Intro/Outro: 0:13

Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an illuminating space where psychology, spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright. Author, psychologist and spiritual educator.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 0:34

Aloha everybody. This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright. Welcome to your Heart Magic. Today we are talking about the concept of love letters to the universe and living our life in such a way that the act of living becomes a love letter to the universe, and putting good energy and gratitude and offering the best of myself from a wholehearted place into the universe as an act of purpose. Right now. It's really intriguing to me and it's something that I'm finding. I am writing about a lot and I've have been using that language and pulling it into poetry and pulling it into some of my essays and prose pieces and finding a sense of purpose and affirmation in this idea. And that's not a new concept for me, but it is a slightly different way of thinking about it and a slightly different way of working with this idea of my life as an offering, our life as an offering and the intention of who we are and how we choose to move our energy as an offering of love to the world. And the other thing that inspired this is lately, in this new year, I have been just letting my heart inform what I share on these podcasts and really asking myself and asking my heart what lights me up to share today what message feels like it wants to be shared, and I spent a lot of time in January talking about the idea of purpose and gratitude and being a light and moving our energy as a light in this world, and so this feels like an extension of that and an extension of taking those ideas we've been talking about and continuing to build a foundation and build a vocabulary for how we might think about how we can make an impact right now, changing nothing except our intention and our energy, simply by being who we are, and I find that really powerful right now.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 2:57

It's not an easy time for the world. We are all pretty aware of that. No matter where you live in the world and no matter what your vantage point is, most of us have an awareness that there's a lot shifting in humanity at this time. There's a lot shifting on the planet. There is a lot shifting in terms of the spiritual evolution and humanity's karma and some of the things that are happening on a surface level and what we're seeing in the events around us. There's a lot of challenges and I also think that right now, life feels like it's moving really fast for a lot of people and that a lot of stress and challenges have come up.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 3:38

I know 2024 was a really hard year for a lot of people and I think that as we moved into 2025, there's been a little bit of a sense of buckle up, but also some renewed hope of all right, well, new year, fresh start. Let's see what this year has to bring, and I think we're looking for hope right now, and I think it's really easy to feel out of balance and out of harmony in our world at this time, because the world itself is out of balance and out of harmony, and so when we are trying to find our center and we are in an environment that is continually shifting and changing and asking us to adapt and asking us to recenter and respond to what's going on around us and to find that space of equilibrium inside of ourselves, it becomes very challenging to stay anchored and to stay grounded and to find things that we can compass ourself into so we have a steady heartbeat to come back to and check in with ourselves and take a breath and find some inner peace. So I'm a big believer in building a foundation inside of ourselves and I think about this in terms of if we were a tree or a garden and we were trying to grow something beautiful and grow up towards the sky and reach out and dream and aspire and all of those things. Then we want that strong foundation to plant ourselves in. We want that nice, solid structure, just like if there was four corners of a house and this foundation of a home or a building that was being built, you would want to make sure that each of those was really firm and really well contained. And so our structure and our foundation is composed of a lot of things, but one of the essential ones is having something to come back to, having things that always hold true for us, no matter what is going on in the world around us, and so it's really powerful when we start to feel helpless or hopeless or thinking like, what is it all about?

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 5:44

And oftentimes, on our personal journey, part of our soul growth is to have our values tested and our beliefs tested, and it is to stretch and grow and have our thought life and how we think about things expanded. So something that's always been helpful for me throughout the years is to be able to say well, what still holds true, what values do I have, what spiritual values do I have that still hold true for me and how might I use those right now to feel anchored in. And so something that has consistently held true for me throughout the years is believing in the idea that, as a participant in this beautiful world, this enormous universe, right now, that I belong here, that I am here at this point in time, and that just the act of being, the miracle of life and the magic of life, is something that helps me stay anchored to my belonging. And the idea of belonging is one that we can really have a fun time diving into when we start to ask ourselves questions like what do I belong to? Who do I belong to? How do I belong to myself? How might I belong to where I live, or the land around me, or nature, or my relationship with spirit, or my relationship with spirit, or my sense of purpose. There's many things that constitute a sense of belonging, but I love the simple wisdom that, as a co-participant in this universe, you belong here, I belong here.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 7:19

