I am writing this today because I want to create more love in the world and I need your help.
I want to live in a world where these are not the headlines;
1 billion children are living in poverty right now.
8,300 babies under one in England currently live in households where domestic violence, alcohol or drug dependency and severe mental illness are ALL present. 1 in 10 schoolchildren have a diagnosable mental health condition.
1 in 5 new mothers have post natal depression and suicide is the number one killer of new mothers in the first year of life.
There are 320,000 homeless people in Britain.
There are 24,202 deaths a year from alcohol consumption in the UK.
An estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year.
What is at the root of these problems?
Lack of love
Lack of trust
Lack of connection
Lack of empathy
So where does this all come from?
That is an easy question to answer
Ourselves.
Our lack of love, trust and connection to ourselves creates the ripple that we see in the world. Our lack of empathy for ourselves leads us to be self judging, not accepting of ourselves and not feeling enough. When we don’t love and embrace ourselves, that means we can’t authentically love, connect and trust others. When we don’t value and look after ourselves, we can’t fully look after others and our planet, which is now in danger.
Love is a choice we make. The absence of love is fear and fear causes us to not reach our full potential, to grow and to be open to trust. It leads to lack rather than abundance.
Now how do I know this?
Well let me tell you how I discovered that love creates love;
My childhood
In my childhood I was a free and easy child. I loved creating, making, drawing and dreaming. I loved to spend hours on my own doing what I loved and then sharing it with my mum. Nothing made me happier than creating something and sharing it. She loved to receive my pictures or crafty bits and I saw how creating and sharing is so powerful. We were connected in that moment. Now I see that whenever you create something with love, its always an act of co creation. You share and others receive from your creation.
My teenager years
These were not great times for me. I was bullied at school for being me or being different. I turned up at my school wanting to learn and quickly found out that was not cool. I was frightened to go to school, walk home and be in the playground at lunch. I was spat at, had my bag stolen, was called names and intimidated everyday. I was living in a complete state of fear that made me feel ill, stressed and out of control. One day I came to my desk and the words “GAYLE IS A DOG” had been scratched into the wood so I had to stare at the insult. It was too much and I broke down and told the teacher who stepped in to resolve it. The pain did not go away straight away but it got better BUT I learnt important lessons;
KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN. PLAY SMALL. DON’T DRAW ATTENTION TO YOURSELF. BE CAREFUL BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T REALLY LIKE YOU. TRY AND PLEASE PEOPLE AND FIT IN BECAUSE THEN PEOPLE WILL LIKE YOU.
These fear lessons took me from being a free and easy child to a self conscious teenager who avoided groups and preferred to just take the easy road, follow the “rules” to get on and avoid upsetting anyone. I fell out of love with myself as the version of me I loved as a child did not seem to be too popular and so I created a different version that fitted in. I still struggle with these fears everyday. I just try and silence them and choose love instead.
I did very well at school so when it came to deciding what to do I just took the easy road and followed everyone’s advice to study law at University despite having no interest in it and wanting to work in TV and film production. I was too scared to say what I wanted and so I chose what I “should” do and chose the fear of upsetting people over the love of what I wanted to do.
The Uni Years
I loved university as I had alot of fun but did very little work! I had an amazing memory so I was able to cram for my law exams every summer and still get a 2.1 honours degree. I was offered a job at a top law firm in London who were paying for my law school. I should have been excited but I wasn’t and I felt pulled along with duty to my family, gratitude for the opportunity and fear of what the hell I would do if I changed career now.
Work
As expected I did not connect with law! I was doing really well at my firm and had been offered a great job on qualification but I felt like a fake in my role. I did not like what I was doing. I felt inauthentic and disconnected to the people and the practice. I experienced bullying and prejudice but was too scared to speak out again. I started to feel like I was trapped and was very unhappy. I was too scared to walk away because of the time it had taken me to become a lawyer, my salary and I did not want to let my family and friends down. I chose fear over love again.
The start of the magic
I went to South America on qualification as a lawyer on a short sabbatical and got the space I needed to reflect on my life. I realised I was very unhappy and I had to do something about it but I had no idea what. It all seemed impossible. In desperation, I went off on my own one day and truly asked the universe, or God or whatever you might think is greater than us, “Please help me and show me what I am supposed to do” This is a story for another time but in essence I found myself unexpectedly pregnant within 3 weeks! I asked for a sign and I got one!
Falling in love all over again
As soon as I was pregnant I started to fall in love. With myself, with life and with the life I was creating. I felt energised and in flow despite having never held a baby in my life. I could not wait to meet my baby and on 4 July 2001 my whole life changed forever and I found my true purpose on the planet as a mother. I instantly fell in love with myself as a mother and my daughter Emily. I found it tiring in the early days but I had never felt so connected and loved in all my life. My beautiful gift of a baby. I realised at that moment I was my daughter’s teacher and guide. She was watching me to learn about the world and if I was not being authentic we would never truly connect. I had never loved someone as much as I loved Emily and in that unconditional love and my awareness of the power of love to nurture another and create love, I completely reinvented myself. I was going to teach her that the world is a safe place to be yourself in whatever way you want to express yourself, to be free and to create whatever you want. I have a child, I became childlike again and I loved everyday. Love in itself is an act of creation and I felt in flow.
This is Emily and I two years ago in Sri Lanka. She is my love activator!
