The power of love

Love is a choice that we get to create.  Love has the power to heal, to bring more connection, bring people together where ideas can emerge, to make us healthier, happier and richer (in the wider sense).  Sometimes it can be hard, other times it can be really easy.

Podcast fave Tonya Leigh described love as the most amazing emotion but we can withhold love from ourselves and other people.  Love is always something we create from within, so why do we separate ourselves from this emotion?

If we feel that love isn’t being given, we can create stories that lead to resentment and anger, and end up pushing the other person further away.  Because of the way our minds are wired we can think that love is something that we have to chase, wanting the world to change in order for us to feel more love.  But when we acknowledge we are the common denominator, it is down to us to stop blaming others for how we feel. 

We love our children no matter what, but someone else could do something not nearly as bad as what our child does but we then withhold love from them.  The only person that hurts is us.  When we’re in a state of love we are happier, more creative, exciting and more loving, and as a result we attract more love in our life.

We can feel that we want our partner to do something different, say or do certain things, in order for us to feel loved.  We get to do that for ourselves, we can buy the things we want, we can be who we want to be, and we should practice letting our partners be who they are. 

If we have someone in our life who is difficult to love (doesn’t have to be a partner), they can be our greatest teachers.  This doesn’t mean we should let people walk all over us, there’s room for tough love too. Boundaries are important for us and the other person and we may have to love them from afar.  But don’t use that as an excuse not to feel love for that person.  We shouldn’t let ourselves think thoughts that hurt ourselves about that person. 

Withholding or feeling love is a choice we get to make, and depending on what’s happening on our life, we can be better at it than at other times.  Choosing love feels good when we don’t use outside circumstances to shut us away from love. 

If we don’t have love for ourselves and others we don’t have a love for life and we end up trying to manipulate the world and other people to make our outside world feel different in order for us to feel love. 

Every day we should look for opportunities to love.  Ask ourselves in difficult situations, “what would love do”? If we don’t love ourselves, we can’t love anyone else or our life.  Think about where we are withholding love in our life and ask how does it serve you?  We might try to convince ourselves that its protecting us and no one can hurt us, but its only hurting us when we withhold love. How does our future-self feel love when we’ve created the things we want in our lives?  It’ll be challenging as we are more familiar with resentment, anger and fear, but love can become our familiar emotion if we choose to practice it.

The right place to look for love is within ourselves, love is created by the thoughts in our head.  Notice what thoughts separate us from love and begin to reach for more love. The more we practice, the more we realise that withholding it from ourselves only ever hurt us.  Giving love to ourselves helps us show up differently. We start to attract different relationships, the people around us start to change as we’re no longer resisting them. 

If there’s someone we feel there’s no way we could love them, TL suggested loving ourselves first, be kind and gracious to ourselves, and over time they may be easier to love.

Love is a choice we get to make for ourselves, and is created by the thoughts in our head.  It’s always available, it has no limits.  Stop chasing love and be love.