The Power of Love with Erica Ballard

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:11] Speaker B: What'S worthwhile healing Mind, body and spirit. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. I choose peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit over stress, exhaustion, or overwhelm. Together, let's explore and pursue the many ways to build holistic health and wellness. [00:00:32] Speaker A: I love you. I love you in all, all of it. And you know what it feels like when someone says, I love you? I love not I love you, but I love you. You want to change because you start to see yourself differently. And I think that's the power of unconditional love. It's not. Regardless of it is, you are a perfect whole spirit having a very human experience. I love you. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Hey there, It's Ramsey here. That was Erica Ballard. Erica is a personal coach in the areas of spirituality and mindfulness, and she is the host of the Modern Day Mysticism podcast. This whole episode is a discussion about the nature and power of love, unconditional love, God's love, the love that makes you do crazy things, and love as a powerful motivating force. We look at it from multiple perspectives, starting with New Testament scripture, then from A Course in Miracles, and then from popular culture. Our conversation was not intended to be definitive or authoritative. Instead, we had a wonderful time sharing our beliefs, asking questions, and laughing our butts off. I loved every minute of it. I hope you will too. Let's get into it. Hey, Erica, how are you doing today? [00:01:46] Speaker A: I'm great, Ramsey. How are you? [00:01:48] Speaker B: I am so good. Yeah. This is absolutely the first fresh time that we've tried to make this recording. Like, you know, we just got here. We totally didn't, like, have four mishaps as we were trying to start recording. So we're talking fresh, and I'm so excited to. To be here and talk to you. You know, you are a life coach, a marketing professional, a fellow podcaster, and you share with your audience about the journey that you're on in your life. And you recently sort of pivoted the name of your podcast from the Erica Ballard show to Modern Day Mysticism. And I just love that title. I probably have no idea what that means, but will you share with us kind of why and how you made that change and what that means to you? [00:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you for liking the title of my podcast. The so I have been podcasting for quite a while, on and off for about six to seven years. I started actually with the Full Plate is what my initial podcast was called, and it was all about health and wellness. I moved it over to the Erica Ballard show when I moved more into the life coaching space. And the reason I called it the Erica Ballard show instead of something like modern day mysticism was I was still in the spiritual closet. I was practicing these things. I meditated, I went to mediums. You know, I did these things. And I was still so embarrassed is probably the right word, and frightened of what that would mean. And when I came back after working a traditional nine to five into this, back into the coaching world, I decided I didn't want to hide myself this time. I. I am so rooted in what I believe and I'm so rooted in recognizing, I don't know, also a lot of things and that we should talk about it. We should talk about it. There are people in the life coach spiritual, personal development space who are just so certain, right, this is the way. And what I have found is that there's a thousand paths to God, source, spirit, whatever your language is. And, and we can still explore them in a way that makes sense. Where, like, what I mean by that is I loved Aram Das, right? I loved him. And I can't go to India and sit barefoot with a guru for two years. Like, it is not available for me. And so, like, what does it look like to be a human who puts on pants and shoes and taps into their inner divinity? And so I've made that shift as I've come out of my spiritual closet, as I. I think more and more people are wanting. I think, I know I'm watching it. More and more people want to. And I'm saying, let's have these weird conversations. [00:04:48] Speaker B: Right on. Well, I may or may not still be in my spiritual closet, thank you very much. But I do, like, really enjoy having conversations and exploring different ideas. And in talking to you, one idea that we definitely had a huge overlap is love. And just the importance of love and the power of love and the significance of it and sort of its nature. And, you know, love is maybe like the most talked about, most sung about, most written about subject in human history. And why do you think that is? [00:05:31] Speaker A: Because we're all trying to figure it out. Yeah, there were so, you know, there's part of it. It's like, let me explain all that, but I feel like that is the answer. We talk about it all the time, we think about it all the time, we crave it all the time because we are still trying to figure out what it is and how to get it. [00:05:52] Speaker B: And I think it's. It's a universal desire, right? It's something that everyone wants, but it's probably something that Many people don't understand or feel like they maybe never had. And then other people, I think they, you know, maybe feel like they have had it all along. But it's sort of really difficult to sort of get your arms around as a concept. [00:06:22] Speaker A: You can't really make sense of love with the human brain. It's something that you experience, and it's something bigger than you. And as a result, the analytical, intellectual folks, myself included, we try to grasp it. And love is never meant to be grasped. It is. It is, and it is what