We might be one drop in a vast, vast galactic ocean, but we are still a drop, and it's an essential drop. If you removed all the drops, we wouldn't have an ocean, and so I've often thought that there's so much that is bigger than me that I can't change. But I can change my energy, I can change what I'm bringing to the spaces I occupy and I can realize that the universe needs love too, just as much as we ask for good things and blessings and everything in our life. That flowing external energy of giving gratitude and just giving a little bit of love to the energy and the world and the universe around us, to nature, to the things that we feel connected to world and the universe around us, to nature, to the things that we feel connected to it's a very powerful concept. So I love thinking of the idea of life as a love letter to the universe and I'm going to read a passage from Small Pearls, big Wisdom that speaks a little bit to this concept and then talk a little further on a few ideas on how we can take this principle and apply it to our lives. This particular passage is called Mosaic Don't ever be sorry for putting your whole heart into something, the best of your heart, regardless of the results, and the growth that comes from going all out far surpasses our perceived sense of success or failure.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 8:48

You will learn so much about your passions, hopes, desires, dreams and what you are made of in your wholehearted process, that you will have found a greater gift your truth. This gift will continue to carry you and inspire you on your journey. Instead of living half-heartedly in an inauthentic world, you will live wholeheartedly and create your authentic world. When we engage wholeheartedly, we begin to see the gifts in all things. If the outcome of something doesn't seemingly work out, it doesn't mean it's because we failed or made a mistake or life is out to get us, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't have opened our heart so deep and tried. It's just a learning lesson, a new soul expression, a chance to grow. It's a new experience to add to our collection of humanity, divinity and being. It's an opportunity to take the love we poured into something or somebody else and pour it back into ourselves in spades. Every experience is valid. Every part of you is real and good and true. When you are going through life with that big, beautiful love light wide open, then, no matter what happens, you can know you have now become a masterpiece of art. Matter what happens, you can know you have now become a masterpiece of art. Your very life is a living mosaic of soul and heart.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 10:19

I once wrote something along the lines of if this world doesn't work for you, then you have to rework your world, and I think that is what a lot of us are doing right now, as we figure out how do we live in a way that is more peaceful and easeful and find grace and impact and light and joy, all while navigating the energies of life and being on the planet at this time. And I think it's so easy to let the world inform who we are and to take this pre-prescribed idea of this is what it's supposed to look like, and to have these expectations and beliefs around. What gives us meaning or purpose, what's a success, what's a failure? You know I love challenging those if you listen to this podcast regularly and this idea of reworking our world to make it work for us, reworking and finding new ways of thinking about what brings us purpose, what's a success, what's a failure. I love the idea that when we are living wholeheartedly and we are putting our heart out there, no matter what happens, we can feel in alignment and inner integrity that we gave the best of our heart to something. If we feel called to give the best of our heart and so there is no failure, that intention is so much more powerful than the actual product.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 11:47

And I think sometimes something that's a struggle for many of us is that comparison wound that I've been talking about the last few episodes. It is trying to measure how we think we're doing based on product, or what we're yielding or what the results are, and there's some value in that and that's very contingent on circumstance and what it is. But there's an overemphasis on that in our culture that's really focused on optimization and maximizing everything and you only live once, so you better do it all. And I think a more gracious way of being is to realize that, yes, we only live once and no matter what we're doing on a day-to-day basis, we can still offer our life with joy and gratitude. We can make the most of a day, not necessarily by optimizing and maximizing everything, but just the simple act of living and the art of living and the art of being human and putting our heart into the things that we do.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 12:52

And I especially love this approach for those in between times in life when we feel like we are in a season of contraction or a season of resting before we feel called to move. Maybe we're in an in between time, maybe we've had a setback, maybe we are in a lull in life. There's so many different stops on the human journey that we experience. We can't always be standing on the mountaintop, and so I love the idea of just the simple act of life and living and offering that as a love letter to the universe. And that can be as simple as being mindful of our energy.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 13:30

It can be as simple as doing something really mundane like cleaning the kitchen or something that is not necessarily super juicy or exciting unless you really really love to clean and that lights you up. It does not light me up, but it is something that needs to be done. And doing it because it could just be a simple offering of saying you know what? I'm so grateful I have a kitchen, I am so grateful to have a space and I want to take good care of it and I want to have a sense of like, loving on this home that holds me and making that my offering right now. And that small shift right there just brought an intention to it that completely changed the energy, as opposed to feeling really stuck in that cycle of mindlessly doing it. It could be something as simple as after a normal day, just taking a little bit of time to say what gratitude can I give today? How can I look at my day and find appreciation? It could be approaching something and bringing your best to it as an act of love and an act of honoring your life and saying thank you for your life.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 14:45

