What is Love?

Hey guys! I hope that you're very well indeed!

So today, I got drawn into watching even more Soul Pancake videos, particularly this one entitled 'What is Love?' which I absolutely loved. What I love about this kind of video by Soul Pancake is that they don't ever script their videos, or that's the impression you get, but they ask people of many races and cultures and ages and genders and it makes all the difference. It makes it feel so authentic and if you get the time, I would highly recommend you watch the video!
What is Love?

For today though, I'd like to explore some of the answers that the people gave in the video when asked the question 'What is Love?'

When watching the video, the one that stood out for me as the one I resonated the most with was

'I've been married 55 years and our main job is to look after each other and see to it that we are our best selves, so to speak.... To me, that's love!'

This really spoke to me and what I believe in because like what some of the other people said, love is also about accepting the other person for who they are, it's a two way street, it's about doing things that you wouldn't normally do because you want the other person to be happy. But it's not just about accepting another person, for me it's what the man said, it's all about helping each other up and being a mirror for the other person to show them their beauty and their flaws but to help them improve and become even better.

A man even gave a definition where he said; 'The condition or the state where the happiness of another is essential to one's own'  and that too spoke to me.

Quite often, we, like the people in the video talk about love and loving other people but we don't always explore what that means for us. We don't talk about what it means if we truly love someone and how that affects how we act and how we feel. We don't always realise the meaning behind our words and the weight of the concepts of which we speak. It's not something easy to do but with reflection, we can achieve so much more.

On a final note, another idea I loved from this video was, if you consider anyone like you're family, like your own flesh and blood and as close to you as that, that's love. In many ways I love this because it means accepting someone as like you and as part of you and your story and your world. You can't choose your family but in this sense, you can. You can choose who makes up the fabric of your world and who you would stretch yourself for to make sure that they're happy. You have that choice.

I hope that you guys find this video as inspiring and thought provoking as I have! It's less than five minutes long, I'd definitely encourage you to watch it!

Have a wonderful time doing what you're doing and I'll speak to you very soon indeed!

The Book of Life - Loved it

Hey guys! I hope that you're all well!

So today, on a friend's recommendation, I watched The Book of Life and it was incredibly beautiful for a number of reasons. Before I begin, here's the synopsis of the film to give it some context :)

'Manolo, a young man who is torn between fulfilling the expectations of his family and following his heart, embarks on an adventure that spans three fantastic worlds where he must face his greatest fears.'

From here on, I'm going to tell you what I loved about this film and I will warn you from here that there are spoilers - I tried to signpost them all but it got a little ridiculous so I'll just warn you from now - SPOILERS AHEAD! :)

The first thing I loved was the fact that Manolo, the main character, follows what he wants to do fully. When it comes down to it, he follows what he believes to be right and doesn't use brute force and doesn't kill the bull though that's what his family has traditionally done for generations. He also finds out that no-one before him in his family has followed their passion for singing but went on to become bull fighters as all of their family were. The fact that he follows his passion and does the right thing ignites the spark in his own family and in his best friend, Joaquin to be selfless and honest is what I love. He uses his own strengths in both singing and in bullfighting to do what he feels he should do and to win because he is right and not because he's somehow cheating.

This theme is also explored because both Joaquin and Manolo are in love with Maria and the three of them make up what is very similar to the Three Musketeers. Both Joaquin and Manolo try and impress Maria but what I love about Manolo and why I think he does end up with Maria is because he takes her as she is and enhances her independence in comparison to Joaquin. She loves to fence, is also very good at kung fu and also spurs the town of San Angel where they all live, to stand up and defend the town they love so much. Manolo dances with her to defeat the evil pirate guy who wants to destroy their town and in doing so, they both fight him together. Joaquin when trying to impress Maria, accidentally falls into the trap of telling her that she should be someone who's the stereotypical housewife - evidently not a role that fits for her.

What I did love about how Joaquin grows as a character is the fact that at the end, Manolo goes into the town's largest ringing bell which had fallen from its place and which covers himself and the evil pirate as the evil pirate detonates many bombs all at once. Manolo in fact, survives because he was given a special green medal that the evil pirate wanted from Joaquin which grants the wearer the ability to not be hurt by anything and therefore everlasting life. This therefore means that in doing the selfless act, he survives but what we also find out is that Joaquin was going to go in too and that he was willing to sacrifice himself without the medal for the good of the town.

Manolo with his honesty and bravery was able to light the spark in Joaquin to encourage him to be brave ('never surrender!') and to do the right thing, even if meant danger for him. I think that's what I really loved about this film.

If you guys do get the time, I would highly recommend watching it! It's also immensely humourous and I'm sure that you'll enjoy it :D

I hope you all have a wonderful time doing what you're doing and I'll speak to you very soon indeed!

The Serenity Prayer

Hey guys! I hope that you're well!

This post was inspired by this lovely little youtuber here whose video about Giving Up Power has inspired this post, in part :)

In this video, Liz talks about what is known as The Serenity Prayer which at a glance, I thought I'd never heard of but I'm sure we all have at some point in our lives:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

What Liz talks about in her video is the fact that all of the things mentioned take courage.

You always need courage to be able to accept that some battles, no matter how fiercely you want to win them, that you have to back down and just them be the way they are. I think that this is immensely important because you can come to so much peace within your life when you stop trying to go against the current, which I believe is a topic I've discussed before. 

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between battles worth fighting and battles that don't need to happen and where surrender is the best course of action but having the courage to look within yourself and without to search for the truth, no matter how hard it is to accept which in my current life situation, is definitely advice I need to take myself.

For me, distinguishing between circumstances around me that I believe are good for me and that don't need to change as well as recognising factors that are influencing my life more than I might expect is pretty hard. Life is never really black or white but what I'm learning in the most clumsy way possible, is that you've got to try and get the best that you can out of the life that you have and of the cards that you're dealt.

To everyone, you're a human being. That pretty much entails being flawed. 

Immensely so.

So don't be so hard on yourself, it's hard to know when to do things and when not to but just so long as you're ready to accept the consequences of your actions and you know that you've settled it within yourself, don't worry. 

And if you're not doing what you know to be right, maybe think again because you may not have the chance to put it right if you leave it much longer.

I hope that you guys enjoyed this post! Have a most wonderful time doing what you're doing and I hope to speak to you very soon indeed!

p.s. I'm sorry about the dodgy formatting, copying and pasting here doesn't work out too well :(