you are. And so I definitely heard you and said, when you said people feel like they. They've never had it. And I would make the argument that when people feel they haven't had it, recognizing the human experience can be so hard, is that they haven't really gone in because it's here. You are it. You are it. And when you remember that, then love comes spewing out of you. But it's a journey to get to that spot. [00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So there are different ways to look at love. There's different kind of sources, different belief systems. And so I'm a Christian, and I think the sort of penultimate references to love in Scripture is in first Corinthians, and it's a set of verses that I think lots and lots of people recognize because it's often quoted in weddings. I think I'd like to take the couple of minutes that it would take to actually read through 1 Corinthians. There's a ton packed into it. I don't want to unpack it line by line, but there's so much there that I think we can at least sort of launch our conversation from that and have other places where we can go. And this is not intended to be sort of the only, you know, reference for the nature of love, but it seems like a good place to start. What do you think about that? [00:08:28] Speaker A: I love it. I love it so much so I'm going to listen to you as you read it so serenely to us. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Okay. First Corinthians 13. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship, that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when completely, when that completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror. But then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain. Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. [00:10:38] Speaker A: So I'm not a Christian, but I love Jesus. Was that Jesus who said that? Do you know? [00:10:44] Speaker B: No, this was Paul. [00:10:46] Speaker A: Paul. Okay. [00:10:48] Speaker B: And he was writing to the people of Corinth. [00:10:51] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. I, um. Do you ever think that, like, Jesus and the disciples are hilarious at times? Like, sometimes I read their stuff, and I just think these guys, like, laughed so much. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Yes. In fact, if you watch the Chosen, like, there are so many scenes in the Chosen where they're just having, like, a wild time, and Jesus, as portrayed in the Chosen, has this, like, really light, subtle sense of humor, and he just sort of raises his eyebrows, and it's. I think it's hilarious. I love it. [00:11:19] Speaker A: I started to watch it. I read it A Course in Miracles, which is what I was telling you beforehand, and there. It's a channeled work of Jesus. And I think Jesus is hilarious. And I say that because that first paragraph that you read of First Corinthians, I was like, there's so many jokes. There's just so many jokes like in that first paragraph. And that's what love is, though. It's like. It's a lot lighter than. Than sometimes we make it out to be. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Well, yeah, And I think sort of that first paragraph, it really speaks to the idea that you can go out, you can do anything, you know, you can accomplish all these things in the world, but if you're not doing it out of and through and because of love, and with love, then it doesn't mean anything. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we See it all the time. We watch people with tons of money be really unhappy. I mean, there's. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:15] Speaker A: How many times have they made the, the Scrooge movie? You know, it's. It's a common thing and theme in our world. People want money, they make it, they get tons of it. And they're like, I'm not happy. [00:12:33] Speaker B: Yeah, because it's hollow, you know, and. And even if you're doing all of the. Even if you're doing really beneficial things, like things for people that are worthwhile, but if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, then that sort of is the implication that it's really not really not worth it. And then, you know what's interesting about the second paragraph there is that it talks about love as kind of a force or almost like a. Like its own entity or like a being, you know, And I tend to think that. That God is love and that love is God. So that passage is not talking about like romantic love that someone would have. Even if, when it's being quoted like in a wedding ceremony, not even talking necessarily about the romantic love between the bride and the groom. I think it's talking about, you know, the force of love. That is the kind of greater context because. And I don't think any young bride or young groom can possibly live up to all of the things on that list, like never having envy, never having boasting, never being proud. Like what kind of expectations are we setting up there for the young couple? But it's more like this is the context of what you can maybe spend your life in. [00:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. I tend to look at life as a spirit having a human experience. [00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:17] Speaker A: And as a result, no one's asking you to be a hundred percent spirit. In the spiritual space. There are people and listen, this is not me loving. Okay, Just prefacing with my next comment is they'll run around saying, I live on the fifth plane, I live in the 5D. I don't even even play here on the 3D earth. And I'm of the vein. You came here to play. Like you said, I'm going to have a human experience. And so the idea isn't that you are perfectly in love all the time. The idea is you come back to what you are as often as you