Transform your world with love

This week love is celebrated around the world. (Shop windows in Paris were full of hearts in pink and red when I was there last week.) How special and sweet!

I invite you to pause and consider the breadth of what love is and can be, and ways you can create and share it.

Because it’s magical that love can be created — in many meaningful ways!

How do you love?

Love has many dimensions, and some are commonly overlooked. Let’s dive in.

We typically focus on romantic love.

Love shared in relationships is what most people think about when February 14 rolls around. Dinners out, flowers, sweets are the expressions of love most of us share with special people in our lives.

Whether your life is filled with romance, or you long for romantic love, there is always an opportunity to bring the energy of this kind of love into your life.

Think about how you can create beauty in your environment. Light candles, treat yourself to flowers, listen to wonderful music, savor flavors of special foods, initiate meaningful conversations. visit special places that light up your heart.

Whether with a partner, family, friends or on your own, you can create love and joy in countless ways.

The importance of cultivating self-love cannot be overstated.

Cultivating deep self-love not only helps you to be happier each day, it provides a foundation that enables you to abundantly love others and to spread love wherever you go. 

And, yes, the concept is uncomfortable for many people. Women often tell me they feel selfish just thinking about the idea of self-love.

You can gently start to create a self-love practice. Take baby steps at first and keep going.

Begin by focusing on your talents and gifts. Fully acknowledge how special you are! Also think about how worthy you are of happiness, love, and goodness of every kind in your life. You may want to do some brief journaling about the particulars of your special talents, and your worthiness, when you start or end your day.

To help you to fully embrace and embody those ideas, smile lovingly at yourself in the mirror when you greet yourself at the start of your day, and before bed each evening.

Put your hands on your heart as you look into your eyes with love. Leave judgement behind. See and acknowledge the true, deep beauty in your reflection. 

And now it’s time to begin to focus on accepting and loving the parts of you that are not perfect — the parts that feel unworthy, or are critical of others, or are prone to anger or anxiety or bitterness, or are quick to judge.

When you can love and accept all of who you are, it will become easier to give yourself grace. You are likely to notice that you can gently release the intensity of those parts that you have struggled with.

As you make self-love a practice, you will also find it easier to feel love and spread love to others.

Be a generator of love in the world.

There are endless opportunities to create love that will not only enrich your heart, but enrich those around you.

Consider how you can orient your thinking and actions to love.

For example, if someone cuts you off in traffic, they may be struggling with any number of stresses. I have found rather than cursing at such people, I wish them love — because they clearly seem to need it. (And I notice that doing that makes me feel better.)

Small loving acts, such as helping someone by holding the door for them, or acknowledging and thanking someone who provided an extra touch, or sending a note to someone you have not seen in a while to brighten their day, are examples of generating tidbits of love that are meaningful for both the recipient and you.

When you actively focus on ways to infuse love in the world, that loving energy spreads widely. The recipient of your love is likely to generate more love, a thus the ripple effects extend way beyond what you will likely ever know.

When more and more of us live as creators of love, our impact is incalculable.

This is how we can build the world with love.

Why love matters now

Love is always important. It is always needed. And it feels to me that a focus on love is especially important now.

Love starts with us

How do you feel and hold love in your heart?

Think about love for yourself as well as love for others — those you know, and those you do not know.

Self-love is something many people overlook, or feel awkward about. Yet when you focus on loving yourself — thinking lovingly about yourself, feeling deserving, acting lovingly toward yourself when you take exquisite care of your body and your spirit — your heart opens.

And when your heart opens, more love is available for you to express to others.

How do you speak about love, in your own thoughts and in conversations?

There are many ways to think lovingly and to express yourself lovingly. 

Pay attention to times you may berate yourself. When you spot such a thought or comment, do your best to reframe it — turn it around and restate it with love.

And look for opportunities to speak lovingly to others, and about others. Loving thoughts and comments are generous. They are free of judgement. 

It may take some practice, but when you bring awareness to your thoughts and ways of speaking, you will spot opportunities to bring more love into many moments.

How can you bring more love into your heart, your spirit and the world around you?

There are countless opportunities to amplify love. See how many ways you can create love today.

Loving gestures, comments, and actions can be small and subtle, or bigger and more dramatic. Any and all ways you make an effort to create more love will be a gift to yourself and to all of humanity.

When we love more, love expands everywhere

I hope you will join me and make love a significant focus, today and every day.

You will benefit and those around you will, too.

As those around you tune in to the vibrations of love, they will feel it and spread love. The recipients, in turn, will touch others.

The ripple effects will spread way beyond what you may ever see. And that is great.

When we all live with more love, we will all contribute to a world that needs that  loving energy.

Listen with an open heart

When you cultivate self-awareness wonderful things can happen.

This takes time and focus, because it is easy to slide into automatic ways of looking at and thinking about things, and automatic ways of being.

Let’s explore one way to bring intentionality to your relationships, that goes beyond the typical way so many people interact when in conversations.

The two questions below can be considered in terms of exchanges in your personal relationships as well as in professional interactions.

How closely do you listen? 

Listening sounds easy — after all, we listen to people all day every day.

And, in many cases we miss a lot, because most of us listen superficially.

When we fail to slow our busy minds down and bring our focus to the person we are with, we miss the opportunity to listen deeply with an open heart.

If, instead, we listen actively, with intention and care and with a loving heart, the person with whom we are in conversation will feel that presence. They are likely to share more fully and honestly.

And whatever way they may share, we can hear so much more by listening deeply. We are able to pick up more than we typically would, tuning in to more nuances, and gaining more insight from the emotion we are able to feel.

We can sometimes even listen for and hear things that are not being articulated in words. We can tune into messages that come across in the tone of voice, in body language, and messages transmitted via the energy of the person who is sharing with us. We may even hear things that are hidden behind the words — fears or concerns or shame that are embedded in the actual statements.

When we listen deeply and hear so much, we can connect and engage with the other person in ways that go way beyond what we would otherwise be able to contribute had we been listening more superficially.

And this way of listening also validates the speaker. They know they are being heard.

Do you bring judgement to what you hear?

One perspective that is meaningful to try and hold, when you listen with focus and care, is to connect to the loving essence of that person.

It is all too common to let judgment slide into our thinking when we listen — judgements that may be subtle or harsh.

Noticing subtle judgements can be particularly challenging. And harsher judgements, if we are aware we are making them, often feel justifiable. 

If you are listening and realize you are judging, you might ask for a pause, so you can take a moment to release the judgement before inviting the person to continue speaking.

The ability to listen without judgement keeps our hearts open. This is a gift we can give the person to whom we are listening, and also a meaningful gift we can give ourselves.

Be patient with yourself

If you choose to bring the awareness of active, non-judgemental listening into your conversations, you may find it takes a bit of practice to do it with ease. I have found that the rewards of building this practice are wonderful, and invite you to join me in cultivating this awareness.

Each conversation you have is an opportunity for understanding and respect, whether you and the other party ultimately find agreement or not. 

Of course, when you do complete a conversation in agreement it feels great.

When that is not the outcome, knowing that you have had a deeply meaningful conversation free of judgement opens the door to acceptance. Ideally you will both be able to agree to disagree, or move ahead in tandem. And if that is not the case, you are likely to feel better because you were able to be open and loving.

Each time we lovingly listen we contribute loving energy into the world.

The more love we generate, the more healing and connection there will be in the world.

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.