How to Bring More Love into Your Life

Posted: 15 Mar 2010 03:06 AM PDT

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. – Morrie Schwartz

Article written by Alex Blackwell. Connect with me on Facebook.

Love lives at your core. It defines how you see the world, how you see others and more important love defines how you see yourself and how you measure happiness. Love is the compass that points to your true North.

However, love's true North can sometimes appear beyond your reach and too hard to find even when you are holding the map in your hands. The way to love can feel nebulous, complex and even treacherous at times. Love is also the great paradox in life: You want to find more of it but sometimes you are afraid of discovering its increasingly amazing power.

Love's capacity to fill the gaps in your life is always changing and expanding based on the attention you place on it. To bring more love into your life you must be willing to understand its true meaning and then be willing to recognize the meaning you bring to love.

What would you do with more love?

Begin by asking what you would do with more love in your life. Is it to fill a place of emptiness? It is a gift you want to give yourself? Or is it to strengthen and improve certain relationships?

Love is best experienced when its purpose is clear. Love is not a drug to make you feel better or a temporary state of mind – it is a commitment to something bigger than anyone of us. When we ask for more love we are also assuming the responsibility to care for it, nurture it and to respect it. We are vowing to put love in a better place than where we found it.

When this commitment is established, love begins its work. It brings clarity and focus to our lives. Love helps us to see what is truly important compared to what is only trivial. Love empowers us to help others find its healing grace while we are showered with love's grace along the way.

I want more to bring more love into my life so I can continue to be a person of dignity, confidence and be the light for my wife and children.

Eight simple ways to bring more love into your life

To bring more love into your life, you may need to draw a new map or shake your compass a little if it's stuck. Finding new ways to let more love in your life can be simple to do when your heart is ready for the journey:

Acknowledge the walls holding love back.
Often what keeps you from bringing more love into your life is you. Step back and notice the barriers that are holding love back. Are you withholding love from others because of jealously, spite or a lack of emotion? Do you see love as a burden or something unimportant? Do you allow self-love to flow through you?

Bringing more love into your life takes action and consciousness awareness. Begin by knocking down the walls that are keeping love away. When you do, love will not come in drips, it will come all at once.
Change and grow.
Love is not static. People change; relationships change and you change, too. Becoming aware of the changing needs of the people in your life and then changing how you extend love to meet these needs will allow love to grow.
Determine what you are willing to release to experience more love.
Consider what it would feel like to let go of past expectations, rules or experiences of love. In the place where regret once lived, fill this space with hope and imagine what your life could look like from this point forward. Let go of the past and take hold of love.
Stop controlling love.
Love knows no boundaries and is limitless in its potential. The idea of controlling love is temporary at best. To bring more love into your life you must be willing to surrender to it. Put down your anxiety and allow love to fill your life on its schedule; not yours.
Imagine what love looks like to you.
Close your eyes and feel love spread over you. What does it look like to you? Is it peace, security and wonder? Does it look like loving your partner or child unconditionally? Does it look like repairing a part of your past? Or does it look like having the confidence to love you a little more each day?

No matter what love looks like to you, keep this picture in front of you and refer to it often when it feels like love is slipping away.
Recognize your expectations of love.
Love often disappoints when your expectations are unrealistic. Love can be the bridge that brings two people together, but the bridge looks different each day. Some days it is paved with passion and on other days it is filled with a simple, subtle knowing.

Celebrate each day for what it brings and understand that to realize intense intimacy a baseline has to be established. The "baseline days" of sharing gentle tenderness can be just as passionate when your expectations are appropriately calibrated.
Practice giving.
Love grows in abundance by how much you are willing to give – so practice giving. Donate to the disadvantaged, find ways to help someone in need and give your time and attention to worthwhile causes. Find ways to make your partner's day a little easier and be fully present for your children. Practice giving more of yourself. With practice, love will grow in strength.
Know what's temporary.
Shortcuts in love may feel good, but they don't last. Instant gratification isn't really love at all. Commit to the journey of learning how you can bring more love to others. Resist the temptation of doing what feels good at the moment and replace it with what you really want for the long term.

Finding true North

Love helps you find your way. The more love you bring into your life the clearer the path becomes. You can surround yourself with possessions, excuses or by clinging to the past, but in the end, nothing trumps love.

Love is the healer; the giver of abundance and the creator of peace. Love comes from a place not of this world and will be with you forever. You are equipped with an especially-prepared device that allows more love to flow in your life – your heart.

When you invite someone to peel back the clinched fingers protecting your heart and trust this person will love it with tenderness and compassion then you are sharing the best part of yourself. By sharing, giving and then receiving love, more of it will come into your life and will continue pointing to your true North.

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