Love Has Wings Free Yourself from Limiting Beliefs and Fall
in Love with Life
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LOVE HAS WINGS
ALSO BY ISHA JUDD
Why Walk When You Can Fly:
Soar Beyond Your Fears
and Love Yourself and Others Unconditionally
LOVE HAS WINGS
Free Yourself from Limiting Beliefs and Fall in Love
with Life
ISHA JUDD
Copyright © 2012 by Isha Judd
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written
permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Text design by Tona Pearce Myers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Isha, date.
Love has wings : free yourself from limiting beliefs and fall in love with life / Isha Judd.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-60868-121-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Self-realization. 2. Conduct of life. 3. Fear. 4. Love. 5. Spiritual life. I. Title.
BF637.S4I83 2012
158—dc23 2011045867
First printing, April 2012
ISBN 978-1-60868-121-1
Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper
New World Library is proud to be a Gold Certified Environmentally Responsible
Publisher. Publisher certification awarded by Green Press Initiative.
www.greenpressinitiative.org
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Laying the Foundation for Love-Consciousness
PART I: DESTROYING OUR ILLUSIONS
CHAPTER ONE
Illusion #1: I Am a Victim
CHAPTER TWO
Illusion #2: Comfort Is King
CHAPTER THREE
Illusion #3: There Is Not Enough
CHAPTER FOUR
Illusion #4: Being Passive Protects Me from Making Mistakes
CHAPTER FIVE
Illusion #5: Discrimination Is Acceptable, for Certain People and Things Are Better Than Others
CHAPTER SIX
Illusion #6: I Am Separate
CHAPTER SEVEN
Illusion #7: I Am a Sinner and I Should Atone for My Sins
CHAPTER EIGHT
Illusion #8: I Can and Should Control My World
CHAPTER NINE
Illusion #9: It’s Okay to Ignore Unpleasant Feelings
PART II: INFUSING YOUR ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES WITH LOVE-
CONSCIOUSNESS
CHAPTER TEN
Elevating Our Concepts of Gender
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Conscious Parenting
CHAPTER TWELVE
Intimate Relationships:
Be the Partner You Wish to Have
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Redefining and Realizing
Success in Work
PART III: REMEDIES FOR THE AFFLICTIONS OF MODERN LIVING
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Conscious Vacations and BEcations:
Antidotes to the Daily Grind
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Appreciating Yourself and Your Surroundings:
The Antidote to Insecurity and Loneliness
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Embodying Peace:
The Antidote to Living in a World of Uncertainty
APPENDIX ONE
The Isha System
APPENDIX TWO
“La I” Uruguay and “La I” Mexico:
Spas for Consciousness
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
F irst I would like to thank Arthur and Annie for taking my discourses and
helping me transform them into literature, and my wonderful teachers
and students who eternally inspire me and humanity through their
commitment to personal evolution.
For supporting my work, I thank Care2.com and The Huffington Post,
as well as a multitude of publications throughout Latin America, where
some of these discourses have already been published. I am, of course,
grateful to Marc Allen and New World Library for their continued support,
and Kristen Cashman for her careful polishing of this text.
Last but not least, infinite love and thanks to Her Majesty Elizabeth III
(her informal title is Betchie the Bulldog) for her constant inspiration and
joyful presence.
INTRODUCTION
Laying the Foundation for Love-Consciousness
I nfalling,
the face of economic insecurity and global change, structures are
leaving us feeling vulnerable and uncertain. We feel small and
helpless before uncontrollable events: victim-consciousness abounds. Yet
what if we really can make a difference by simply changing our
perspective? What if we can shift to a lighter, more playful perception of
life? I believe that the current state of unrest represents an opportunity for
humanity to reach a new level of consciousness, which I call love-
consciousness, and this book will give you the tools to realize that state of
permanent peace and serenity in your own life.
I’m here to share with you how I came to realize that things really aren’t
that bad at all, that actually they are rather more fantastically wonderful
than we have ever dreamed of. It’s time to stop worrying and start creating a
world worth living in, and it’s going to start with you. Yes, you! Don’t think
the state of the world is someone else’s concern: it’s yours and yours alone.
Because believe it or not, you’re the one who is creating it.
In every moment, you have a choice. You can choose fear, or you can
choose love. You can surrender to what is, or you can thrash against it. This
book is about empowering you to choose love and joyfully surrender.
MIND MAKEOVER
Modern pop culture is obsessed with makeovers. We are told to change our
homes, wardrobes, faces, and thighs as often as we change our clothes.
