Love is the power podcast

This week’s episode begins with an invitation from Tom to pick something in your life you don’t like, and to see if you can notice what story you’re living by experiencing it. For example, if you’re experiencing a difficult work situation or financial hardship or a frustrating relationship. The underlying story you’re living might be “I’m a disappointment,” or “Nobody cares about me,” or something entirely different — but equally painful — that is expressing itself through the situations in your life. What if self-inquiry and self-liberation aren’t serious? What if it could just be playful and light? What...

Last week we looked at the belief in the seriousness of life, especially related to being a parent. Parenting is one of the big things that we can tend to use as proof of the serious nature of everything. But that inquiry revealed the truth of what the belief was creating in the parent’s life: stress, both for herself and her kids. What about other situations, though, the mind wants to know. Surely some things really are serious? What about when a friend shares news of their cancer diagnosis with you? What if you receive a diagnosis of so...

If you’ve been listening to Love Is The Power for awhile, you know that one of host Tom Compton’s favourite concepts to bring up for inquiry is “It’s serious.” After all, it’s maybe the most deeply held belief on Planet Earth, this idea that life is serious. This week, Tom facilitates a parent on this story. She experiences stress and anxiety when she believes that being a parent is serious and, through this self-inquiry, notices how it causes her to actually show up with her kids. If there’s an area of life where you notice a sense...

This week’s episode begins in a conversation around the idea of pleasure. What the group notices is that the experience of pleasure can be purely joyful, but that when we become attached to good feelings, we (ironically) suffer. Another thing the inquiry group notices is this idea that pleasure is somehow wrong. This leads to a deepening of the contemplation and a popcorn-style inquiry on the deeply-ingrained beliefs we have about the polarities of right and wrong, good and bad, and acceptable and unacceptable. Enjoy this conversation that leaves everything out in the open, or as Tom might pu...

This week Tom offers this prompt: imagine that you have just arrived in the body you’re in, with exactly the same memories and name attached to it. What is it like imagining that none of the memories, images, or identities associated with this body-mind actually have any relevance to who you are? This little thought experiment leads to a profound group dialogue inquiring into our real nature. According to Tom, our nature is freedom. But it sure doesn’t feel like that sometimes…especially when we live out the conditioning we receive as children that life is serious and yo...

This week’s episode is a group inquiry on the thought “I need my discontent” and in the exploration of what it’s like living from this belief, what surfaces is the real reason we hold onto it so tightly: feeling like we need justification. Notice: without the idea that you need to justify something (maybe ending a partnership, choosing a career path, making a big move…) do you still need to hold onto discontent? Or is discontent only necessary when it’s being used as proof that we have to do what we simply would like to do? Without the...

This week’s episode looks at an old faithful belief: He/she/they took advantage of me. From having cab drivers hold back five bucks from your change to being hoodwinked in a business deal or transaction, we’ve all likely experienced something that caused us to pick up this belief that we can be taken advantage of. In some cases, like one of the brave and vulnerable shares in this episode, that belief is very well backed-up with some horrifying past images and experiences. In these cases, it’s pretty radical to open to the idea that what Byron...

This week’s episode brings you a beautiful and profound group inquiry that begins with considering the possibility that who and what we are is actually good. Tom has brought up this line of inquiry many times before, but in this setting what comes up is one of the main fears that blocks us from experiencing ourselves as good: the fear of getting hurt. It seems logical, right? If we’re loving and open, we could theoretically get hurt more easily. For many of us, the solution we come up with is to close our hearts off from others. Inte...

This week’s episode begins with an invitation from Tom to try on the statement “I’m ready to devote my life to serving what serves Love.” Notice what comes up with that sentence. Is there a willingness? Or is there some sticky fear that still takes precedence? In a group setting, this episode is an exploration of what thoughts still hold us back from serving Love in our lives (thoughts that insist we, others and reality should all be doing something better, for example), and what it might be like to let them go.

Welcome back, Love Is The Power listeners! This week’s episode is a lively and profound group inquiry beginning with questioning the thoughts, “It’s serious,” and, “What I do matters.” From there, the line of inquiry brings to consciousness the need to be special, and Tom points out that eventually…the body dies. So with that awareness, he asks, what becomes important now? If your answer falls somewhere in the zone of “I just want to enjoy life now,” you’re going to love this episode. If your mind went somewhere else, feel free to bring it to this inquiry and exp...

