A Few More Love Lessons

As you probably know, love is my favorite topic. I need to keep it in the front of my mind or it slips to the back of it.

There are tons of things that are important in life. Tons! Food regularly. Education, ideally forever. A job, to pay for much of what we need and want, and often to satisfy our life’s purpose. Social Security for many of us. A car to get to work and more. Air to breath, to stay alive and more on this one, too. Exercise to stay healthy. Computers for nearly everything. You know what I’m getting at. We each have long, long lists of important things in our lives. They are actually endless because we could never realize everything we need, let alone want.

But even if this entire list was fully satisfied, if there was no love, then what? Would we feel satisfied without the comfort and security of love? The answer isn’t even debatable. Can there be full satisfaction without love?

Take a breath. Slow down. Ponder for a moment the value of love.

All this is simply to help us refocus on what is important. Most of us would say, “I need love.” Maybe not everyone, but a lot of us. If this is so, it is apparent that our love skills deserve much more attention.

How do we love better?

If love really is the most important aspect of this lifetime, then it is our responsibility to learn, practice, teach everything we can to elevate our love skills. The only way to truly get better at anything is to practice, and love is a never-ending life-course that requires our dedicated discipline.

I never heard any of these thoughts growing up, that love is a discipline, a practice, a skill. We all need it, but for many reasons a lot of us haven’t taken it as seriously as we need to.

But who cares about the past?

NOW is the time to become serious love learners and practitioners. Love is all about NOW!

Here are a few practical skills to increase your ever-evolving love progress. There are untold beneficiaries to our efforts, and we’ve been blessed to have been given this opportunity.

Each one of us has a responsibility to elevate our love skills. If not us, then who? It is much easier to point fingers where love is missing than it is to courageously learn and grow our own love skills.

Pay close attention to your voice tone. Our tone carries as much and often more meaning than our words. Practice voice tenderness. You can do it.

Send silent love vibes and words to those around you. “I love you…You are beautiful…Thank you…Thank you…You’re amazing.” Feel your words float into the recipients of your love vibes.

Be vulnerable rather than hiding your feelings or needing to be right all the time. Vulnerability is an essential ingredient to love. Let your tender tears slip from your eyes. Ask for help sometimes. Listen more, talk less about “me.” Many of us could work on this aspect of love.

Apologize as quickly and as sincerely as you can. We hurt people. Sometimes on purpose and often it’s just old habits: our pointed sarcasm can sting and even be brutal. Not listening hurts. More criticism than appreciation takes its toll. Taking more than giving also takes its toll. The basic ingredient of an apology is sorrow for our hurtful behavior.

Forgive, too. Often it can require more work than apologizing. Our resentment negatively impacts the one who resents more than the one who is resented.