Most of us get up in the morning wanting to be caring and loving to the people we meet Throughout our day Although it doesn’t always end up that way, that is where we start. Mostly we associate this with being soft, tender and caring, and certainly there will at times be the need for TLC (tender, love & care). However, if we limit our daily practice of love to this we will most certainly let down many people along the way, because practicing love in your daily work and life is so much more than that. Actually, if you stick with just TLC you are only using half of what is needed to lovingly guide and care for the people in your life. So what does practicing love actually mean?
Many years ago, I was advising an NGO about their strategic direction and we had a prolonged discussion about how to actually position oneself when you really want to help/spread love. It became clear that helping and wanting to spread love does not always mean making it easy for others or even satisfying their immediate needs, but rather guiding people towards a more sustainable solution.
Thus, practicing love is not always helping with the immediate satisfaction of needs and wants, but sometimes doing things that at first might seem firm, demanding or harsh. In the long run these things will turn out to be loving on a whole different scale.
What if we define practicing love as being true to ourselves while setting other people free to explore and create – rather than trying to soften the blows that will make them grow and become stronger. Sometimes practicing love is about doing and saying unpopular things that in time will unfold as loving.
Practicing love is saying yes when you mean yes and saying no when you mean no. Because that is where you bring the cleanest, most truthful exchange of energy between people in play.
How to find solid ground if we want to practice this kind of love:
First of all, love starts with loving yourself. Trying to start with adjusting your behavior towards other people will only work in the short-term, and soon you will either forget or find yourself under so most pressure that you relapse into old habits. If you instead take the longer, slower road by being diligent about your self-love you will not need your mind to control your actions. You will slowly experience how being loving becomes your natural state. When your practice self-love your will permanently transform the way, you share love with other people and you dont have to worry that much about whether you are actually practicing or being love.
Secondly you need to know where YOU mean yes or no and convey it. We will never set each other free to create and explore if we hold back our truths. Also, if we stand back from clear communication we will lose contact with our own truth (press here to see more about finding your truth/personal GPS here) and the people and things we love the most.
All the best