This week we're bringing you another old favourite episode from the vault (November 2021!) as the Love Is The Power retreat last week meant no new recordings. Enjoy! We'll see you next week with a brand new episode.

Have you ever considered that desire, lack, and fear might go together? For example, you believe something’s missing from your life (like a romantic relationship) and then you desire to fill that gap. Or, you desire to be with a partner and simultaneously fear rejection. Many of us have bought into the idea that the formula for bringing something in...

Hey Love Is The Power friends! This week we're coming to you with an old favourite episode from all the way back in 2020: The cost of careful living. When we know who and what we are is good, we want to see our blind spots. We stop living carefully and live more honestly. Which pretty much guarantees that someone will be offended. To the mind, the path of unconditional peace can look like silence or being a "doormat." But is it? Luckily, there is only one way to find out. Join in this inquiry with a situation from your...

This week’s episode explores an experience that’s probably familiar to a lot of people who practice self-inquiry or another spiritual practice. On any kind of ‘spiritual’ path, it’s easy to experience a lack – a desire for what you might call ‘enlightenment.’ We can hear about and understand the idea of oneness, that in reality nothing is separate, and want to know that for ourselves… sometimes to the point of causing a lot of stress in our day-to-day experience. What would it be like to drop that desire for a moment? Or to drop the idea that since we’ve done T...

This week’s episode is a group inquiry into what it’s like when we believe we have to change something about ourselves. Whether it’s big (like an addiction or relationship pattern) or small (like a tendency to leave wet laundry in the washing machine), most of us tend to pick up this idea somewhere along the way in childhood that who we are, exactly the way we are isn’t enough or acceptable. What can go hand in hand with that belief is the belief that the people around us aren’t allowed to be the way they are e...

This week’s meditative contemplation begins with an invitation to notice what comes up internally in response to Byron Katie’s statement that just when you think it can’t get any better, it has to – it’s the law. You might notice the mind brings up every opposition possible. It seems so backwards, doesn’t it? On planet Earth we’re accustomed to thinking, “Well, it can always get worse,” and trying to prevent whatever that is. But could Katie be right? What if it really is the nature of the Universe that it can just get better and better, and as...

This week’s episode is for anyone who has ever felt the paralysis of trying to make a decision while the thought “I could get it wrong” is playing on a loop in your mind. In this group inquiry, we’re looking at that thought; whether it’s actually true, how it affects us when we believe it, and who we would be without it. What if life isn’t constantly measuring us and judging every action or inaction? What if it’s like a car GPS that, when we miss an exit or take a ‘wrong’ turn, simply reroutes and shows...

This week’s episode is an inquiry into our concepts of time and space. We can be very devoted to our belief in time and space, to the point that we begin to see ourselves as dependent on it. The body may be subject to the rules of time and space, but is the body you? Or are you the awareness that the experience of the body is located in? That pure awareness, as Tom puts it, is the location for everything. An analogy for that pure awareness that we are is light; light has no texture, no substance. Ob...

One beautiful aspect of working in a group setting like the Love Is The Power meditation calls is that one person’s brave and vulnerable share can create a whole ripple effect of profound awareness for everyone. That’s exactly what happens in this week’s episode when one inquirer’s childhood comes up to the surface and exposes the universal experience of wanting to be wanted. Whether by a parent, sibling, lover, boss, teacher, or anyone else the mind can come up with, that desire to be wanted is one that most of us can really struggle with. We all k...

This week’s episode is a deep dive into the world of body odour–actually, better said: it’s a deep dive into the world of doubting our goodness. You may be asking yourself, What does that have to do with B.O.? Well, have you ever sat next to someone with what you might have experienced as an unpleasant smell? Some people in the Love Is The Power inquiry group have, and many experienced the awkwardness of either telling the person and having them be hurt or offended, or suffering silently in fear of offending. And as the medita...

When we find ourselves in a process of self-inquiry, the way that our perspective shifts is truly miraculous. We see things differently. The people in our lives, the situations we’re in, the resources we have, and most of all, ourselves. In this experience of seeing life differently, one of the fears that the mind will often bring up is the fear of going ‘crazy’ or losing our minds. (It’s actually quite a literal fear: the ego-mind is afraid to not exist, thus the terrifying images of what it must look like to “lose” it.) This week’s group inquiry...

