Ep 16 - Love as a Social Ethic
As we publish this episode on Election Day 2020, we recognize that there is a lot of tension for everyone - and pretty much about all things!! We wanted to acknowledge the tension, but also ground ourselves, and talk through life's greatest truth - LOVE. How can we view love as the basis for learning, growing, and really figuring out how to be in society with each other?
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TRANSCRIPT:
David : Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to the third place podcast. Today is November 3 2020, election day. And I think for most people, no matter where you would fall on the political spectrum, even if you're not in the United States, there's a lot of eyes on our political system and this election, and are we gonna know the results, or we're not gonna know the results. There's an awful lot of unknowns, and just tension in the air with everything that's going on. And for this week's episode, we really wanted to just pause and look at something that we could all lean into. What does it look like, just to remember, love is the greatest truth. So for today's episode, we are interviewing a friend of mine, her name is Samantha Thomas. And I'll introduce a little bit more about her in just a moment. But she runs an organization called just choose love. And we wanted to take a pause, in the midst of all the tension and get back to this truth of love. And remember, so here is the interview with Samantha. And then next week, we're going to keep the conversation going. We have a lot of stories that we've been collecting from you and others just around seeing love and action, like real love and action when love is really hard. We recognize that we are living in just tense times, with lots of stress and lots of anxiety and things aren't going to be easy for a while. But we can still come back to this root of love. What does it truly look like to live into love, to believe in love, to be love to other people. And so thank you for listening to this episode. And I just want to let you know that we love you guys. And love is what will bring us out of these tough times. Welcome, everyone. And Samantha, thank you so much for joining us. I'm really just excited to actually introduce you to Mary as well. Samantha, you're someone that I met a few years ago, when you organized a summit in Cincinnati around business. It was called the love summit, which love and business usually are not related. But we got connected because of coffee, how can we provide coffee for the summit? And then as we kind of got to talk just, you know everything about our business ethics were how do we infuse love into the conversation. And of course, you and I just hit it off from there. So really excited to introduce you just to our third place, audience as well as
Samantha : Thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.
Mary : It's so good to meet you. And I’m especially excited about this conversation.
David : So we just wrapped up an election or we're wrapping up an election. Or maybe it's still going, we're recording a couple weeks ahead of time. But regardless of wherever we're at today, we thought it would be a good moment just to pause. Because while things are tense in our country right now, there is a lot of hope. And there is a lot of love. And I think there's a lot, just really great stories that are maybe good to ground us in. And so that's why I want to just even unpack a little bit more what is love and what does loving each other look like. What is, you know, figuring this world out together in a way of love mean for us today. So that's why I wanted to bring you in. And I know you've been up to so many great things, continuing to just deep dive into love. And as an ethic love into business over the last couple years. And you know, I'm excited just to hear your journey over the last couple years as well. So
Samantha : sure, yeah, happy to share about that. So I've been doing, as you said, a lot of work around love for the past several years. And it started with this business and leadership conference that I created called the love summit, which aims to bring together business leaders to discuss and explore the significance of love as a social ethic. So Love is a value in our societal systems. And I did two of those business and leadership conferences under a nonprofit that I used to be the executive director of it's called dream change founded by the author John Perkins. And then after doing two love summits under that nonprofit, I felt I was ready for something new. I wanted to continue my work with the love summit, but I've been at dream change for six years and I noticed a lot of pushback at that time in the business world, about using the word love in the context of business. And so not only was I feeling like, you know, it had been a while that I'd been at dream change, and I was ready for a little bit of a career shift and something new, wanting to continue the love summit, but also feeling like I needed to get more credibility behind the word love, and help to universalize it, if you will, so that it could be received better in the context of business and governance. So I resigned from my position at dream change in 2017. And then, about a year later, I decided to enroll in a Master's of Science Research Program at University College London, where I was studying global prosperity, and doing research on love as a force for social justice. So I just finished up that program and finished up a dissertation that I did on my research about the love ethic, and specifically, bell hooks, love ethic, she is an African American feminist and cultural critic who talks about love as a social ethic. So that, yeah, an exciting process. And that brings us to today.
