Welcome to The Slow Newsletter, your weekly dose of dazzling, aha-moment-generating Vedic wisdom. The Slow is where we break down teachings on meditation and consciousness to inspire easy, abundant living—even in the most demanding times.

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💬 Quote of the Week

L-O-V-E.
​These four letters took me a LONG while to figure out. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the outside looking in—or even if you knew me up close at work—but personal relationships were my Achilles’ heel. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get love “right.”

I used to think love was something I could manufacture with another person. If we just cracked the code on how to be “good” together (because seriously, how many times had I heard, “Oh, they’re either good for you or not”?), then love would magically show up.

But in the Vedic worldview, love isn’t something we create. Love is the product of the baseline of unity that’s already inside us.

I could be flying solo bolo (new favorite phrase, by the way—have you heard it yet?) and still experience 100% love.

Similarly, I could be in a deeply committed relationship and experience 0% love.

So, what moves the love needle?

When we strip away the illusion of separation between ourselves and another human being, we deeply experience oneness with them and lay one more brick on our inner foundation of love.

Vedic Meditation taught me how to fill my own cup. As the practice released the stresses and baggage from past relationships, I began to feel an innocence and ease, an “at-homeness,” in more situations and with more people—even as I continued navigating tricky relationships.

This practice cracked me open to experience unity from within, instead of acting like a love desperado with others. That’s when I began to feel my deepest inner nature of love.

More on the LOVE phenomenon below.

📚 Knowledge Sesh: Love and Devotion, the Vedic Way

Ever wonder what’s really going on in those crazy, random moments in life? Like What do you think of when you hear the words love and devotion? Are they necessities or gifts? Strength or vulnerability? The idea of giving yourself completely to something or someone else—or is it an experience that resides entirely within you?

Last week, my friend and colleague Rachel Gross gave an exquisite talk on this very subject, as part of the HERE Festival in Nowra.

Rachel shared:

Love is not something external—it’s our deepest, most natural state of being.
​Contrary to popular belief (and every rom-com ever made), love isn’t something you find in someone else, and it’s definitely not some magical fairy dust someone else sprinkles on you. Love is who you are at your core.

It’s not about swiping right, earning it, or hustling for it.

Love is what happens when you’re completely at ease, feeling that deep connection—not just to another person, but to life itself. It’s that warm, fuzzy feeling that makes everything seem a little less separate and a lot more whole. And the kicker? It’s always been inside you, waiting for you to stop searching and start noticing.

Devotion is simply love in action, a way to express the love that is already present.
Think of devotion as love that actually rolls up its sleeves and gets to work. It’s not about grand gestures or Hallmark moments—it’s the small, everyday ways we put love into motion.

From looking past your partner’s tendencies to leave the bathroom a bit messier than you’d like, to showing up for your community, devotion is how love does instead of just is.

Devotion doesn’t take effort or planning—it flows when you’re already full of that love within. It’s not something you fake or force; it’s what naturally happens when your heart is all in, making every moment a chance to live that love out loud.

Real relationships are not about finding love; they’re about embodying and sharing the love within us.
​Forget the whole “you complete me” idea. Real relationships aren’t scavenger hunts for missing pieces of your soul—they’re playgrounds for sharing the love you already have.

When you constantly seek love in someone else, it turns into a tug-of-war: you’re always trying to pull something from them to fill your cup. But when you realize love starts with you, relationships become entirely different. They’re no longer about taking love; they’re about giving, radiating, and expanding it. Instead of trying to complete yourself through another person, you show up whole, ready to let that love flow back and forth like an endless game of catch (but way more fun).

One common pitfall is seeking love externally and believing someone else can “complete” us.
​
​Here’s the trap most of us fall into: thinking love is something you get from someone else, like a prize for good behavior. That’s how we end up in these needy, draining relationships where we’re trying to squeeze love out of the other person like they’re a human juice box.

Spoiler alert: it never works.

When you’re relying on someone else to make you feel loved, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. The truth is, love is already inside you—no one else can give it to you, and no one else can take it away. Once you realize that, relationships stop being about getting love, and start being about sharing it, with no strings attached. It’s a total game-changer.

I’ve asked Rachel to make the recording of this talk available. To receive access to it down the road, click here to join the festival newsletter. Also, consider joining Rachel, Barron, and my colleagues Matt, Jamey Hood, Joh Jarvis, Mathieu Carlot, and Melanie and Neil Kirkbride for more events throughout this month!

🛋️ Dear Susan: Any tips for managing this post-meditation hunger?

Watch the video here. ​

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