In this week’s episode, Tom begins with an invitation to notice what comes up internally with the sentence, “I’m ready to be honest about my yeses and nos.” As in, I’m ready to notice what my genuine responses are and live them. Often when we hold onto giving a dishonest yes, it comes from the idea that by doing that, we’re making ourselves show up as kind, caring people. But what does it actually create when we really look? Does it help us show up in a genuinely kind way? Or does it create a breeding gro...

This week’s inquiry is on the thought, “I should be different.” As Tom puts it, none of us, as children, receive unconditional love, and right away we make that mean something about ourselves. Thus begins the steady march of this belief in our minds. “I should be different…” But rarely do we slow down to question a thought like this and notice what it truly gives us. We think it gives us the change we’re looking for – the showing up differently. But how do you actually react? What really happens when you believe this thought? It could be that it’s not...

Happy New Year to all the Love Is The Power listeners! We’re kicking off 2026 with an episode for anyone who’s ever looked at someone else and had the thought, “They have something I don’t have.” For those who walk the path of being some kind of seeker, it can be especially enticing to believe this thought in relation to someone who appears to ‘have’ enlightenment. Katie herself says she doesn’t know anything about enlightenment – she just knows the difference between what hurts and what doesn’t. But that doesn’t stop the mind with this belief, which is why t...

In the world of the thought, “They could have done better,” we are not left with much compassion or ability to show up the way we’d (probably) like to in any given situation. That’s one of things participants noticed in this week’s inquiry facilitated by Tom, beginning with noticing someone who brings up a sense of unlovingness within. It doesn’t matter if we’re believing that the person in question who could have done better is someone else, a whole group of people, or ourselves. The result is the same. Stress. This week’s episode ends with an inv...

What happens, how do you react when you believe the thought, “I know what is and isn’t possible in life"? What kind of life do you find yourself reading with this thought? What kind of Universe is it? Friendly or malicious? In this group meditation, participants question this belief among others and discover some profound things – including an ever-present fear of a ‘cosmic bitch slap.’ If you can relate, this week’s episode of Love Is The Power is for you.

On a podcast about self-inquiry, meditation, awakening and inner freedom, you don’t necessarily expect an episode about dogs – but here we are. This week, our furry friends are our teachers as one participant shares his frustrating situation: his city is threatening to crack down on unleashed dogs, but he wants his dog to be able to run. 

This work is rewarding on its own, but the cherry on top of the inquiry cake is that another participant whose own dog was once attacked by an unleashed dog is on the group meditation call as well, and the c...

In last week’s episode, we looked at the tendency to hold things as problems. This week we’re adding to the exploration the tendency to believe “I have to do something with my life” and “There’s a destination I have to get to.” 

Some key questions in this episode are:

This week the Love Is The Power inquiry group looks at the habit of holding things (situations, people, the state of the world) as a problem. It’s such an insidious habit, it tends to fly under the radar for most of us until we check in. But when we consciously look at a situation that we’d like to be different, it’s easy to see the belief, “I have to hold this as a problem." We might think that if we hold it as a problem we’ll fix it better or faster, and if we don’t then the s...

This week, as Tom puts it, the trigger for self-realization could be a bathroom! In a playfully profound inquiry on money, the group questions the thought, “There is a right and wrong amount of money to have, and a right and wrong way to spend it.” One person’s share acts as a through-thread in the inquiry, pondering whether or not it’s wrong to want and pay for a bathroom renovation. It sure feels wrong when this is the thought running our financial lives. But, as Tom will often ask, is the feeling proof? Is the sense of wrongnes...

Last week’s episode looked at the experience of innocence, and the belief that we, ourselves, are not that pure innocence. In this part two episode, we look at the fear that comes up when we aren’t believing that about ourselves or others. The fear of being a doormat. “Oh, if I just see everyone as innocent, I’ll just let them walk all over me.” Seems accurate enough, right? This position, though, gives us the role of constant self-preservation. When we’re afraid of being steamrolled, we have to approach life in a controlling, angry manner. Or as Tom puts...