Mary : You know, the first thing I'm really curious about is what brought you to your work at dream change? And is there any sort of personal story that that first took you there, and then how that led you into something so specific?
Samantha : Yeah, there's definitely a story, I feel like it's kind of a long story. But to make a long story short, in my undergraduate studies, I studied sustainable living, and I minored in business management. And I knew towards the end of my degree that I wanted to do something with a social mission and contribute to creating a better world in some way and creating more sustainability in the world. But I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do yet, or how I would do that. I also have always considered myself an entrepreneur. So the idea of going to work at a 9 -5 for a big company or regular company, it just didn't really appeal to me. And then I took this workshop, it was a business leadership workshop that was led by this author and economist named John Perkins. And he's the group, the nonprofit that I ended up working for a dream change. So it was basically there where I met him. And I learned about this organization that he has founded back in the 80s. But it had been in a period of dormancy for the last 20 years or so, when he became famous for his writing and speaking and started to shift his attention there. So he basically asked me to come to the nonprofit and help revive it. So it was a great stepping stone. For me, it wasn't, you know, starting my own business. But I had a lot of autonomy within that organization and the ability to play around with different entrepreneurial pursuits, like the love summit.
Mary : It's cool, cause just yesterday, Dave and I were talking about that being an entrepreneur doesn't mean that you need to be self employed, or that you need to be a business owner, that so much of being an entrepreneur is just a mindset and the capacity to have an environment that allows you to work in your most optimal environment, basically, so that you can bring that spirit out of you. And it sounds like that, you know, wow, that spirit lives so innately within you that maybe dream change was like you getting a taste of that and being able to help you launch into now the work that you do with bell hooks in particular is that really what you're focusing on now?
Samantha : Well I was focusing on bell hooks and her theory of the love ethic through my master's research dissertation, and I'm currently planning on doing a PhD which will involve doing research as well and a thesis. I don't know if I will continue focusing on her work specifically, but it's definitely informed so much of what I understand about love. And I do envision myself drawing on her theory of the love ethic throughout my work and into the future. But I don't know if I will focus solely on her work.
David : So can you bring everyone into that? Like what about her work drew you to her and what is her work? What does she discuss as this love ethic idea?
Samantha : Sure. So Bell Hooks has written a lot of books, she writes about education, she writes about capitalism, she writes about patriarchy, and really the connection between all of these things. She has one book in particular though called all about love, which is a combination of her work in education and the things that she has explored just in terms of the interconnectedness, as I mentioned, between capitalism, patriarchy, systems of domination and oppression, and a lack of love that is kind of the common thread, or, as she says, the common thread in those systems. And in this book all about love, what drew me to it, and why I think it really resonated with me is because she talks about the theory of the love ethic, she talks about love in the context of historical movements, and in our societal systems, but she also relates it back to the individual, and why we live in a pretty unloving society. And what she says is that, that a loving, unloving society really begins with individuals who are not loving. So if we want to have a society that's based in love, then we have to start with individuals first. So that concept of change begins within love begins within. That's what really drew me to her work. And what Bell Hooks talks about. In that book, specifically, and in her work around love, is how the antithesis of love is domination. And we currently live in a world that is based on the value of domination versus the value of love. And as long as we remain in that mindset of domination. So when we think of domination, we can think that of the kind of values that come under, or with domination like the mindset of scarcity, or greed, or materialism, profit over people and the planet, those kinds of things. And she said, Bell Hooks says that love cannot coexist with domination, love cannot coexist with abuse. Therefore, to move out of the dominating society, in a loveless society, we need to choose love and understand what love really means and what the principles of love and a love ethic are.
Mary : So when you say love begins within or with the individual, I'm wondering, it's probably going to be both, I mean, so much of the third place, we realize that there's, it's, we're trying to encourage people to think not if this or that, but that there's this spectrum, that there's this, you know, gray area where you find truths. But I'm wondering, in work with yourself, or does it really start with love begins with when does that sort of allude to the relationship with parent?
