About Love: Showing Love to Strangers

Its not easy showing love to strangers. In fact, it's out right have at times. That's one thing about love that is mighty strange, although we have it in our hearts to show love to others, especially those in need, we choke and freeze up. How often have you pulled up to a stop light and not shown love to the beggar in the center divide by just giving him/her a few coins. Something about love tells us we should, but because we don't know the person, it is so hard to open up and connect with that person. Often, psychologically, I believe that we think they are contagious and whatever landed them in the situation that they are in will happen to us. We are embarrassed at time even associating with strangers that look different than us.

However, it's foolish. It's not how to show love. Instead, showing love may only take 3 seconds and not cost more than a quarter. The same quarter that buys the sandwich that saves the life. What is love all about? It's about sometimes doing, when you are uncomfortable doing. It's about giving, even when you don't have the time to give. Love is about being able to show love to strangers despite what others might think. And when we are able to show love to strangers, we have begun to learn how to love unconditionally, making us the most powerful weapon on the face of the planet.

How to Show Love in the New Year

As the first month of this new year comes to a close reflect on your resolutions. It is not too late to add one very important resolution to the many you may have made: This year I will actively show love to those around me! A very simple, yet powerful resolution to make. When you resolve to love free those around you the influence multiplies because others begin to love freely as well. This helps your home, your work, you relationship, and your self-esteem. This year, do not hold back showing love. Learn how to love others unconditionally. This country and this world could use a little more of it, and it starts with you.

How to Love: Understanding What Love Is

Love Is

Understanding

How to Love

At the foundation of learning how to love one another is the idea of what love is. By every aspect possible we all have a different understanding of how to love because our perceptions and internalization of what love is varies so widely. In fact, so it seems, is why we become so wonderfully cheerful with one another as we fall in love with someone and begin to learn how to love them in the ways they are most receptive. We learn that she likes chocolate and hates to dance, and as a result she has turned down every man who has asked her to dance and paid attention to those who delivered flowers and candies to her. This learning how to love a specific person and gain their admiration through our learning and expression of love is often referred to as "THE CHASE!" We humans love the chase! We are seemingly built for it. So much so that as we become older and wiser we begin to accept the fact that we cannot CHASE everyone whom we may have affections for. Because at the foundation of it all if our individual understanding of what love is varies so greatly from that of whom we admire, then our understanding of how to show love may never match that person's receptiveness to that type of love. Although Mr. and Miss Right might be out there for you, the gift of love that you have to offer isn't for everyone! Remember, the love that you have to give is unique and special. Chose wisely!

What Is Love All About

Balance

It feels really good to fall in love. One powerful and sometimes dangerous aspect about love is that it can be nearly addictive. And there are so many processes that run through all of our senses to make us want to fall in love and stay in love. The sights, sounds, smells, and touch of our loved one keeps us mutually around each others finger. However, we must always remember that we cannot completely lose ourselves in the process. When we fall in love, we falling in love with an individual who has a history, a culture, a family, hopefully a career, goals, dreams, fears, desires, and their own perspectives about love. As we grow together in relationships the two begin to merge. But when we merge to the point that one no longer recognizes the individual that we once fell in love with, sometimes problems creep in. As a result, a balance with love in necessary. On one side is the closeness and blending of lives, and on the other is maintenance of individuality. So What is Love All About : Balance!


A Little Love Goes a Long Way with Balance!

Sound off! Comment. How do you keep the balance between blending your life and keeping your individuality in your relationship?

How to Love

About Friendship: True Friends

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About Friendship

True friendship is a powerful institution; powerful enough that some friendships are deeper than biological relationships. However, ask anyone with true wisdom and they will tell you that true friendship is hard to come by. Of course we go through life from one school to the next, one community to the next, one sport to the next, one instrument to the next, one religious institution to the next, and along the way we meet wonderful people. However, most of those people will be mere acquaintances. Others will become friends of ours. And a child-sized handful will become true friends. 

True friends stick by your side. They show you how to love more than just yourself. Sometimes they tell you everything you want to hear, and other times none of the same. They show up to your parties and gatherings. A true friend consoles and lifts you up, helps to highlight your strengths and makes you feel okay about your weaknesses. A true friend is with you when you are rich or when you are broke. It’s probably the next closest institution to having a spouse. That’s the one thing about friendship; it can be just as rare as true love!