can. And to me that's. That's an enlightened being. It's not that they don't feel feelings, it's that they understand when they come up, their choice is to love or not. [00:15:13] Speaker B: Well, and when we choose to love, is it even. Is it even us that's loving? Or are we choosing to tap into love that was already there and we're deciding to pick up on that and that we're making an effort to hop onto that and to spread it outwards? You know what I'm saying? [00:15:37] Speaker A: Yes, I love that you said that. I feel like it was so well said. I would. In my language, I would say we are love and we choose not to be. When we choose anything but it, that's when we are having the very human experience. Because what we are is a piece of the Creator. And as a piece of the Creator, we are love, we are joy, we are peace, we are. I think you said in Corinthians for faith, hope and love, that's what we are. [00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then just to finish out, you know, the last sort of paragraph there talks about how love never fails. Like how all these other things that we do, you know, in our life and experience now, things come and go. You know, prophecies come and go. We change from a child to a grown up. And we see things in incomplete ways. But. But love is. Is there. Love is omnipresent. Love is complete. And just that idea of complete is really important because how many things in this world is anything in the human experience that, you know, this 3D human experience is anything complete? I don't really think, but love is. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Love is. It is. It really doesn't fail. It is always available. A course, miracles. I'm sorry, I keep going back to it. It's just. It's a big piece of my study. [00:17:13] Speaker B: But they say, please tell me more. I'd love to hear more about A Course in Miracles. [00:17:17] Speaker A: I love it. But what they say in there is that a miracle is actually a shift in perspective. And what I see that meaning is it's a shift from fear to love. And that. And what you're speaking to is. Is. Is what I believe the course of miracles is. Talking to. When it talks about a miracle is we can always shift back into it. We can always see things from what is. But when we choose fear, which is okay because it happens, right, we can't really experience what we are in the highest way. And I think it's so important. And this isn't some. To me, when we think about spirituality and love, this isn't some esoteric concept. When we choose love and to see through the lens of love, we're able to see all of the opportunities forward, which is why I think this is so important. Because when we look at fear, we have a very limited scope of what to do next. But when you open it up and you recognize, oh, I am love, oh, I am a piece of the Creator, oh, I'm like low key, limitless, right? There is a lot more paths forward for you. [00:18:34] Speaker B: Do you think that fear, in many ways is the opposite of love? Do you think of it that way? [00:18:40] Speaker A: I do. [00:18:41] Speaker B: And because I. When I think about my own sort of life and self, love and fear are both really powerful motivating factors. And I absolutely hate it when I'm motivated by fear. Which is not to say that I'm not motivated by fear, because sometimes I am. But it seems like the actions that I, that I take when I'm motivated by fear just are always bad and source. And they don't work out that well. Right? [00:19:16] Speaker A: I mean, that's the thing. I mean, that's what you were saying and that's what you're saying. We were talking about the first verse of First Corinthians is it never really works out the way you want it to. When you move through fear, you learn the lesson, you get the experience, you. You're able to get to the next thing, hopefully with some knowledge and wisdom imparted on you. And you can skip it. You can skip that party, right? And. And pause and say, hey, I'm really. And this is the thing, I'm in fear. A lot of us, to get to love, we try to skip the fear. And when you look at your fear in the face and you say, oh, I'm just being scared. Oh, this is just fear. Then you can get to the other side, right? What is it? The, the. I, I always butcher colloquialisms. I even butcher the word colloquialisms. [00:20:03] Speaker B: It's like, it's not your fault, man. They made that word really hard to say. Colloquialism, right? [00:20:11] Speaker A: Thank you for saying me. But it's like the bramble bush, right? Like, you can't go. You have to go. You can't go around it, you can't go under it, you got to go through it. And it's the same with fear. Because when you go through fear, you see that is. It is an illusion. And thus a lot of the solutions that it's coming up with are, are as well. And you get to love. And then you can see, oh, there's all these other options. And people in this world will often say, well, love is weak. Love is like, if you're like, you're being too kind and that's just your identity talking. That's just your ego talking. Love can be, you know, quote unquote, tough. Love can be powerful. Like, love can be really strong. But you have to understand what love really is, and you have to understand what love means in you to get to that place. [00:21:00] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and the idea that being loving is weak, like, I hear you, but I just so reject that because, you know, look at. Look at the. Some of the amazingly difficult things that people do out of love. You know, there's service and there's sitting with friends or family members when they're sick or when they're hurting or when they're going through a hard time. And there's, you know, any number of things that, you know, no amounts of money in the world would motivate