2 Love Experiments for You

Love is always trying to expand in our lives. The more love you can infuse into everyday moments, the less pain you’ll have; both emotionally and physically.

So that seems like a pretty good reason to see how you can bring more love in, right?

I love learning so I’m always taking courses and reading. Here are 2 ways that I’ve been infusing more love into my life in the past few weeks.

Love Experiment #1

Recently I read The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. Highly recommended. Here’s one of my takeaways.

So much of what takes you out of love is when you’re attached to your preferences. If you can let go of your preferences and let life take the lead, love will flow in unprecedented ways. 

To make this super practical, Michael explains that you can use the weather as an example. 

The other day, at my daughter’s track meet, it was gale force winds and sideways rain for most of her javelin event. Clearly, my preference would have been sunny skies and a gentle breeze. However, I decided to surrender that preference and instead say: It’s rainy and windy. How beautiful. 

I donned 6 layers, brought a seat pad and held on tight to my umbrella as the wind tried to insist that it fly away instead. My heart was peaceful, though, and I just laughed instead of getting upset.

It worked like a charm. It’s so easy to complain about the weather, but why not give this experiment a go? Whenever you notice a preference coming up, let it go and simply say: It’s snowing in May. How beautiful. (I got to practice that one just a couple of days ago.)

Love Experiment #2

Dr Sue Morter, a mentor of mine, issued a challenge during a recent course. Her suggestion was to love something every day that you don’t usually love. 

Here are some things I’ve practiced loving:

• Our incredibly noisy upstairs neighbours who make inexplicable sounds at all hours of the day and night (Are they falling down stairs? Are they practicing for a marathon? Are they playing marbles at 3am? Who knows?)
• The hockey fans who thought that a great way to celebrate a win was by banging on a dumpster at 4am for a surprisingly long time
• When my kids go into total resistance when I suggest to them that they take a breath or offer other such sage advice
• The snarky email I received last week and the stranger who wrote it

You see? So many opportunities to insert more love into life. I bet you have a bunch too. 

The benefits of this love fest? I’ve noticed that I’ve been ruminating less, decreasing attachment and not needing to be right. I’ve also noticed that life is more fun and uplifting, and I have more time for enjoyment rather than wasting it on things that are out of my control.

I hope you take on the challenge too. See if you can let go of a preference or two. See if you can love something you don’t usually love. And then notice both the subtle and significant shifts that happen as a result. 

After all… all you need is love. (And when I write that, I hear the voice of Ewan McGregor from Moulin Rouge singing. I just adore that movie.)

Wishing a week that makes your heart grow three sizes (metaphorically of course; I’m not wishing for you to grow an enlarged heart).

With expansive love and heartfelt courage,

Christina

>Creator of Courageous Self-Care

>Grateful for high quality rain gear

>Hopeful that the cities track meet next week will require less layers