Creating more love
I had my two boys in 3 and half years of having Emily and I loved everyday of those early experiences in a little love bubble I created for my family. I wanted all parents to have this experience and to know how important they are in changing the world by nurturing the future and so I left my job as a lawyer and trained to teach baby massage and yoga and share the importance of love and connection for parents and babies. I realised this is how I could make a difference in the world. When I supported parents in my classes so they felt loved and nurtured, they could then love and nurture their babies more which meant babies grew with love and more love was going into the world and the future. It was simple but felt so powerful to me. I made it my mission to teach love through my training and network of teachers across the world.
My business has grown and grown and I now have over 1000 teachers across the world helping to teach love to hundreds of parents and babies. My vision is that each parent knows they are loved, supported and nurtured from our classes and understands and teaches the power of love to their babies through nurturing touch. Touch is the most powerful way to communicate love and connection. As humans we need it more than anything. A lack of connection is more harmful than smoking and obesity to your health. Our classes provide the foundations for mental health-connection, belonging, acceptance, validation, empathy and resilience. Parents are babies first teachers and so we must invest in them to invest in a more compassionate and peaceful society for us all. This is the foundation of love creates love. As part of my training all my teachers receive a free course in Love creates love to hold voluntary groups for parents once a month to hold space for them and to be nurtured. It’s an amazing way to connect with parents in the community and create more love.
The test
When my husband was 39 he had a near fatal stroke that devastated us.It was completely out of the blue. He should have died but through luck he made it and with minimal brain damage. I have to admit to being the most scared I have been in my life as I prepared for the worst at the hospital. When I knew he had pulled through, I was sad, angry, bewildered by what had happened. Why us? In the months afterwards I realised that this had been a test. It would have been easy for us to live in fear of permanent brain damage, of a repeat stroke and death but we chose to surrender to the fact that it was all out of our control. We could do nothing and no amount of fear, stress or worry was an insurance policy against anything happening or not happening in life. It seemed a hard lesson but it released us both from the fear of the unknown. It made me in particular, appreciate the value of life, of the smallest things and of the need to use the time you have here to the best of your ability. There are no excuses to not live your best life and live your true purpose.
Creating a love legacy.
Blossom & Berry was continuing to grow and when I was 40 I decided to wanted to give back into the world all the love I had received. I wanted to find an orphanage to give free teacher training so that the most vulnerable babies got the love they needed to grow. I knew all about the detrimental effects of a lack of love in babies’ lives and how it affects a child’s health, educational achievement and even economic potential. I searched high and low for an orphanage to help and then one day at a festival I discovered Love Specs which are magical sunglasses that turn all lights to love hearts and literally turn the world into love. When I got home from the festival I googled Love Specs to buy some more and found out that they raised money for a charity called Love Support Unite. I contacted them and found out they had contacts with an orphanage in Malawi and they could help me set up my project. Before I knew it I was on a plane to Malawi and meeting Nina and Alice (the founders) in the airport. Apart from my children being born, this was the most profound day of my life as when I met Nina and Alice and discovered their work in Malawi.I felt the most amount of love and grace for them in the world. I knew that I would support them in their projects in Malawi in providing sustainable education, food security and supporting their own orphanage for girls. Together we set up my voluntary mother and baby health initiative project reaching women in the poorest community with health and education. We have served over 2000 women. I took on the role of fundraising for Love Support Unite and became the UK Director. This was hard work but an incredible honor. The mother and baby project has been such as success I am now taking this project to Botswana and Ghana with free training for orphanage and community staff.
The future
My vision is to share my charity training with more organisations across the world to make a difference at a grass roots level to parents and babies and to have more teachers at Blossom & Berry teaching love. So many people are being impacted by the power of nurturing touch and connection. I can see it. I can feel it and I know it makes a difference. Love creates love.
It all started with my connection to love and the gifts of love I received. I never forget how lucky I am to have been given these. It has changed my life and ultimately the lives of so many.
So let’s do this…
So do you want to create some love right here now as you are reading this and change the world from wherever you are.
1. Write down one thing that you love about yourself. I want you to right down I AM….Tell yourself this everyday.
2. Turn to the person next to you and tell them something you love about them or send a text message to someone that you love or needs your love
3. Notice and appreciate where love is all around you and you have added to this process. How you feel inside from creating love. I want you send love to everyone and to anyone who needs love in the world. Sprinkle it everywhere like glitter or blossom or snowflakes. And now let yourself receive love. Open your heart. Breathe it all in. Surrender. Release. Let go.
Feel good?
It feels good because when you create love, you feel love too. That’s the love loop. The give and receive. The power and energy of creation and of love. And you can choose this love everyday. So breathe it all in. This connection. This moment of love creation.
Right now, we have created love and just changed the world.
It’s that easy to do. No excuses. No fear. Just stepping up into love and trusting that it will always be there.
So go out in the world and love more. It’s not about grand gestures. Listen to music you love. Wear the clothes that make you feel amazing. Nourish your body with foods you love. Appreciate everything. Stroke cats and dogs. Smile at more people. Hug people when you meet them. Look deep into your children’s eyes with unconditional love that will nurture their soul. Tell people you love them. Be kind always.
Love more and then love more. Share your love. Be generous with your love. Sprinkle it everywhere. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Smother love all over your fear. Make love BIG and BOLD and BEAUTIFUL.
We create the world we live in through our thoughts and actions. I invite you all to create more love.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”-Gandhi
Much love
Gayle
PS If you would like to learn more about love creates love, you can watch my talk at Limutless Live 2018