anyone to do. You know, to your point earlier about, you know, which has greater meaning in terms of doing things out of love. [00:21:46] Speaker A: The. I'm listening to the Book of Joy again for the second or third time. I don't even remember. And they talk about birth. Like, what a. What an act of love and what a painful act. I've had a natural birth and one with an epidural, and let me tell you, they both don't feel good, but one feels worse. And in it, though, they talk about how, like, a mother, specifically, can come home from work and be so tired, but if their kid is sick, bam. Like, the. The amount of energy, the amount of strength that just, like, love pulls from you to show up and, like, take care of that kid, even though they're screaming and yelling and potentially, right, you. Love says that's okay. Like, you need support. And I'm here. And I. I think parents are able to see that in such a strong way because we've all had that experience, you know. [00:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, it's such an analogy, I think, for God's love for us, the love that we have, you know, for our children. And really, you know, we're kind of modeling that or, you know, he's modeling it for us, whichever way that analogy goes. [00:23:12] Speaker A: Probably both. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. While we're quoting profound philosophers about love. You know, a conversation like this really wouldn't be complete without Huey Lewis and the news. Because the power, power of love It's a curious thing It'll make one man weep and another man sing It'll change a hawk To a little white dove More than a feeling it's the power of love it's tougher than diamonds Rich like cream Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream, make a bad one good, make a wrong one right? Power of love that keeps you home at night? You don't need money, you don't need fame? Don't take no credit card to ride this train? It's strong and it's sudden? It's cruel sometimes? But it might just save your life. Power of love. Yeah, I could go on. Yeah. I have all of these lyrics memorized because I have seen Back to the future at least a hundred times. [00:24:17] Speaker A: I'm just a little upset you did sing it. I'm just a little upset that you didn't sing it for us. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, that's about as close as we get, I think. [00:24:29] Speaker A: I'll take it. I'll take it. [00:24:32] Speaker B: But I think the point that. I think the point there is, like, love will make us do crazy things. [00:24:41] Speaker A: It sure will. And I think that it. That's beautiful. And I think what's also interesting when you think about crazy things is it's not a. It's not bad. What I do think love does really well is it strips you of your identity of, like, who you think you should be, and so you end up doing these crazy things. Sometimes it's for, like, a lady or a man or a person, and sometimes it's for a kid or sometimes it's for yourself. Right. It's like setting a boundary like that is crazy. Setting a boundary with your family feel like they think you're crazy, you know? And so it is really powerful. It makes big shifts in your life. Really, really big shifts when you harness it. [00:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, too, like, he's talking. It's part of the lyrics is like, make a bad one good and make a wrong one. Right. And so it's. It's sort of the idea that. I think he's saying that love can even bring out either the best in us or bring out the worst in us. [00:25:57] Speaker A: But I disagree, and I know you do, too. Like, I don't think love ever brings out the worst in somebody. [00:26:03] Speaker B: Well, but maybe it feels like it does as it happens. And maybe if you're on the receiving end of some righteous, loving anger or if you get sideways with someone who's highly motivated by what they think is love, maybe. Maybe it feels like that. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah. The other person's experience of it may be different. And as you're shedding your identity and you're remembering who you are, it can feel very hard and it can feel a little wicked. But I don't think it brings out the worst. The thing that's coming up as we're talking about this is, you know, I've been talking about this a lot recently, is when you heal from a place of wholeness, like I am whole, right? Then healing becomes an action of subtraction. Because you're saying, oh, my gosh, I'm whole. I'm perfect. I'm a child of God. And so any thought, any feeling, any person, any situation that's making me feel not that I should remove from my life, so it's an absolute subtraction. When you are healing from a place that I'm broken, like, I'm. I'm a broken person, there's something wrong with me. Then you go around and you start to try to fill the void inside with all these outside things, right? Because you think there's a void here, that there's a hole here, and that you have to fill it to be whole. And you, you have to believe it's outside of you, because otherwise why would you feel that way? And I share that. Because when we think that love makes you the worst, right? It's often the latter. And the person that's on the receiving end is doing the action of the ladder, like going around grabbing things. But when you real, oh, that person's whole and I'm whole and they're just loving me how they see fit, right? Or they're loving me the best they can, then there's just not. There's not all that stuff that goes with it. [00:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes to all that. And I also think that maybe in a situation where you feel like love is bringing out the worst in you and like you're doing crazy things that are bad, I think that's actually fear. Because you can love and