Samantha : With our, our biological parents? I think so I think like you said, it's not a black and white situation. But when we say love begins within that's a really complex statement. I mean, it makes me think of the idea or concept of self love, which I know is a different concept that we're talking about. But it just reminds me of that, because I think so often self love is conflated with this idea that we cultivate self love on our own, with the help without help from our environment, or other people. And I don't agree with that. With that aside, I think that self love is something that is cultivated through our own experience. Sure. But also our experience is informed by the environment that we live in. So our parents, or parental figures, or lack of parental figures, or lines and friends, and school and teachers and all the things that happened to us from early childhood onwards. And so the same concept goes for love begins within when we're talking about love as a social ethic. Yeah, that starts with us. So it starts with us as an individual and having the courage to choose love. But it is very complicated. Well, it's a difficult process. It's a challenging process. Love is harder to choose, then fear or anything else. And so I think that that's why we so often fall into fearful patterns as individuals and in society and in our societal systems, because it's so much easier to not do the work and it takes a lot of work to choose love.
Mary : Especially if you’ve been conditioned or so well versed in the antithesis of love.
David : To me, I think business is that domination like we learn business in this capitalistic system, we celebrate sports, maybe too much that in order for me to win, you have to lose. So that's like this inherent truth that we've learned. And so it's just the system that we already live in. Where, for me in business, so much of our success and so much what drives us is how do we move away from this win lose mentality to a win win mentality. So when you're talking about domination earlier, you know, that's kind of where my mind went. And, but we've been doing it so long, that we've learned that when you find the win, win situation and win, everybody wins, then literally everybody wins. And it's really good. And therefore, like, it takes, it seems like it for me anyway, it has taken a long time to just lean into that as the truth, even when it is hard. And very, most often, like you said, it is more difficult to lean in that way, because we're fighting old voices, we're fighting norms of today. But there's so many success stories that you just have to leave them to the truth of, no, it's successful. Now I look, I have all these experiences that kind of prove that it's successful.
Samantha : Right? And that's exactly why it's so difficult to choose love in our society, because it's going against the prevailing values of our societal systems, like domination and greed and the mindset of scarcity.
Mary : yeah. I mean, it's like, why choose something when you feel like the incentive lies in the opposite? And I feel like with bell hooks, and what you've learned, was there anything in all of the work that she's done on patriarchy and domination? Was there any like one story or example that sort of pulled you in and made you feel like you, man, I just, I really get it. And this is the work that I want to launch into more.
Samantha : Off the top of my head, there's not one story per se, in particular, but something that started to with kind of an example of how I saw the love ethic not playing out when I was doing this research, and just looking at the correlation between Bell Hooks work and and what I was seeing in our current societal systems and different social justice issues. One social justice issue that has obviously come up this year and been a huge one is racial inequality, and the work that the Black Lives Matter movement is doing around that. And I ended up actually, for my master's research dissertation using the Black Lives Matter movement as a case study. So basically, the dissertation was a theoretical review of Bell Hooks theory of the loveth ethic. So I looked at what is the theory of the love ethic? What are its principles? Where has it been employed by former social justice leaders or in former social justice movements? Where did we go wrong? Why has a love ethic not been mainstreamed? Even though leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Mandela, Mother Teresa, the list could go on and on these leaders, all their central starting point was always love. And while they did make a huge splash in regards to bringing awareness to the importance of love, it still hasn't been mainstream. So I was really curious as to why, why hasn't it been mainstreamed? And I think that and through my research, what I found is that a lot of that has to do with the fact that we are conditioned as a society in a culture to choose the complete opposite of love, domination, and fear. And so, I was interested in looking at a modern day social justice, issue and movement and doing some research on the love ethic related to that movement. So I chose the Black Lives Matter movement. And what propelled me to do that was that while I see the Black Lives Matter movement as being a really positive movement and having very fundamental and important and goals, I was also witnessing so much divisiveness, as I think we all have in the media and between people about racial equality and what that means and how to get there. And there being just so much separation between people and fear of other people's opinions. And so I ended up doing a short case study Where I hosted a focus group discussion with a group of people to get their interpretation of love as a social ethic and whether they think that the Black Lives Matter movement is and individuals that are proponents for the Black Lives Matter movement are actually supporting a love ethic or choosing love in their social justice work, and how we can do better at that, or how we might do better at that if if they felt that it wasn't doing that, or weren't doing that. And if it's even feasible for the Black Lives Matter movement to incorporate more of love ethic into their work and their marketing and messaging and how that might affect the movement overall, and how people might perceive the Black Lives Matter movement, it should decide to do that.