Considering this, it is amazing how resistant we are to internal change. It’s
time for a mind makeover! Inside our minds, we have a heaving jumble of
worn-out old junk: subconscious ideas and opinions that have been out of
fashion for longer than knickerbockers and bonnets. It’s as if our minds are
lost in the run-down comfort of a chintzy old sofa. It is frayed and covered
in dust and stains, with the occasional flea, stale crumbs, and the odd bit of
chewing gum stuck in its crevices, but it is familiar. Although it is falling
apart and in desperate need of replacement, we have become accustomed to
it. We have been sitting in it for so long that we don’t even notice its strange
odor.
Don’t you think it’s time to redecorate? What if we throw this old couch
out on the junk heap and start fresh? The familiar may be comfortable, but
if you become stuck in what you know, you will never realize your full
potential. Inertia never brings joy: it ultimately leads to dissatisfaction.
What if life could become light again, joyful, innocent, celebrating the
happiness present in each moment? What if life could go from drama and
tragedy to excitement and adventure — from an angst-ridden film noir to a
lighthearted romantic comedy, in which you finally discover that your one
true love was you, all along?
Who you will become in the future will be defined by who you’re being
now. How you respond to everything that happens to you each day defines
your evolution, and evolution is joy. Ask yourself: Am I loving myself? Am I
becoming the person my heart yearns to be? Am I becoming more love? As
long as you are waiting for something, be it a miracle or a disaster, you are
rejecting the opportunity to make new choices right now, to actively
generate transformation in yourself and in the world.
So as you start this exciting and exhilarating journey with me, dear
reader, this great quest into the very depths of your being, there is one thing
I will ask of you. Instead of waiting to see future results, define who you
will be in this moment. This is the difference between being a victim and
being a creator. A creator determines who she will become, while a victim
waits to see what transpires. Every moment you waste thinking about the
future is energy that you could use to transform your reality now.
EMPTY IS THE NEW FULL
A Japanese Zen master once received a university professor who
came to inquire about Zen.
The master served tea. The Japanese tea ceremony is long and
complex, and the scientist became increasingly impatient as the
master went calmly through the fifty-four steps of the ceremony.
When the tea was ready, he began to fill his visitor’s cup. When the
cup was full, he continued to pour.
The tea began to overflow, and the professor could restrain
himself no longer. “It’s already full. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” the master said, “you are full of your own
opinions and ideas. How can I teach you if you have not first
emptied your cup?”
In the modern world, we have been taught that by accumulating things
— ideas, possessions, knowledge, experience — we will find completion,
but in reality, true, vibrant living comes from being empty.
By cramming as much as possible into our every waking moment,
filling our senses with an endless barrage of stimulation and distraction, we
bury the greatest treasure in existence: our self. Deep down, beneath all the
ideas, preferences, opinions, fears, and memories, is your true, eternal being
— that which I call love-consciousness. It has always been there and always
will be. It is who we are at the most fundamental level, yet we have lost
sight of it, hidden it from view behind the “stuff” we prize so much. Only
by emptying ourselves can we rediscover this most precious of treasures.
Emptiness is full of what we deeply want and need.
We cling to the structures that are familiar to us because we think they
define who we are. Even if they make us miserable, the alternative seems
much less desirable: our fear of change is ultimately the fear of losing our
identity — without our belief systems, political affiliations, preferences,
and, indeed, our very personalities, who would we be? These ideas about
the world and our place in it give us a sense of control; we know where we
stand, and we know how to position ourselves in relation to everything and
everyone else. But has this illusion of control brought us happiness so far?
For the overwhelming majority of us in the modern Western world, the
answer is no.
And so, if we wish to find a new vision for life, we must be willing to
let go of our old opinions and ideas. Rather than clinging to them —
remaining rigid, stagnant, resistant to change — we must be open to
receive. We must be willing to evolve. Evolution is the nature of love-
consciousness. And what drives evolution? Change. Without change, there
is no growth, no life. Rigidity — the lack of or resistance to change — is
death. Life must adapt to survive: if we wish to move forward we must be
willing to transform, to leave the old behind.
Throughout history, greatness has come from shaking out old opinions.
Jesus broke with tradition, as did Buddha. As we evolve, opinions and
judgments that we once accepted unquestioningly come to feel antiquated
and irrelevant. It’s time to empty ourselves of that which we cling to: to
relinquish the ideas and opinions that have filled our awareness.
How freeing it is to be empty. To not have opinions, ideas, boundaries,
resistance. To say yes to the universe, to say yes to all of creation from a
place of joy. It comes from embracing life without interfering, from sweet
surrender to what is, from falling in love with our present reality. This is the
true love affair — the love of an individual for life itself, for oneself, for the
joy of being.
Consciousness evolves. Without change, there is no evolution.
