A Different Kind of Love

The word love can be pretty charged. Every person has a lifetime of experience behind what the word love means to them. 

In some recent courses that I’ve been taking, love has really opened up for me (and I already thought I had a lot of love) so I wanted to share what’s made a difference in my life. 

For many people, the frame of reference for love is in relationships. You give love, you get love and that’s what we know. 

There’s a bigger love though, that’s completely available to anyone, regardless of how you’ve experienced love in the past. 

It’s actually the love that everything in the universe is made of. The more you can open to and receive this greater kind of love, the more you’ll be able to love yourself and, consequently, others. 

Much of this love can be experienced through nature. It’s valuable to start actively noticing how you feel in the face of some of the following types of experiences. I feel tremendous love when I dive into these moments:

• Sunlight sparkling on water (it just makes me soooo happy!)
• Wind rippling through a field of tall grass
• The sound of river rapids
• Walking on a trail made of pine needles
• The dappled sunlight through trees in a forest
• Witnessing valleys upon valleys in the mountains
• Ocean waves, especially the big awe-inspiring ones
• Gazing up at Orion on a winter’s night
• A glowing sunrise full of promise
• The bright green of new leaves
• Flowers in bloom (especially hydrangeas and gerbera daisies)
• A crackling fire
• Baby animals
• A bright rainbow on a dark cloudy sky
• Big snowglobe snowflakes falling (which is happening right now in my neck of the woods)

Perhaps reading through that list gave you a sense of this greater kind of love. Maybe it even brought your own personal greater love moments to mind. 

There are two things you can do to amplify this kind of love in your life (and as a happy byproduct, all other kinds of love as well). 

Greater Love Practices

1- When you notice one of these magnificent moments, pay attention to it and really go into your body to notice what you feel there. By doing that practice, you’re opening up your entire system to receive this greater love. You’ll get it not just on an intellectual level, but on a cellular level too, which means that you’ll be magnetized to more love in your life.

2- Make a running list of moments that you love. They could be in nature and they can also be in other areas of life. Read the list on a regular basis. The more you hang out in the vibration of greater love, the more love you’ll have in your life. Ta-Da! Who knew it could be so straightforward?

May you have a week that’s overflowing with greater love. 

With precious love and sacred courage,

Christina

>Creator of Courageous Self-Care

>Happily giving all sorts of talks at various Alberta and BC Teachers’ Conventions in the next few weeks (living the dream!)

>Questioning some of the movies nominated for Best Picture… (perhaps I’m just not sophisticated enough in my film-viewing abilities)

PS - Next yoga class is coming up on March 3. I’ll have a calendar of events ready for you next week. 

Over the last 15 years, I’ve become a connoisseur of the daily practices and rituals that make the most impact for the least amount of time invested. 

To make it easy for clients to know what to do and when, I created the Self-Care Resource Centre. It’s a series of instructional done-with-you videos and audios that takes all the guesswork out of self-care. All you have to do is press play and follow along. 

For the month of February, I’m giving you free access to several of the practices; a new one each week. Hooray!

This week’s practice is called Shake It Out.

Shaking your body regularly is emotional hygiene. It keeps your emotions from getting stuck in your tissues. Or, if you already have stuck emotions (which most people do), it will help to move them out.

Here's a little rhyme: You've got issues in your tissues, got to move to get them out. 

Say that three times fast :)

Follow along with the video to get a head to toe shake. It's great for when:

• you need energy
• you're feeling unmotivated
• you've got some really strong emotions and they feel stuck
• you're feeling grumpy

Go on... Shake It Out! You'll feel so much better in less than 5 minutes.

Click here to access the Shake It Out video. It will be available until next week.