There's so many ways to play with this concept and to make it your own and to think about. Well, what does it mean for you to make your life a love letter to the universe? How does that apply to you? How might that shift how you approach things on a day-to-day basis? How might it shift your sense of purpose? If you thought about the idea of making an impact simply through your conscious intention and how you intend to move your energy and putting your heart into something, putting gratitude into something, putting joy into something, simply because you can, how does it feel when you acknowledge your interconnection and you think that, yes, you're a drop in the ocean, but you are a drop and you are here and you can add good things into that ecosystem? You can add good energy, good quantum particles, good cosmic juju out into the world around you, simply by living wholeheartedly and doing things from the heart and doing them with love.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 15:52

This is not about perfection. It's not about you having to do this every single day and beating yourself up or feeling bad if you missed an opportunity to engage with something wholeheartedly. Part of the human journey is that we have the gray days. We have days sometimes that feel a little bit mindless or we recognize that we weren't our best self. There's always something to be learned from that as well. We can always redeem a gray day and, in reflection, write a little bit of gratitude about that day or think about what we learned in that day, or maybe just say you know what? I choose to let that day go and I'm starting over tomorrow. We can always constructively work with where we're at.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 16:40

So this isn't about having to do this perfectly, but it is about taking this idea and seeding it in our soil of self and allowing this idea of our life as a love letter to the universe. Universe, because we are part of this beautiful, sentient, intelligent, evolving space and, as a co-participant in that space, we get a say about what it becomes. And so it's about taking that idea and seeding it in our soil and seeing how it starts to grow and yield something different in our life. It is about seeing that mosaic of self, that making our life this mosaic of wholehearted living and experiences that we do from the heart. That allows us to shift the narrative and to rewrite the story, to re-script the story about what this life is about and rewrite it in a way that works for us. So I love the idea of taking this as a journaling prompt and just taking a little bit of time and maybe writing out what love letter am I writing to the universe right now through my life? And if you feel like you're not doing a good job, then just rewrite your narrative.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 18:00

If you feel like there's something that you want to change or shift or an area that you don't really like right now or that you're struggling with, see how you can reframe that, see how you can play with it, see how you can look at that from a different vantage point and see that all experiences are valid, they all hold value. So how does that have value right now? How could you see yourself through a lens of forgiveness or a lens of growth or a lens of offering, struggling that you've done on behalf of others who maybe are feeling the same thing, and transmute and transform some of that energy. Just rewrite how you see it. Think about shifting the perspective on that. There's always a way to look at something from a different framework and to see it differently, and I've always loved the idea that when we sit down and write about who we wish to become in this world, that we can write down well, how do we want to evolve our story? How are we writing a love letter to the universe right now? And if we feel like we want to grow that idea, what would you change in order to write a different kind of a love letter? How do you want to see yourself three months from now, six months from now? Play with that concept, see what comes through, write it down in your journal and let it be a mantra and a guidepost right now.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 19:25

I'm going to wrap this up today with one more passage from Small Pearls, big Wisdom. The book is just open to it. It's the one on the corresponding page to the passage I just read, and I wasn't planning on sharing it, but it just feels like a lovely way to encompass all the ideas we've been talking about and to bring this back to the heart today. This is called Let your Smile Be your Guide. Let your smile be your guide today. Find the things that tug its corners up and focus on them. Notice what makes you laugh, even if it's just finding the absurd humor in yourself and this corkscrew process of life.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright: 20:08

Set a goal this week that your biggest goal is to find greater grace and acceptance for yourself. Then notice how that supports you in finding grace and acceptance for others. Remember a perspective shift is always found by looking at something from a different angle. Mentally, list three things you appreciate. Then see if you can add to that list throughout the day. If the day tilts downwards and it's hard to find the good place, your hand on your heart and breathe in something bigger than yourself. Remember you are so much more than the sum of a day. Ask the stars to send you a smile. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode today. I will be back next week with another your Heart Magic episode on psychology, spirituality and heart wisdom. In the meantime, have a beautiful week, happy February to everybody and, as always, be well, be well, be love, be you and be magic.

Intro/Outro: 21:21

You've been listening to your heart. Magic with Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright. Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your light.