The March issue of Stories of the Afterlife is dedicated to Peggy Newton, wife of our founder Michael Newton. Peggy left us at the end of January and is now home with Michael, and all of us who were honored to know her are feeling the void with her passing. Pete Smith has given us a beautiful tribute to Peggy which I encourage you to read. I know she would not want us to fuss over her or bring attention to her, yet she deserves our love and our thanks for the person she was, the soul she still is, and the incredible value that she has brought to the world during her lifetime.
Thank you, Peggy.

LOVE IS ALL AROUND US

Love matters to everyone, or so says Alan Storkey in his 1994 book The Meanings of Love. (p.7) And while there can be debate on what it is or how it manifests, there appears to be a universal appreciation for the fact that it matters. It is one of the primary reasons people engage in therapy – to find love. This could be relationship with others or more fundamentally, relationship with themselves.

As we engage in consideration of life as being more than the passing of a single lifetime, we then start to seek meaning in what love and lack of it means from a larger dimension. Such questions as how could there be evil in the world if God is love or did my soulmate incarnate with me come from this longer-view perspective. Humans and the human ego attempt to resolve disconnects that we do not understand, because perhaps through having an explanation we believe we can gain some peace with a situation that appears unresolvable.

The plague of many relationships is the inability to behave through self-love, whether this is at the beginning, middle or end of the relationship. If one is unable to feel worthy of love, or accept and receive the love of another, then perhaps the issue is not with no love in one’s life but more from an inability to feel and receive love as it is given.

These issues are not simple ones even if they can be put into some semblance of language. What we feel and do not feel is ingrained in us through a variety of interactions throughout our lives as well as through cultural, genetic, hereditary and soul connections and lessons. So when a client comes to a session seeking love or relationships that work, there is usually much more to it than a simple answer or simple questions. There is a complex web of knowing that emerges from doing this deep work.

The stories in this issue relate to love and the desire to find it or have it in more meaningful ways in clients’ lives. The pandemic has intensified the physical isolation in which we are currently living, and for those who embody loneliness this question becomes an existential one. And when our clients are prepared to open up to the love of being Home in connection with Universal Love, they have the potential of absorbing tremendous understanding that can be life-changing. ♥

Storkey, A. (2004). The meanings of love. https://www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/Storkey/meaningslove.pdf accessed March 8,2021

Diana Paque, Stories of the Afterlife Acting Editor in Chief , Executive Director for the Michael Newton Institute