Mary : So then, you know, what were some of the specific findings, then that ultimately led you to believe that maybe there was an opportunity for it to go even more successfully.
Samantha : So basically, the overwhelming majority of participants in the focus group discussion agreed that a love ethic was important in the context of social justice issues. One of the biggest things that was brought to light was the idea that when practicing a love ethic, and communicating messages from a place of love, that message is more easily received by the person that you are speaking to, or communicating with. And that's really important, especially in the context of political issues, because conversations, of course, can get extremely heavy and heated and we all have our own conditioning and opinions and feelings about things. And it can be easy to become divisive and to disagree and to separate ourselves from that other person out of fear or think that we know everything and they are wrong. And the really cool thing about the love ethic and communicating from a place of love is that when people communicate in that way, it is so much more likely that the person that you're talking to even if you come from completely different socio cultural backgrounds and have completely different political views, the likelihood of that message that you are communicating to them, the likelihood of it being received is so much higher than if you were to communicate in a way that is vulgar, or rude or unkind. And it's kind of it brings me back to that idea of, I don't know if you guys have ever heard this, the sentiment but it's always stuck with me the idea that if you want to win someone over you win them over with love, that's the way that you get people on your side is through love. It's not through instilling fear or being angry or unkind or yelling at them. It's the same with a child, children are so much more receptive when you speak to them from a place of love and kindness versus yelling at them and screaming at them.
David : Yeah, I feel like one of the things that we want to do with the podcasts and I think even with this topic, like what, a lot of ways we're talking a lot of theory and really, really big ideas, but it also has to trickle down to the individual action, like what can we do? And you talk about, you just said, like, it's not responding in anger. But it is responding and kindness like, what are the small ways that we should be mindful of like, how do we communicate more from that place of love?
Samatha : Yeah, there's so many ways, but starting with being very present with people. And the reason why I say present is because when we're present with someone, we aren't thinking about other things at all. We're just focusing on what that person is saying, right? So we're not thinking, what do I think about this? Or what do I know about this? or What have I learned about this, you're just with that person, and listening to what they're saying. So you can, in a sense, you can put your preconceived notions about what they're saying aside and just be completely present with them and be innocent in how you're approaching your understanding of what they're saying. So I would say, be present and the gift of presence is that you can let go of your preconceived notions about what you think, you know, in that situation, so that's, that's one thing that's really important. Patience is also a huge one. And I think that many of us, myself included, are really quick to judge or, I know that I can be impulsive. Sometimes when someone says something that rubs me the wrong way, or that I feel like I don't agree with I can be quick to want to respond or react, but learning to be less reactive and more patient, and giving that person a chance, and the situation and chance to kind of unfold more organically and let that person have space to express themselves. What's really interesting about that, and this came up in the focus group discussion, too, many participants said that, when you're in that space with someone where you're being present, and you're being patient, and you're just creating a safe space for them to express themselves. What's interesting is that often when, when we do that, we'll be surprised at what we can see happens as a transformation for that other person and the experience where they can kind of maybe perhaps for the first time hear themselves and see themselves and and what they're saying and what they're doing in a totally different light. So those are a couple of things. I could go on and on.
