Every heart to love will come but like a refugee. – Leonard Cohen
The majority of hands I analyze can be categorized into the School of Love. There are four schools in hand analysis: Love, Service, Wisdom, and Peace. We’re all associated with at least one, although some of us are here for two. (I’m here for two schools: Love and Service = Loving Service.) Think of the school as the department – within a university – we’ve chosen to attend: it has a general quality of learning that focuses on a particular area of interest. Our purpose would be our major and the life lesson(s) could be considered the prerequisites required to fulfill the major. While matriculation at university has a limited time span, we’re actually committed to our school(s), purpose, and lesson(s) for the entire duration of our lives, so these areas are in a state of constant refinement.
Has love been a lesson?
For those who signed up for the School of Love, we’re here to learn how to be fully present to all our feelings, so we cultivate the willingness and ability to feel and share feelings authentically and appropriately. This means most of us will face hardships around our feelings, so we build emotional intelligence. How do we know what love is? Only by experiencing its contrary consistently enough, to recognize all the ways love can be absent. Some of us will even learn through subtle and nuanced circumstances where love is conditional and subsequently, must be bargained for by proving our worth. (For the record, we’re all worthy as our birthright, so anyone who expects us to prove our worthiness of love hasn’t opened their heart enough to hold us.)
Experience has taught me that those who sign up to the School of Love, do so because we’re here to deepen our expression of unconditional love, rather than learning love for the first time. Within each student of this school, is a tender heart already carrying the capacity for kindness, empathy, and intimate connection, but we must learn to navigate a world that isn’t quite ready for unconditional love to the extent we’re ready to share it, including with ourselves.
Students of this school will struggle through some of the same shadow aspects.
Tender hearts can experience feelings as out of control or repressed. The shadow will be a people-pleaser who is overly accommodating or the heroically stoic who withdraws and withholds, or a combination of both depending on circumstance. However the shadow side takes shape, the outcome is always to build our capacity to identify, express, and release emotions in healthy ways. This is a practice that should be undertaken first and foremost as self-care, and then deepened through discernment with others. Although, it’s usually through years of emotional hardships, that tender hearts learn to turn our attention on the shadow aspects that need integration, so we can take care of ourselves and begin to lead by example.
Enter the Love Master.
The Love Master didn’t just choose the School of Love, they’ve also chosen love as their purpose. These people are deeply invested in love in all its manifestations: given and received. Meaning, they’re here to follow their hearts in all things and to illuminate this choice for others, as a shining example. If you’re familiar with the five love languages: service, touch, words of affirmation, quality time, and gifts, then you can expect that a Love Master is working towards mastery in all five languages. This is love exemplified!
I’m lucky enough to count my best friend as a Love Master. The quality of love is so thorough, that I’m always in a bit of awe around how much she offers. It’s a beautiful, touching thing to witness and be on the receiving end of; it makes me strive to fulfill my investment in the School of Love to the same extent. Once I recognized how thoroughly she expressed every love language, I started to see how essential self-care and reciprocity becomes. Love Masters can wear themselves down to depletion, all the while taking scraps from others. The Love Master won’t compromise how they love, so their task is to find those who can love with the same measure of awareness and presence. I’ve seen a few Love Masters in my practice. I always want to wrap my arms around them in gratitude for how capable their love can be, but also all the ways they’ve likely been undervalued.
To all the lovers out there, I know how hard it can be to keep your heart open and receptive when life tramples on your tenderness and teaches you to expect the worst. Those with the School of Love are more resilient than we give ourselves credit for, but we must also learn to be discerning: what’s authentic and appropriate will always fulfill our commitment to love, even when we’re the only ones showing up . . . most especially when we’re the only ones showing up, because by example is how we create the new paradigm of the heart. ❤️
Would you like to know your life school definitively?
You can book a mini or full hand analysis reading below. 🙌🏻 😘
On The Sharon Fitzmaurice Podcast, Sharon and I had a deep conversation about the journey of my life. Sharon offers probing questions that get to the heart of vulnerability. You can watch our chat here on Substack:
Or listen here (or where you usually listen to your podcasts):
On the How to Witch, Bitch! podcast, I had a fun radio talk show kind of conversation with Michelle and Moyra about my work. These two humorously riff of each other, while offering glimpses of the esoteric and occult. You can watch our chat here:
Or listen here (or on your usual platform, of course):
It’s my purpose and joy to help you align with your purpose and joy! 💫 I hope you’re all thriving this week. We’ve just had a miserable heat wave here in the UK, which reminds me how spoiled I was when I had air conditioning. 🥵 What remarkable times we live in; truly stretching our capacities in unprecedented ways. Keep your hearts open and your spirits light!
With love from my whole being,
Lisa 💋❤️
P.S. Let’s Gooooooo Knicks!!! 🏀🎉🌟 (I was thrilled to hear from my fellow basketball fans last week!) The longer the Spurs and Thunder battle it out, the better rested my home team gets. NYC loves a local reason to unite and the Knicks making it to the finals for the first time since 1999, is inciting serious basketball fever . . . I wish I was there! 💙🧡
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