Last night I had the great privilege of hearing Marianne Williamson speak here in Paris.  She generously gave her talk free of charge as her gift to the people of France to help with the myriad of emotions we are all still feeling after the attacks on the 13th of November.  It was powerful and inspiring and above all it was a wake up call.

There were many golden nuggets to take away from the evening but here are the four that made the strongest impact on me.  Please keep in mind these are my interpretations of what Marianne was saying.  I imagine each person there walked away with her or his own interpretation but I believe we all walked away knowing we are going to be ok, we just need to begin to fully focus on being the change we want to see in the world.

• Make your first download in the morning a positive one – Marianne spoke of the importance of fitting in meditation first thing in the morning, even if it is only for a few minutes.  She expressed that our tendancy is to turn on the tv for the morning news, switch on our computers for the latest updates, or head over to our favorite social media platforms when more often than not these sources are often offering up the outside world’s view of how things are and needless to say that is not always the most positive nor uplifting.  Instead turning within, getting in tune with that deep wise voice inside of us is one of the most powerful things we can do to start our day off in a way that sets the tone for how the rest of our day will play out.  I have been practicing morning meditation for a while now and I 100% agree with Marianne on this point.  Why would you want to start your day off on the wrong foot when it is so easy to take a step towards creating the day you want to have?
• Fear and Hate are not things, they are the absence of things – One of my favorite points of the evening.  As Dr.  Martin Luther King is famous for saying:  “Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that.” Marianne underlined this point by showing that fear and hate are simply the absence of love.  The moment that we are able to shine the light of love where there is now hate or fear we can immediately see that the fear or hate was simply the lack of love.  Once love moves in, understanding, sharing, and collaboration can begin.  Marianne cautioned us that the conversation of love has become a whisper in modern society  and that we must raise the volume of our conversations if we want to create change worldwide.  ‘We must be as convicted to love as the terrorists are to hate.’
•   We are the lamps but we must be turned on – Each of us carries within us the capacity to create great change and to have a massively positive impact on those around us, on our communities, on the world, but if we are not turned on we are giving off no light.  We can not sit around waiting for others to come up with the solutions, we have to be part of the solution.  We need to be actively participating in order to help shine our light.  As Marianne so beautifully put it, ‘The Universe is wired for love, it is the electricity and we are the lamps but we must be turned on in order to spread that love.’
• How we live is much more important than how we die – Marianne pointed out that the Universe is self correcting, there has never been a time when a true “monster” took over the world.  Yes, there were (and sadly continue to be) times when terror rules in certain parts of the world but in the end, good/love always wins.  So go forward assuming that all that is needed will appear when it is time.  This is not at all to say that you can just stand by and wait for others to take action.  It is the action that is needed to create the tides of change.  It will never be the majority that takes the first step for these changes though, it will always be a group of dedicated individuals that begins the movement.  And the sooner we come together to make the positive change happen, the more quickly it can happen.  So instead of living in fear and allowing it to keep you inactive, live out what it is that you want to see happening around you.  It is much more important how we live than how we die, because as Marianne pointed out ‘we are all going to die at some point’, so why not make this adventure called life the best and most loving you possibly can.

If we are each the lamps, I believe Marianne flipped many of our switches last night.  It is clear that the world is in need of so much healing right now. It needs our healing not only in the areas that we love but also in the areas that we fear, in fact as Marianne pointed out, it needs it even more there.  These problems did not happen overnight and the solutions will not happen overnight either but it is clear as Einstein said “”We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”  We must be actively loving in every encounter, in every moment possible if we are going to create the new thinking needed to bring the peace we want to see in the world.  So how about it, are you ready to join the forces of good?  It is as easy as opening your heart, seeking to spread love wherever you can and making a conscious effort to keep your light burning bright.

Thank you Marianne!