To love is an action word, a verb. When it comes to loving your life what does it actually mean? What is required to enable an act of giving and/or receiving love….to creating a loving environment? How do we know it and recognize love of life as an experience?
When we can answer these questions to our satisfaction, we will have the basic understanding required to make loving our life part of our daily practice. A daily practice of “loving life” creates the conditions for harmony and sustainable growth and lets us experience ourselves loving life directly while we share it with others by being fully present, thereby fundamentally enriching our lives and the lives of others.
While dictionaries focus their definitions of love as a noun, it is only when we reframe love, as a verb, that we empower ourselves. By doing so we invite the experience of giving and receiving love to be an integral part of our everyday experience.
There’s no better time then right now, at this time of year, as we prepare to gather with friends and families for end of year seasonal festivities what you love about your life. The act of loving is an act of empowerment.
For me, to love means to care; to care meaning to attend to, abide with, accept, embrace, honour and celebrate….all of these ideas cultivate presence and require attitudinal commitments that invite action – action that is affected by subtle shifts in awareness, attitude and attention….so, thinking of family as a laboratory…which enables if not forces me to face myself, I can call upon “Love” as my muse, to help me navigate emotionally challenging situations. I simply pause, quiet my mind and inwardly ask my heart, “What would Love do now?” Inevitably, I always get a response to that question, that feels just right.
To help you prepare for the festive season, here are some coaching questions that can help point you in the right direction:
- What is it in my daily life that makes me love it?
- What is it that enables me to notice, attend to and abide with – ie savour the flavour of the moment? What happens when I do?
- What action can I take that would enable me to love my life even more?
To discover the answers to these questions is a reflective practice that mindfulness coaching facilitates. To create the conditions for an enhanced experience of loving your life and giving yourself permission to express the love you feel for being alive and living life as a creative expression of your life purpose is to master the art of living.
About Julia von Flotow
