The Love Light Philosophy
The Love Light Philosophy is the overarching philosophy which everything this group does operates from. The Love Light Philosophy is a different, non-traditional way of looking at this life and what it means to be successful within it. At the core of the Love Light Philosophy is unconditional love and service towards all beings. The belief holds that one of the key ways to find true purpose and beauty within this life is through providing unconditional love and service to others. This thought process is not only supported by countless personal stories of individuals over the years but also by recent scientific research. Multiple studies show that those who place value on intrinsic motives such as personal growth, community contribution (service), and connection to others have a general well-being much higher than those who place value on extrinsic motives such as money, fame, status, and power (Ryan & Deci, 2000) (See Cooperation and Competition). This perspective then redefines what success is in this life, for in a traditional view success is indeed defined by these external motives: wealth, jobs, homes, and status which we now know decreases one’s well-being when too much value is placed upon them. As such, in the Love Light Movement – success in this life is all about personal growth, unconditional love, and service to others. The belief is that emphasizing and valuing these aspects of life is one of the key ways to align with one’s primary purpose in life.
We believe that adopting this central philosophy of Love Light can increase the well-being of every organism on earth while fostering connection and love between all. Not only will those who adopt this philosophy begin to experience an elated well-being themselves, but so will the people that they are helping along the way. For, this elated well-being is the byproduct of aligning with one of the central purposes through spreading love and helping others, and the others which one has helped will then also have a heightened well-being and will be more likely to then themselves help others, and the chain continues ad infinitum. And all the while people are connecting with each other more and more which in the end fosters a world with a mass amount of love, empathy, and connection between all beings.
Distinguishing the Love Light Movement from Love Light Recovery
After adopting the Love Light Philosophy a central question of: “How can we be of maximum service to others?” began to drive the actions of the founding members of the organization.
Love Light Recovery:
Love Light Recovery arose when one of the members of the organization realized that working to serve, connect, and spread love to others brought purpose, passion, and more serenity into his life and could serve as a powerful and effective treatment for mental illness. Love Light Recovery serves to educate people on the beauty of service, love, and connection – and help people suffering from mental illness, loneliness, emptiness, and dissatisfaction with life find more purpose.
Love Light Movement:
In response to the question “How can we be of maximum service to others?” The members started to help people in the area they lived (Athens County) in any way they could by doing things like giving free rides to people, serving meals, and providing general assistance. It was quickly realized to be of greater service to others it was important to gather more people interested in helping others and start a non-profit in order to expand the amount of services which could be provided to others. This non-profit is The Love Light Movement – a group that directly helps serve, and connect with the people of Athens County.
Love Light Movement Nonprofit Organization
The Love Light Movement is a nonprofit organization which was started by the group members in an effort to be of maximum service to those people around them (in Athens County). Upon serving and connecting with the people it was realized that the greatest needs which we could help with seemed to be access to essential resources like food, shelter, and clothing. Thus we began to hone in on what we could do to help people gain more easy access to these things and this gave rise to our current mission.
The Mission
The Love Light Movement’s Mission has two parts
- Help the people of Athens County obtain basic resources such as food, water, shelter, and personal care items.
- Work to foster an environment with more connection and love between individuals.
The Vision
The vision is a cultural shift towards love, connection, and service. Through bringing awareness to the power of these concepts and working to serve, love, and connect with the people we hope to help cascade the ripple effect of love, service, and connection throughout all beings creating a society where the well-being of all is increased.
Love Light Recovery
Love Light Recovery is a practice which incorporates the 12 steps, the 6 pillars, and certain spiritual concepts into a method of living which can serve as an effective treatment for people who have mental illnesses such as addiction, anxiety, depression, OCD, and also those who feel lonely, empty, purposeless and just generally unsatisfied with life. The idea is that the traditional views on success in life and society’s tendency to emphasize external motives exacerbates many mental illnesses, especially addiction, anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness, purposelessness, and emptiness. This emphasis on external motives takes people away from alignment with some of the fundamental purposes in this life such as growth, service and love. We believe that many individuals have an innate and unconscious desire to align with these purposes. However, because this desire is unconscious, when it remains unfilled it appears on the surface as a void that manifests itself differently in different individuals. This void then catapults those with predispositions to certain mental illnesses and troubling tendencies into episodes of whatever illnesses and tendencies they are predisposed to. And so, the thought is when one then re-aligns with this purpose it can help treat such mental illnesses and troubling feelings through an alignment of the void, an increase in general well-being, and a discovery of self and purpose.
Goals
Bringing awareness to the void and the pathways to purpose
The first goal of Love Light Recovery is to bring awareness to the void that so many individuals feel. LLR will attempt to bring light to the fact that being of service to other beings and working to grow is one of the primary pathways for aligning with one’s purpose. As such, in life if an individual who has a strong unconscious desire to align with their purpose in this way gets away from spreading love, being of service to others, and growing then a void forms often causing feelings of emptiness, purposelessness, loneliness, and more. (manifestations of the void are subjective).
Help people find their niche in service to others
Each individual has a different niche in the field of service to others. Different people will have different passions and ideas about how they can best help other organisms depending on who they are as a person and their experiences. Some people find purpose in helping dogs, some in helping trees, some in helping the natural environment, some in helping humans, and so on. The goal of LLM will be to emphasize this idea with the hopes that individuals may then be motivated to try different types of service until they find their niche. The LLM also hopes to advertise local service opportunities which people may not know about and put them into different categories of service so people can more easily find their passions and niches in helping others.
Bring awareness to the 12-steps, spiritual ideas, and 6 pillars as a tool for personal and spiritual growth for ANYONE
The 12 steps are commonly thought of as something that addicts or alcoholics do to get sober. This is not entirely true. The 12 steps are something addicts and alcoholics do to grow personally and spiritually and a byproduct of this growth is a heightened ability to stay sober. The 12 – steps themselves are not inherently tied to alcohol or drugs and are extremely useful tools for anyone to use for growth. LLR will also emphasize the importance of the six pillars which are service to others, Connection with higher power, introspection of self, connection with others, rejoicing in the beauty of the world, and expression of self. On top of this certain ideas such as acknowledgment, acceptance, growth, and learning can be very useful in helping individuals find themselves in this life. The LLM hopes to bring light to and emphasize the value of these concepts when it comes to dealing with mental illness, feeling lost, empty, purposeless, and unfulfilled within life.
Establish a widespread system of LLM meetings
Connection with others is extremely important in all contexts. Humans are designed to connect and share love with one another. Connection can be especially important when individuals are facing certain challenges and catalysts in life. The LLM hopes to one day establish a series of meetings in which people facing different challenges who are interested in trying pathway alignment as a method to grow from such challenges can come together and discuss their experiences, struggles, growth, learnings, ect. These meetings are hoped to operate like any other form of 12 step meeting and they would be open to anyone facing any catalyst.