David : I mean, I love that answer
Mary : I do too. But I'm also just like, even recognizing how unequipped we are to be able to come from that place to be able to be present and patient seems like such a tall order for the way that we're operating right now. Whether it's that we're incentivized and encouraged to be, you know, working too much. And doing too many things, or the environment right now is asking you to do more things like homeschooling, if you've never done that, or whatever it may be. And that just the access to technology, I think also makes us worth being patient having short attention spans, like I'm recognizing that in myself, my mom tasked me with and my therapist tasked me with doing nothing for 10 minutes a day, like truly nothing, not even, you know, not even meditating nothing like nothing. And at first I was terrified, like, it was hard for me to even think of that because I assign so much of, you know, doing is assigned to so much of progress or worth or all of these things. And so instead I was like, Okay, I'm going to start with two minutes a day. So I've done like, two minutes a day, it's truly only been three days. So it's like perfect timing. But I think that it's so important that our disengagement I think with love really comes from such a complex place. But for me, I've had to boil it down. Being a mom of a three year old to how can I actually create space to come from a place of presence, because patience is not challenging for me. But the presence is really coming from like, How can I be okay with like, doing nothing? And so that I can go into my childlike self to be able to play with him and feel engaged, because so often that can feel like, way harder than I feel like it should.
Samantha : Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up. So I'm a huge proponent of the slow, slow, slow movement, I almost had slow food movement. it's all the same. So there's a slow movement. And then underneath the slow movement are all the Umbrella Movement, slow food, slow fashion, slow money. And that has just always been a personal love of mine, that whole movement, because I think that is incredibly important that we slow it down, because it's only in those times of slowing down that we can really see the world and ourselves for what it and we are. And I think that we've kind of gotten a bit of a taste of that during COVID, which has been interesting. I think that it's not slowly but to push people to slow down. And I think that it's been a hard process I know for myself, and others, and we can see that too. It's just been a whole, you know, paradigm shift and in our world that we live in. And it's just been interesting to watch that unfold. But I know that it's been difficult for a lot of us. But I think that it's in those moments of challenges and difficulties and uncertainty where we're often forced to push for deeper meaning and truer answers. And I think that it's only when we can slow it down enough to do that, that we're able to take that opportunity. So I think it's cool that we're finding ourselves kind of in that space today. But at the same time, like you said, Mary, we're also living in a digital world where things are moving faster than ever. So it's just an interesting juxtaposition. And that we're feeling propelled as a society to find the balance and we're not quite there yet, but it seems to be at the forefront of a lot of people's minds and attention.
Mary : Yeah, it's honestly the thing that's driving how I am deciding to make the biggest decisions in my life right now because that taste of slowness was super uncomfortable. And I feel like discomfort is the sign of like, Okay, this is something I need to work with. Right, yay. Um, but that I feel like at the start of COVID, there was all this tension around slowness. And that almost half of the time people were just wanting to get through the slowness to get back to it. And so they didn't even get to fully appreciate that moment of presence. And that it was there was the message out there was so much of like, try to sink in, try to like just, you know, dig your teeth in right now and take advantage of what that is. And that now, it almost felt like the pendulum has gone in the opposite direction where it's like crazier than ever because of the start of school and the energy of summer is just like that, too. And I think that through all of this, just like we're saying, we're trying to find balance of like, what was that taste? How can we reincorporate that and how can we redefine that through fall follows, you know, we talked about follows the death of, of one way of operating. And I think that that's going to create space for really embedding new things. And that, my hope is that people really can continue to find presence and patience so that we can come from a loving place.
David : So pre COVID, we already had, like the opioid epidemics at an all time high, we had suicides, and loneliness at new highs in our society. And now here we are, in COVID. And all of those numbers have even gone higher. Right. And for me, so much I think of the love conversation is, and especially on the personal practical side of things is how do we start from this place of self love? And I think that there's, you know, I think that we all struggle with what that looks like, truly, but for someone who is really struggling with loneliness? How do we just approach that? How do we attack that? And, Mary, when you're talking about meditation, you said childlike, like, to me as a kid, my memories of loving myself were easy. You know, I think like there's an innocence at some age that we lose. So it's like maybe even pausing to think through that child, like, how do we get that back to that childlike self love space, and really embrace it, so that we can then start to give love a little bit more easily.
