Scott Stabile - Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart

Praise for Big Love

Has there ever been a more crucial time for Big Love to be released into our world? Scott Stabile is one of my favorite love artists and activists. His voice in this vital new book is fresh and relevant his message urgent and universal. Scott is a force for love in a time when we are all desperate for healing. I look to Scott for wisdom and leadership, and he has delivered both with Big Love. This book opened my heart and mind, and Im forever grateful.

GLENNON DOYLE MELTON, author of
#1 New York Timesbestseller Love Warrior
and founder of Momastery and Together Rising

Scott Stabile is a wonderful presence of love, advocacy, warmth, resilience, and grace in our world. I adore and admire everything he creates.

ELIZABETH GILBERT, bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love

At the end of life, the core question we ask is, Was I well loved and did I love well? Scott Stabile doesnt wait to ask this fundamental question love is already the center of his solar system. Big Love is an operating manual for living a heart-centered life in good times and bad. Ive never read a more poignant and powerful ode to the power of love.

CHIP CONLEY, bestselling author of
Peak and Emotional Equations

Big Love, big heart, big opportunity to bring way more love into your life and consciousness with buoyancy, beauty, and boldness. Infinite love to Scott Stabile for bringing this ever-loving book into being.

SARK, artist and coauthor of Succulent Wild Love

Big Love is heartbreaking, hilarious, and entirely real. I saw parts of myself in every one of Scotts stories, and that is perhaps the greatest gift of this book that he writes so openly about the struggles so many of us experience but hesitate to express, and he does so with incredible compassion, insight, and authenticity.

MIKE ROBBINS, author of Be Yourself,
Everyone Else Is Already Taken

Big Love is one of those rare gems that spares us the pretension of light-and-fluffy love rhetoric and instead truly guides readers in how to love themselves and others without holding back. Thank you for this gift, Scott.

CHRIS GROSSO, author of Indie Spiritualist,
Everything Mind, and Dead Set on Living

Big Love does something that many books strive for but fail to achieve. It cracks open the happy image of its author, Scott Stabile, and reveals the heartbreaking, life-altering realities that have shaped this man and what he teaches. Leading by example with this book, Scott shows what it means to live wide open and how vulnerability is true power.

JACOB NORDBY, author of
Blessed Are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives

Copyright 2017 by Scott Stabile

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

First printing, September 2017

ISBN 978-1-60868-493-9

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-494-6

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my sisters,

Rose, Stacey, and Kim,

three loves of my life

CONTENTS

O n a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being an empty void and 10 being an elephant my memory rests somewhere between a 6 and a 7. And its trending downward. Luckily, the stories Ive chosen to convey here are nestled closer to the elephant zone, a good thing when youre writing a book of personal essays built on memories. Ive done my best to retell everything as accurately as possible and have made note if a piece of any story remains blurry. Though I have not conveyed conversations verbatim, Ive locked onto their essence and, in some cases, a lot of the actual words spoken. Also, Ive changed a bunch of names of people and locations but only to keep anonymity intact and not because I dont remember the real ones.

A bout fifteen years ago a good friend asked me, What do you want to do with your life? Doesnt that question drive you nuts? That was hardly the first time Id been asked it, and Id never had a suitable answer that felt connected to some clear destiny or deep longing. Yes, there was a time in middle school when I desperately wanted to be a professional tennis player, even though I wasnt especially good at the sport. The longing was there, though; I played and fantasized about tennis constantly and saw myself battling Boris Becker on the grasses of Wimbledon. My passion for tennis faded through high school, since I preferred to imagine myself onstage with Bono, belting out Desire. As a generally directionless adult, Id always envied my professional friends who had known since childhood exactly how they wanted to spend their time as grown-ups. I never had a clue.

Really, what do you want to do with your life? my friend pressed, when I still hadnt answered him.

Id like to never have to answer this question again, thats what, I thought.

I bypassed the impulse to say travel the world and just be happy, trusting I could summon a little more depth in my answer. I want to spread as much love as possible, I responded. Cue the rainbows and unicorns! Can I get a puppy over here?

Im not sure my answer was deep, but it was the truth.

Okay, my friend replied, how do you want to do that? Pain in the ass, that friend.

I have no idea, I said. That was the truth, too. I didnt know exactly what the role of love-spreader entailed, but it felt like a life goal to which I could commit myself, one that came with an important benefit our world desperately needed love, love, and more love. More than anything, I believed in love, and in the power of love to create important, positive change. I still believe that, as much as ever.

Seriously, whats not to love about love?

Love makes the most difference in every area that matters.

It always has, and it always will.

We can all be love-spreaders, by the way, if we choose to be. You dont even need to quit your day job. Every time we act with kindness or acceptance, we spread love. Every time we choose compassion over condemnation, we spread love. Every time we find the courage to forgive, we spread love. Life presents us with daily opportunities to share a little, or a whole lotta love. Every single time we do, an angel sprouts new wings and cries silver tears of joy. Okay, that angel thing doesnt really happen, but we do absolutely serve ourselves and our world through love.