To have a loving experience is to stay connected to only what's happing in the present moment.

More and more I’m seeing that as I set my intention on creating love, all I’m experiencing is love. And to have that experience continuously, I have to continually place my awareness in my heart. By focusing on my heart in every moment, I stay connected to only what’s happening in the present moment.

But just staying in the heart and opening seems really, really scary. My mind races to give form to the direction my life is taking. In the present moment of staying in the heart, there is no form, only content, which is love.

I often think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Her wish to have a great adventure and leave the doldrums of home, took her on a grand adventure into unknown territory. And Dorothy’s only desire was to return home. The path home was scary, but along the way she met friends and companions that helped her. When she finally overcame all the obstacles to fulfilling her quest to return home, she was told that the ability to return home was within her all along. In effect, she never left home. All that happened was that she had been dreaming.

This life is a dream of our own making. It weaves itself out like a great web. And the only time the way is really clear is when we’re focused. To focus only on an experience of loving is to take back control of the quality of experience.

Rachel Naomi Remen talks about how a life that is fraught with challenges can still be a good life. Dr. Remen, who has lived with Crohn’s Disease and has had most of her colon removed, has lived a very good life helping cancer patients cope with the process of their disease.

Real happiness lies in not defining what happiness is, but just being and letting life unfold through us. This is also my definition of love: the moment by moment allowing life to unfold through us while we just keep breathing. The mind rushes in to give meaning to the experience. The heart stays open and connected to unblocking any judgment so that whatever is happening in the moment can be experienced with total clarity.

Relationships are the laboratory where the moment by moment decision to love or to judge plays out. Judgment is defining a situation as good or bad according to past experiences. Love is not even trying to define anything; it’s just feeling whatever is present in the current moment.

Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon tells a student, “Don’t think. Feeeeeel.” And as anyone who has ever seen a Bruce Lee movie, his movements were balletic, in other words, he fought with the fluidity of a ballet dancer.

The practice of feeling, which is staying in the heart moment by moment leads to being able to avoid the mistakes of the past. Pangs of discomfort become harder to ignore: the idea that “I’ve made this choice before and I don’t have to make it again,” becomes more apparent. This decision encompasses everything from not eating a second or third chocolate chip cookie to not falling into the arms of some stranger who says you’re beautiful.

My old friend Ellie Gallagher used to say that if something didn’t feel comfortable to her, she wouldn’t do it. She used comfort as her signal for when she was in a state of love. Another word for a state of love is integrity – meaning that all levels, body, mind, feelings and soul are aligned.

Focusing on just being loving in the moment brings an experience of richness and depth that is life sustaining. It offers certainty because it elevates the dream to the experience of living heaven on earth.

Dr. Sorah Dubitsky, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, teacher and healer. She conducts workshops and seminars on love, marriage, sexuality and spirituality. She also offers individual and couples counseling. She is also a fellow at Florida International University’s Center for the Study of Spirituality. Her book, A Chorus of Wisdom is available at Amazon.com and all major online and retail book outlets. Visit her website. Send an email to dr.sorah@drsorah.com. © copyright 2008 by Dr. Sorah Dubitsky. Your can also listen to Dr. Sorah’s podcast of her Course in Miracles lectures