Mary : Right? Well also, though, assuming there's no trauma, because like, I immediately felt like, Man, what a gift of that because I almost feel like yeah, childlike, but it's almost like baby like or infant light, like the immediate sense of effortless self love. Because I think it's almost like the second the clock starts ticking, then there's the environment that you're talking about and everything else but sort of ambition some other way.
Samantha : Yeah, it's really complex, I think. Like you said, Mary, from when we're infants and so tiny, that it's really at such a young age that the environment around us starts to shape us and imprint us with different feelings and ideas. But I do believe that our natural state is one of joy and happiness. And I understand what you're saying, David, when you say how can we get back to that kind of playful and carefree state childlike state? And yeah, as Mary said, it's a really complex question. And venture to take, I think that it depends on the individual. It's not like, we can just tell ourselves, okay, Sam, be really childlike. Now be happy, joyous, just do it. I mean, I think that's part of it is, is reminding ourselves of our true state of happiness and joy, and that that is our true nature. But there are so many factors around us that are working against us. And, and achieving that and being that and while I do think that is it is important to control our mind. And when we do have maybe negative thoughts that lead us out of a childlike state or a state of joy or happiness to replace those with positive thoughts. That's important. And they talk about that in positive psychology, I think it's to replace negative thoughts with a positive thought and a feeling of positivity, it takes like so many more positive thoughts that you have. So it's a lot of work. And I think that I'm a huge proponent for controlling our mind. I think that that's the only thing that we actually do have control over, but it's also in my opinion, and experience the hardest thing to control. So I do think that is important. But also, of course, there are a lot of practical, realistic factors that are working against us from socio economic factors to the environment that we live in to the people that we're surrounded by on a daily basis. So there's just a lot of moving parts, you know, to tell someone who is clinically depressed with an opiate addiction, who is out of work and has no job and is unemployed to come back to the chat, that childlike state, just No, we can't just say for you. And get back to that childlike state, it's not gonna happen, right? There's a lot of other things that we need to that person needs to do for themselves and society to do for them as a support system for them and governance. You know, government is just supposed to be a support system for the individual to get to that place of happiness to be able to truly pursue their happiness and experience that so, yeah, complicated.
David : As soon as I asked the question, I was like, Oh, it's relationship, like we need the other people to be the mirror. We need other people to be the outside voice that we need other people to speak the truth, we need other people for support. And because we're also different and coming from other places, you know, the people that we need are going to be different and our needs are going to be different. And that's why choosing friends wisely is really important. Choosing those trusted people around you is really important.
Mary : Well, that makes me think of two things. I immediately thought of the quote from into the wild, you know, Christopher McCandless, it's like really it's all about relationship or relationship is everything when he's like, is fine. One of his final journal entries when he's gone, to be completely alone, because he's like, I want to have zero relationship to everything. And then the truth he found his relationship to everything was was all that mattered and..
Samantha : Sorry to interrupt. I don't know if it's from the movie or the book. I can't remember. But there's another quote from from into the wild that says happiness is only real when shared. That’s exactly what you're saying. It's all about relationships.
Mary : how can we access relationships, but then I even had this other thing where I mean, I feel like I'm being the devil's advocate. Sorry. But, like, what a privilege to have access to revolve yourself around people that can be a mirror of your childlike light or love, right? So like that, to me is another privilege that I'm sitting here feeling like, I've never felt a shortage of that. I may not have chosen them, because I wasn't clear of who I was, or what was loving, you know? Because love can be confusing, right? I mean, you like how you said that abuse in love cannot, you know, be simultaneous, but it can be confusing. And even though I've had such a flush amount of that I didn't choose it because I didn't even have a relationship with myself to understand what was represented as love and what to accept. And thinking about in so many different environments and societies, or, you know, I don't have the best language for it, but that you don't, may not even have access to, to people around you and your community to be able to provide that for you. And I'm just having a moment of a little bit of a bleeding heart thinking like, man, how can we do that for others? And are there organizations that you know of, or that you've gravitated towards that are putting, you know, loving action or love as a social ethic that you don't want to shout out and feel like they're doing that for those that may not have as easy of access to it like I feel I do?