So, in this book, more than learning something new, we are going to
unlearn. In part 1, I will expose some of the most universally accepted
illusions, the most fear-based and limiting lies that we have come to accept
as our common reality. Several of these illusions stem from a common root,
and so there is some overlap among them. However, you may find that you
relate to one more than the others or that one seems more salient in your life
than the others, so I’m including their different iterations to help you
recognize them in the many ways that they manifest themselves.
The rest of the book will address some of the real-life problems that
these illusions create in our lives. Part 2 looks at how these illusions crop up
in our interpersonal relationships and the various roles we each play in our
lives. Rather than perpetuating the stereotypes that have been handed to us
and that dictate how we perform our roles as mother, father, man, woman,
lover, spouse, worker, or boss, we can come to these roles from a place of
love-consciousness and perform them more effectively, joyfully, and
compassionately than ever before. Part 3 offers concrete suggestions for
embodying love-consciousness in the fast-paced, volatile new century we’re
living in.
BEACONS TO LIGHT YOUR WAY
Before we get started, we can prepare ourselves by cultivating certain mind-
sets and releasing others that hinder us. The guidelines that follow will set
the foundation for your life in love-consciousness. Whenever you find
yourself confused or full of doubts, you can return to these guidelines to
reground yourself in receptivity. Also, many of these guidelines will come
up again through the course of the book, and this is a good thing —
repetition breeds integration.
Focus on Joy
The first thing we need to do is start focusing on joy — on the beauty,
innocence, praise, love, and gratitude inherent in every moment. Isn’t it
time we did a bit more of that?
How does joy look? This is the wonderful thing about joy: it has no
fixed format. Its form is an empty vibration. Joy is like a mountain spring:
its effervescence bubbles, teeming eternally from the depths. Its constant
spontaneity nurtures and refreshes, flows and replenishes.
Joy doesn’t look for what is wrong. It doesn’t criticize the external,
seeking a culprit for its trials and predicaments. If it did, its waters would
soon become stagnant, discolored, and lifeless. Joy is open to love and to
being that love. It doesn’t have a preconceived idea of how love should be
and to whom it should give it.
Rather than waiting for external fulfillment — for pleasure, the next
best thing to consume, or a new game to play — instead become that joy.
Then move out into the world to share it with humanity.
Stay Present
Joy lives in the present moment, so stop wandering off into the past and
future — they’ve had quite enough of your time already, thank you. It’s
time to give the here and now — the present, where life is really happening
— a bit of sorely needed attention.
Reclaim the Innocence of Childhood
Children have the upper hand over us adults in the happiness department —
they approach everything as if it were the first time, completely unfettered
by what has come before. They see magic and wonder everywhere they
look. Can you imagine how much of a relief it would be to return to that
state?
When I was a child, I just was. I wasn’t observing myself or measuring
the reactions of those around me; I wasn’t trying to manipulate, seduce, or
control in any way; just to be myself was enough. I had no concept of what
it was to be ridiculous, or to be serious: if I was happy, I laughed; if I was
sad, I cried. The bottom line: I didn’t question my actions. I just was. I was
the beingness, being. Carrying the accumulated baggage of adulthood, with
its opinions, fears, and misguided perceptions, we have lost this
spontaneity.
As you go about your daily life, continually shake the Etch A Sketch of
your mind and see things as a child would — without expectations or
recriminations. Try to see each person afresh. When the homeless person
comes to ask for a coin, give him a smile instead of your usual rebuttal —
maybe that was all he ever really wanted. When your tedious mother-in-law
calls on the phone, don’t answer anticipating her reprimands and
complaints. When your boss calls you into her office, don’t automatically
expect her to chastise you — maybe she’ll give you a raise! We are always
on guard, expecting that something is wrong. Instead, adopt the emptiness
and spontaneous innocence of a child; open yourself up to receive with joy.
Lighten Up and Be Playful
One of the saddest things about modern society is that we all take things far
too seriously. We feel impelled to conform to that which we “should” be,
that which we think the world expects from us. We think, Don’t be
ridiculous. Don’t speak without being asked. Don’t be immature. Don’t say
what’s really on your mind — what will they think? Self-control and self-
criticism have become our way of life, and they drain us of our playfulness
and capacity for free self-expression.
We must relearn how to flow from our hearts — to let ourselves look
silly, to dance freely, to stop and remind ourselves that life is about laughter
and lighthearted joy. Try it. You just might like it.
Let Go of the Need to Be Right
When we become attached to our point of view, it can become more
important to us than anything else. As a result, we feel an urgent need to be
right, which often requires proving the other wrong, thereby generating
conflict. Whenever we feel this need to prove a point, we lose touch with
the joy of this moment.
It is easy to tell when an idea or opinion is based in fear: it is
accompanied by the need to defend it, to protect the idea from those who
disagree. This is the root of fanaticism. Love, on the other hand, needs no
defense. It is a crisp, fresh opening to embrace other people’s opinions.
