliHey, that's a typical question from me as a coach to my clients.

11:41Shailia StephensSo you're already on this path, Leah. Yeah, yeah. So should I go on, or do you want to say something?

11:51Lea WernliJust, I heard what love is as, and from there you do what love would do.

11:58Shailia StephensYeah. Oh, I love that so much. I love that so much. Yeah. So, so yesterday when we were talking, I just felt that deep in my soul and in my bones that yes, the answer is when we share love with ourselves, when we share love with others, when we share love in all that we are doing right in the world.

12:23Lea WernliThat's it.

12:24Shailia StephensAnd then Bishop Aloach started talking. He's an 83-year-old Kenyan man who runs the orphanage with his granddaughter Martha. I don't talk about him a lot, um, because Martha and I are more in contact every day. But Bishop Aloach, Leah, he has the most loving, large spirit.

12:44Lea WernliMm-hmm.

12:45Shailia StephensIt's, um, crazy. He's a bishop in the church and, um, He speaks, you know, to the congregation on Sunday. On our Thursday calls, he's just kind of sitting in a lounge chair in the living room. And, you know, he's listening a lot. But he started sharing about love yesterday. And he started talking about love is the answer. So he was taking what Harry said and he was putting it into a new form. And he, he brought up something that was so hopeful, Leah.

13:20It was, if you can't, if you can't be coming from love today, you can be coming from love tomorrow. It was, it was this sort of, um, we, we, we sometimes when we get caught in our dark, in our dark space and our dark thinking, we think it's always gonna be this way. I'm just made like this. My thoughts are particularly hard and compulsive. Like, and he wasn't talking about that psychological part, but he was saying, in any moment, in any moment, we can shift from that into love.

14:04Lea WernliHmm.

14:06Shailia StephensAnd when we do, everything just becomes okay. Like, if I, if I am loving myself, if I'm loving others, everything in life is okay. And that was so touching to me, Leah, because that was coming from a man who doesn't have a lot of materialistic things. You know, he doesn't have much. He, he took in those 25 kids at the orphanage. He, he's got another, uh, 15 that come to eat at the house. people he takes in off the streets here and again. He doesn't have anything for himself, really.

14:45But he gives, he gives in massive amounts, all of his love, all of his care, anything he has, you can have it if you need it, you know? And to hear a man talking about that so deeply, I just thought, yes, that's, that's the answer. Yeah. Yeah.

15:11Lea WernliHealing. It's so healing. It's hopeful and healing. And I mean, there couldn't be a better way to live somehow.

15:32Shailia StephensYeah.

15:33Lea WernliAnd to, to stay there a little longer, to have the hope that tomorrow it could occur, and that we have this question and the answer in itself, in us, that's, that's a gift. Yeah.

16:00Shailia StephensWell, I'm going to give you the next part. You want to hear it?

16:02Lea WernliYes.

16:03Shailia StephensSo I only have a few little notes that I wrote down yesterday. So we went on in the conversation, and I don't know who said what or what came up or what— when I wrote it down, but it was this, um, idea of trusting. So, you know, and I get it. I so get it. When you're hung up in your dark thinking for so long, when you're seeing yourself as broken or different than other people, like, you don't trust yourself anymore. You don't trust that you have the ability to come into happiness, that you have the ability to come into peace of mind, that you have the ability— to unleash the love inside of you, right?

16:51And so the next thing is you can— and I'm just going to say it to whoever's listening, Leah— you can trust the love in your heart. You can trust the love in your heart. And someone said yesterday, when you release it without thinking, it grows.

17:08Lea WernliMm-hmm.

17:09Shailia StephensTrust that that energy is expanding. Trust that that energy is expanding. And that is so beautiful and such a good direction to look into.

17:26Lea WernliMm-hmm.

17:28Shailia StephensIt's like, I'm not experiencing that, I'm not feeling that. But you can trust, you can trust or faith in the unseen That, that energy is in your heart.

17:42Lea WernliAnd maybe there is also this, this hope that when you're not feeling it for yourself, to know or to trust that you are loved. Yes, you are love.

17:57Shailia StephensYes, yes, you can't be anything else. And, uh, and, and, and that's— go, go and explore that for yourself if you want, but I just feel that that's what we're made of.

18:16Lea WernliAnd, and it, it smoothens life somehow. Yeah. And even when you think, yeah, but it's not all love and rainbows, I want to talk about that in the next episode because I saw things with the guys who are probably in charge politically, and I really would love to talk about that.

18:45Shailia StephensMm-hmm.

18:53Lea WernliAnd it— the interactions are different. When you come from there, even when there are conflicts or unresolved things or, or difficult things, it's when you see the love in the other and yourself, the solution occurs. I don't know when and how, or we are okay with what is for a moment.

19:36Shailia StephensYeah.

19:38Lea WernliAnd it doesn't mean that we have to accept behavior, but that's like, that's like the other part. The more important part is, is the love. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that.

20:03Shailia StephensOh, you're so welcome. It just made me so happy, made me so happy. And I've been, um, I've been bathing in that feeling since yesterday, um, in the evening. It was so beautiful to be in that space. And trusting that that energy is expanding no matter where we are. So to wrap it up, just, I'll just repeat it. So if you're sharing problems with yourself and others, you're just innocently lowering your consciousness and bringing yourself into a dark space. And the answer is sharing love with yourself and with others, what you already are. You don't have to fake it to make it, make it up. You just have to trust, um, trust in the love in your heart.

20:54Lea WernliYeah, yeah. An easy, an easy way in could be the question, what would love do? Because often when we are in the dark, on the darker side, we don't feel that we are the love. But the question of, hmm, What would love do? There could be a doorway.

21:19Shailia StephensOh yeah, what would love do? I love that, Leah. So yeah, guys, that was, uh, another episode of Time for You. And, um, maybe you saw something for yourself and maybe think this episode might help somebody else. Pass it on, share the love with others. Follow us on podcast. What are they, Aaliyah? Apple Podcasts or Spotify, to get— to continue the conversation with us. We look forward to seeing you there.

21:52Lea WernliBye.

21:54Shailia StephensBye.