Samantha : Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. I will answer that. I want to rewind for a second and just acknowledge what you both said, David, about the importance of relationships and then how that's really where a lot of this starts. And love starts in relationship, and then Mary, what you said about how so many people aren't surrounded by an environment or people that aren’t loving and that just reminds me of the idea that so many of us grow up in dysfunctional families. I think it's rare for people to feel like they haven't grown up with some kind of family dysfunction. A lot of us are exposed to traumas. And the beautiful thing about getting older even though it can be hard in some ways is that you can start to choose the people that we surround ourselves with, we can choose, even if our family isn't perfect. We can choose friends that are like family. We can choose to surround ourselves with people that are loving and are supporting our growth and highest good. And I think I'll just finish off by saying, I think that's so important. And that's one of the biggest actions that we as individuals can take towards being more loving. and choosing love is to find people that really lift us up and support our growth and our spiritual growth as a person. And I don't mean spiritual growth in the context of religion or spirituality in the way that one might think. I mean, like what lifts your spirit up? What makes you feel fulfilled, what lights you on fire? And who are the people that push you towards that, and encourage you towards that and support you in those endeavors in the things that do light you up your spirit. So yeah, I just think that's incredibly important. And that's one thing that we can do as individuals, a huge thing we can do. As far as our two organizations that are employing a social love as a social ethic, I hesitate to, to throw out names. But I will say that I think something really positive about the digital age, while it can be difficult and isolating sometimes. The other side of that we do have the ability to be globally connected number one for the first time ever, which is amazing. And secondly, even though our concepts of community are shifting and different now than they were before, we can find community online with people, if you don't feel like you have people in your immediate physical life right now that are supporting your growth as a person and helping you to choose love and be more loving. There are so many different platforms, whether it's even on Instagram, or Facebook or Twitter, where you're finding people that you admire whose message you really, you really resonate with, start following those people start looking at what they're doing, see what communities they are supporting, see what communities they are creating and join those communities. And from there, you will end up having, you know, a digital network of friends. But also often those digital networks of friends and communities grow into physical gatherings as well. I know so many people who have made friends through Instagram, or through Twitter or Facebook, just by reaching out to people and joining communities there. So I would highly recommend that.
David : Yeah, I mean, really, even this podcast is a digital way to connect, right? I mean, you're currently in Nashville, I'm in Cincinnati, Mary’s in Colorado, there's definitely some negative components to the digital world. But there's also some really beautiful. Well, I think that's a really great, practical way to be thinking through love and to be adding it to our own lives and how we can add to it and therefore express it more easily. Maybe just this final question, like, Samantha, when you feel love, like when you personally feel like you're lifting up. Just describe that feeling? Or what is it that just makes you feel lifted up?
Samantha : When I'm feeling true love, I feel free. And liberated, and like, the world is my oyster. possibilities are endless. And everyone around me is so much more beautiful. And I just see the world in a much more beautiful way.
Mary : Thank you. I sensed a literal feeling of a glow. Plus, I also got the chills. No, but I mean, like, thank you for your authenticity, because even just that moment, like you know if just for that I felt so present in your answer and that there was like, there's as simple as that there was an exchange even virtually. So thank you, like, so much for the work that you're doing and for coming on to share the work that you're doing, and I can't wait to see what you do because I feel like it's founded in love like man, I can't wait to witness it and support it. And with that being said, can you please also share with people how they can find you whether it's on social media?
Samantha : Yeah. And I also just want to say, David and Mary, thank you so much for creating the space for me to share with you guys. It's an honor and a privilege to do that. And thanks to all those who have listened. I really appreciate it. You can find me on social media on Instagram, Twitter and facebook at two different accounts. The first is my personal one, it's @lovebyst and the other one is @justchooselove. And then our website is justchooselove.com. And you can sign up for the newsletter there and join the movement and stay up to date with all that's going on with the love summit and otherwise.
David : Thank you so much
Mary : Be well