Notice a time when you’ve experienced innocence. (Tip: dogs, cats, babies and little kids are a good touchstone for this kind of experience.) What did it bring up within you? In this group inquiry, participants become aware of a sense of openness, levity, and joy, as well as a sense of wanting to protect and care for that innocence. And then Tom asks this question: Is it true that you are not that innocent? Can you absolutely know you are not innocent in that exact way? What is your experience of the world when you believe this of yo...

This week Love Is The Power gives you an incredibly vulnerable, incredibly beautiful inquiry with a brave share. If you’ve ever experienced the frustration of chronic pain or illness of the body, you have probably experienced the devastating sense of hopelessness that can come with it. Holding space for that emotional pain, Tom initiates an exploration of the sensation of physical pain. Byron Katie says that all pain is imagined. That can be a hard one to get our heads around – especially when we’re in the midst of pain. But what if it’s true? What if who we r...

This week’s episode begins by asking the question: Can you absolutely know that it’s true that suffering is necessary? It’s an interesting question, because it seems like it must be true. If suffering wasn’t necessary, why would we experience it? It can be easy on the so-called spiritual path to wear suffering like a badge of honour, and it certainly is a powerful teacher. But does that make it necessary to hold onto? And furthermore, does believing that thought actually help us to get free? Or does it send us into an endless loop of discomfo...

This week’s inquiry begins with a look at a simple thought: “I need money.” Seems pretty straightforward. Pretty accurate. (Unless you’re a Buddhist monk.) But slowly this inquiry becomes a deep dive into the entire concept of need. “I need something that’s not here right now.” Tom takes it to the past, too, by inviting participants to look at a memory where we believe we needed something that wasn’t there. Whether that something was better care, shelter, food, water, painkillers, relief, kindness, or another of the abundant examples that come up in this group meditation, the questions ar...

Two weeks ago an episode of Love Is The Power was released where Tom led a group inquiry on the thought, “I need to hold onto the wrongs done to me and the wrongs I’ve done.” In this part II episode, we’re exploring some different concepts, emotions, and conditions we notice the tendency to hold onto. 

Can you relate to holding onto being different/special/unique/separate? Or is a death grip on the sense of safety (yours or that of a friend/child/parent/partner) familiar? If your answer is yes, we invite you to follow...

This week’s episode begins with a chance to look at one of those moments where we believe, “I shouldn’t have done that.” You know the one. It lies dormant and then pops into your mind as you’re trying to fall asleep and causes The Cringe. It shows up at the most inopportune times, saying, “Remember when you said/did that thing to that person all those years ago? Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that.” And in the questioning of that thought, what arises is a deeper belief in needing to earn love. Is it possible that when we cri...

This week’s meditation begins with noticing the tendency to hold on. It sharpens to a more specific inquiry: “I need to hold onto the wrongs done to me and the wrongs I’ve done to others.” Is that true? The group digs deeper beneath that enticing story that can just seem so factual, like common sense. 

“Of course I need to hold on! Otherwise how will I make amends? Or get the apologies I deserve?” 

But what is life like when we hold on to the wrongs we’ve done and had done to us? And even mor...

This week’s deep inquiry begins with a simple invitation: to notice what arises within you when you allow yourself to consciously experience being open to any and all possibilities in life. In this group meditation, what comes up in response to Tom’s prompt is fear. It feels terrifying to open to all possibilities when those possibilities include things we think we very much would not like to experience; things we think we wouldn’t be able to handle. 

Going back to last week’s episode theme, we are convinced that something truly terrible can happen. This epis...

The mind wonders if there’s even any point in questioning a thought like, “Something terrible can happen.” It seems so obviously true. “Of course something terrible can happen! I could lose my job, my partner/child/parent/friend could die, I could get sick … and that’s not even counting all the terrible things already happening like wars and starvation.” Yes. That is true. All of those things could happen and are happening. But in this powerful inquiry on some sensitive subjects, Tom asks question two of The Work: “Can you absolutely know it’s true?” Can you absolutely, positive...

This week’s episode explores the thought, “I need to be valued.” This thought can become so insidious with its underlying beliefs – for example, believing our support, our existence depends on being liked by others. There can be a laundry list of things we think we need to be valued for: our time, our presence, our various roles, and most often just … ourselves. But what happens when we believe this? What becomes of our sense of freedom? As Tom often puts it, does it give us a big, fat ‘Yes!’ to life? Or does this thought become a prison shackle that w...