fear at the same time. You mix those two together, that's a powerful combination. Because if you have deep love, but you're actually being motivated to action by your fear, like fear of losing that love or fear of injury or harm to someone that you do love, then all bets are off. [00:29:04] Speaker A: But what I would say is that that's conditioned to love. So that's love with conditions. Unconditional love doesn't feel that way. And listen, you have to work to feel unconditional love. Like, we are not taught it in this world. And we come in and we, by this tender age of like five, like a week, right, we are learning this is what love is supposed to look like. So I agree with you if you look at it from a conditioned space, because fear and conditioned love go together like peanut butter and jelly. Like that happens. But when you're moving from an unconditionally loved space face, nothing will feel crazy, nothing will feel bad, because the actions you're taking, even if it leaves a little bit of a pit in your human stomach, you know that you are moving and doing the right thing for you and them in that instance. And love doesn't forget you. Like my mentor said recently, like, love. Love doesn't leave you on the side. You are part of the equation of love. And so if it doesn't feel good for you, then, like, that's not unconditional love. And so I. That is my pushback of. Of what you're saying is. Yes, but that's when you're like, you're not really loving, right? You're loving in the human sense. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Well, so something you said. See, if I understood you right. When I think of unconditional love coming from a person, usually I think of that meaning that they are loving the other person, you know, regardless of what they've done, what the consequences are. But I almost feel like you're also saying that there are no conditions on our self at the same time that we're loving unconditionally. Like, that's no conditions for ourself at the same time as there's no conditions for who it is that we're loving. And I think that's a really beautiful concept which I've never thought of until this moment. [00:31:04] Speaker A: And I would push it one step further of saying it's not that I love you regardless of what you've done. I see you perfect and whole. Your human is in fear and doing some stupid shit. I don't know if I can cuss on this podcast, but they just did. Yeah, some dumb. Doing some dumb beep. Right, like they're doing. They are, right. It's rough what you're watching. And I still know you're perfect and whole. And so I'm gonna love you from that space. Because when I love you from that space, you can feel it. And you can come to your own decision about how you want to change. Because when you look at this world, we are trying to angrily force people into change. If you could just do it. I love you anyways, but just do it right. And it's like love says, I love you, I love you. I love you in all, all of it. And you know what it feels like when someone says, I love you? I love not I love you, but I love you. You want to change because you start to see yourself differently. And I think that's the power of unconditional love. It's not. Regardless of it is, you are a perfect whole spirit having a very human experience. I love you. [00:32:21] Speaker B: What do you mean by perfect and whole? [00:32:24] Speaker A: So when I think about perfect and whole, that's a really good question. So thank you for asking it. When I use that. That terminology, I believe perfect whole means you understand that you are a piece of the Creator, so you're a child of God. I personally think God's pretty perfect. Like, probably the most. Right. Like under. When you look up definition of perfect, it's God. And so when I think of the fact that we are children of God, then we are whole and perfect because we're part of that creator. And so that's. That's what I mean. I don't mean that like as a human being, I'm being perfect. I mean as a spirit and what I really am, I'm a piece of that. So I can't not be. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Like we were created in the image of God, and we were created exactly the way that he wanted us to be. And we can. We can take comfort from that. Knowing that we are exactly the way that God intended us to be. It doesn't mean that we're living it out perfectly. In fact, it's probably quite the opposite. We're probably making mistakes, you know, on the daily or, you know, many a times per day. But the sort of. The intention is there. And, you know, God made us the way that he wanted us to be. [00:33:47] Speaker A: I mean, free will, if only. Sometimes I just wish I didn't have it, you know, but not really. But it's the free will piece. And what I was thinking about actually this morning was regardless of what we're doing, right? Like the contrast of love, right? The fear, the, like, judgment, the, like, feeling that contrast is actually really key to bringing us back to love because it reminds us. I don't want to feel this way. And like, I think it's a really interesting way. My language would be the Holy Spirit, right? That the Holy Spirit gets to bring you back. Because the Holy Spirit's the bridge between God and us. God's like, I don't get it. I don't get it. Everything's great, everything's good, right? And the Holy Spirit's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. They're having a human experience, man. Like, they don't quite. Like they don't quite get that. It's all gravy. And so that contrast and then the remembrance, that that contrast is just the refinement back. I Think is such a great gift, but it does take some time to appreciate it. