How do you expand love in your life?

Ahhh, here we are in a week that is particularly focused on love. 

All over Paris and Amsterdam, where I just spent a fabulous weekend, red hearts and messages about love have been spotted in shop windows at every turn.

Love matters

I have written a lot about love over the years. It is powerful fuel for living big.

And most of us are not aware of how many opportunities we have to bring more love into our lives. 

In my post around Valentine’s Day last year, I shared my thoughts about the power of love, including ways to feel and spread more love. 

Two years ago at this time, I wrote about what happens when love expands. That post includes links to a number of other love-related resources you may want to explore.

This is a great week to tune in to love in a broader way than ever, and see what happens for you.

Inspiration opens your heart and makes space for more love

My heart is filled to bursting with a combination of love, gratitude and awe. 

Travel to new places and visits to great museums have been wonderful gifts that contribute to all of those feelings, and I am savoring them.

The sights, sounds, tastes and feeling of being in new cities have opened my eyes and my heart.

And while travel is a special way to find inspiration, there are countless ways to add inspiration to your life!

Consider these opportunities

• You might take a walk, in a new place or someplace familiar, and look for wonder. When you spot a surprising moment of beauty, or something quirky, or anything that captures your fancy, you might want to capture those special moments with the camera on your phone.

• You can visit a local museum or gallery, or window-shop and people-watch in an interesting area.

• Experiment with new recipes, or take an on-line or locally-offered class to learn mixed media techniques, pottery, or any other art-making approach. Any of these will open you to new experiences and awarenesses.

• You might watch a foreign film, or choose some great TED talks that peak your curiosity.

• Why not crack open the case of an instrument you used to play, or sign up to take music lessons for the first time?

Seeing great art powerfully fuels love

I particularly recommend that you seek out great art!

If you can do that in a museum or gallery you will have an especially rich experience. When you stand before a painting or sculpture you not only see the true colors and details, you make an energetic connection to the work.

This gives you feelings of awe, appreciation, inspiration and admiration that go well beyond what is palpable in a photograph of a work of art, in a book or on a screen.

Your own new thoughts and expansive feelings — including loving feelings — are catalyzed when you find art that excites you and you have a proximate experience.

I am sharing some photos of amazing paintings I have loved seeing, and have taken into my heart, in my recent travels. Perhaps you can imaging how moved I felt being close to each of them.

[Artists: Joan Mitchell, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Josef Albers, Jean Hélion, two of many Johannes Vermeer masterpieces seen at the Rijksmuseum, and Sonia Delauney]

Your heart can open wider than you know

There’s no limit to your capacity to feel love and to give love.

In whatever way you choose, invite experiences that will fuel your heart. You will be richer for it, and the world will be enriched as you share your full heart.

Here are a few photos I’ve taken as I have explored Amsterdam. Check out my Instagram feed to see more of the places and moments I have captured.

A life-changing gift you can give yourself now

As we move through the final days of 2021 we have a great opportunity — to look back and reap the rewards of the past year (try the process I shared last week), and to look ahead to a new year full of possibility.

Harness the power of creativity in 2022 — it’s available to all of us!

I invite you to embrace yourself as a powerful creator as you head into the new year. It’s easy to do when you focus on activating creative expression.

You can create expressively in a multitude of ways

Any way you choose to create will enrich your day-to-day life. Think about what delights you.

Maybe you love to dance up a storm, or draw or write. You may feel free and enjoy experimenting as you cook, playing with new flavor combinations or ingredients. Maybe you love to research and plan your garden, and get your hands into the dirt as you plant and tend it. Do you play an instrument or want to try learning a new one? Maybe you collect things that fascinate you, or find joy when you sing, or keep a camera on hand to take photos throughout your day. Maybe you love to tinker and build things, or learn new craft techniques.

Allowing yourself to play and explore in any of these ways lights you up and fuels enthusiasm for everything in your life.

When you are lit up, new ideas show up. You feel excited about exploring them. This positive energy not only carries you forward, it supports you at those times when you need to be resilient.

Your creative journey can be a great teacher

While I rarely share my personal creative journey, my studio time has been a great teacher for me, especially this past year.

I began painting in 2015 after a lifetime of feeling challenged to create for myself. As a graphic designer (my first career), I could create to solve my clients’ problems, but personal expression (like painting or sculpting) felt impossible.

Knowing what I know today, I look back and see that in those years I indulged in creative expression, though not in ways I thought “counted.” I loved (and still love) to create beauty in my home, sharing beauty with others, using color in interesting ways, and more.

But I did not dare to make art until 2015, when I took my first painting class. It was intimidating, but I had the opportunity and decided to go for it.

And it changed my life — really! I have continued to paint, studying with an amazing teacher, ever since.

As frustrating as it was to be a beginner, needing to master technique and decide what I wanted to paint, this journey has enriched me in enormous ways.

Each time I stand in front of my easel, I meet myself in a way that is different from the rest of my life. I tap into my intuition and I connect to my desire — what color calls to me? What kind of gesture or mark do I want to make?

Finding my way in the studio has been a great journey. I have had times when the work flowed and I was having fun. And I have had times — especially early in COVID, and after my mother died in August 2020 — when I felt completely lost and unsure about what I was doing.

With the encouragement of my teacher, I simply let myself not know, make a mess, and see where I found myself. Allowing myself to explore this way, without caring about making a “good painting” has led me to new places that have surprised me — and sometimes delighted me.

I have learned to trust myself and experiment. I have slowly been able to let go of the perfectionism that’s been a struggle for so much of my life. My heart has expanded in ways it never had before.

(If you are curious about my art, you can take a look at my work, from 2015 up to the present, here.)

What will you discover when you create?

The new year beckons. Think about the gifts you can give yourself in 2022 when you allow yourself to step into creating in new and bigger ways.

If getting creative is new for you, start by playing and see where it takes you. Ask someone to join you and make regular dates to create. And celebrate the outcomes of everything you explore!

And consider this:

Whether you choose to activate creativity or not, the new year will be full of change.

Why not light yourself up, feel inspired, and bring that positive energy into your life?

Wishing you a new year filled with joy, vibrant health and abundant creative energy.