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we could do a whole podcast on this next topic. But, you know, intentions and like, the. The power of intentions. What do you think about that? Because it's like, you know, whether it is setting out at the beginning of your day to accomplish something and being much more likely to accomplish that thing because you set out to accomplish it, or whether it is creating an intention in your mind. And then people ask you how you're doing, and you're like, well, I want you to go do this thing today. You know, and then all of a sudden, you've said it out loud and the universe is listening. But what do you think about sort of the power of intentionality? And specifically when you set out with. With love as your intention versus any other form of intention, I think love's. [00:36:03] Speaker A: The best intention out there. We, Myself included. Okay, so no judgment. We try to manhandle our days. We. We. We wanted to go specific way. And in our head, that's what. That's what we call flow, right? And flow is actually a requirement of. It is love. And so when you sit in love and you let, like, you put that out there, say, I want to look, I want to be love. I want to help people feel loved, right? Because as you give, you receive, et cetera, et cetera, then your day gets to float. The miracles get to come in. And that doesn't mean you don't do anything and you sit on a mat all day, unless that's what you want to do. It means that you, the universe, comes to your aid and says, oh, you want to love? Let me show you all the ways that you can do it. And I have found, because I have set the intention to love like I am knee deep in love. And I. What I mean by that is I spend. So I meditate for an hour every morning, which is kind of bananas, not when I say it out loud to people, but I don't expect that of anybody. I don't even know how long I do it, But I have a. My mentor gave me. His name is Mitch. I just think his name is so, so funny. Like, I have a spiritual mentor named. [00:37:21] Speaker B: Mitch, the Guru Mitch. [00:37:23] Speaker A: Guru Mitch. Yeah. He would never say, well, I'm so the guru, but. And he has a loving blessing, practice. And what that is is you send unconditional love out until you're done sending unconditional love out. And I open my heart, and I love things, like, on purpose for anywhere from 20, probably to 40 minutes. And it's a beautiful thing because what ends up happening in it is if I don't love something. And I'll give the example, like, sometimes, listen, I love a Christian, but sometimes those evangelicals, they, they do something to me as a recovering Catholic, okay, They'll come in, I'll be like, earth can't. And it'll. And it'll fall out. But what ends up happening is I bring it in every day. I say, I'm a love those suckers. And it becomes, I'm going to love my brother and sister, right? I'm going to love them. And I, And I do, right? Like, and so every day I practice this and I open it up and my heart becomes more and more and more open. And I really believe it allows me to show up in a way with so much less fear. It allows me to, like, laugh hysterically on a podcast, right? About, like, about a very quote, unquote serious topic. And so I, yeah, I think it's the most beautiful intention you can give in a day. [00:38:55] Speaker B: So it seems almost like a cliche, but do you think that what the world needs now is love, love, love? [00:39:05] Speaker A: And I want to blow out my trumpet. [00:39:11] Speaker B: I kind of do. I kind of do. [00:39:16] Speaker A: I definitely do. Like I was saying earlier, we. We want more inclusivity in this world, right? We want more equity, like equality. We want more equanimity. We want all of us. And what we're often trying to do is shove it down people's throats. And I, I'm a woman. I'm a person of color. Listen, I get it. And we can't, we can't fight hate with more hate. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:45] Speaker A: It's only love because love is what shifts perspective. Love is what shifts behavior. And that doesn't mean we roll over. That doesn't mean that love doesn't fight back. It doesn't mean any of that. But like, I think of Martin Luther King, I think of Gandhi, I think of Malcolm X on his, like, towards the latter years of his life. It, it looked different. But those also, but they also did really hard things. And so I do. I, I think more love is always the answer because fears created war, years created division, viewers created all of this. And I'm over it. You know, I'm over it. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Right on, Right on. Well, how can, how can people learn more about you where they can, where can they find your podcast? Where can they find you and connect with you? All that good stuff. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Thank you for asking. So modern day mysticism is the podcast. Come check it out. I'm on TikTok and Instagram @ ericabellard Underscore and if anyone wants a free guided meditation that really takes them in to like hear that divinity, feel that love, I have that too that I could offer folks if you want to share for free. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Awesome. Well thank you so much Erica. Absolutely loved this conversation and hope that we get to do another one sometime soon. [00:41:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. [00:41:11] Speaker B: You bet. Where to go from here? Visit whatsworthwhile.net to learn more about me Ramsey Zimmerman and please reach out to me and let me know what you think. I don't want this podcast to be some message in a bottle thrown out to sea. I want to hear back from you. Please send me a message or an email or hit me up on X, LinkedIn or Instagram and please leave a rating and review for the what's Worthwhile podcast on Apple, Spotify, Iheart or Amazon. [00:41:39] Speaker A: Thank you Sam.