Whatever your situation may be, it is my hope that you have at least one true friend. And if you do, COMMENT and give them a shout out! Let them know that A Little Love Goes a Long Way with True Friendship!

About Love : How to Show Love When You Have No Money

About Love : How to Show Love

Times are hard and most people are strapped for cash. However, it doesn’t mean that we cannot give expressions of love with little to no cash. Sometimes an expression of love can take the form of a note that you leave on the dresser for a significant other. Sometimes it could be a foot massage or back rub. Or maybe you do the dishes tonight instead. Although love feels so grand on an expensive date, at a restaurant with a name that you cannot pronounce, with food that you dislike, with pricing that you could not afford even when times were better, simple love can be just as grand. And often, that massage or doing the dishes when it isn’t your night builds more intimacy and connection between couples than being “fancy.”

A Little Love Goes a Long Way Especially When You Are Broke! Sound off! How do you express love with little to no money?

What is Love All About? Summer!

Now that summer is here people begin to become more concerned about falling in love. Summer is such a lively season that most do not want to go through summer without being able to give and receive love. What is Love All About? Summer is one answer for sure. This is the time of year that people let their hair down a bit, travel, reunion, party, and visit family. It is a a season in which we spend a lot of time with our children. We spend our time expressing love in various ways to various groups of people within our lives. We finally slow down and take the time to enjoy one another. Or, we set out on adventures, together.

Post what your plans are for this summer! How will you spend your time showing love?

How to Love

?

A Little Love Goes a Long Way During Summer!

What is Love All About? Chasing the Feeling of Love

What is love all about

I am not sure if there is any one true answer to this question. However, there are some pretty good descriptors that help us to understand. So what is love all about? Well, love is all about a feeling that is triggered when we exhibit specific behaviors. This feeling so grand that it is addictive to the point that we want to exhibit these specific behaviors over and over again. The thing about love is that as humans, we just can’t get enough of it! And the feeling that we get can be triggered relatively easily. What love is all about is showing these behaviors to people we care about in life.
Love is innate. Although we learn a range of behaviors to express love over time, no one has to show an infant how to love. It just kinda happens. Adults, on the other hand, sometimes do need encouragement in how to show love. Thus, blogs such as this. All in all, love is a series of expression that can be provided and received in a multitude of ways, big and small, for short periods or through an entire lifetime. It can range from a pat on the back, to the proverbial dozen of red roses. It can be a note of appreciation, or a dissertation highlighting a person’s entire splendor.
Regardless of what it may look like, we constantly chase after the feeling of being love and giving love. And so far, it continues to make the world go around.

A Little Love Goes a Long Way When We Show Love!

Sounds off! Comment! Share the many ways you chase after the feeling of love. What works for you!?!

About Love: How to Love When You Are Afraid To Love?

Love

We can spend our entire lives learning about love and how to love one another. But learning what love is and how to love isn't always easy. One of the many things that is difficult to grasp in life about love is How to Love When You Are Afraid to Love. It may seem silly that a person might be afraid to give and receive love to and from others, but I am of the opinion that it happens much more than we realize. The reasons are many, but often we have a difficult time giving and receiving love because of a fear that the love we give may not be enough, or we that we may not be able to appropriately handle the love we are given. Fear is often hard to overcome. I'm sure that you have an adult acquaintance or two that have a fear of clowns because of some experience as a child, and in all this time that have been unable to shake this fear. Love is so grand that fear of it can be just as long lasting. As a result, understanding How to Love When You Are Afraid to Love is not easy to do. Despite our natural tendency to want to seek and provide love, to know more about love and what is love, some people go through life never being able to shake this fear.

One thing that is important to realize is that despite fear of loving, the love that you provide those around you can be a gift. And the love that those around you provide you is a gift. Our daily interactions allow us to recycle this gift. What love is, in part, is a social emotional present that is exchanged by small and tremendous gestures and behaviors towards each other on a nearly minute by minute basis. And I don't know about you, but I like receiving gifts. And in the same, I like the joy that the gifts that I give provide those I show love to on a minute by minute basis. You let go of our fear by facing the clown head on. Don't let the clown hinder you from what love is all about. Instead, try with just one person to give the gift of love today. And bask in the feeling when the love is returned. And you will find something wonderful about love; it can make your fear about it go away because love is just that powerful.

A Little Love Goes a Long Way When You Open Up! Share your comments, thoughts, and experiences about love and How to Love When You Are Afraid to Love

About Love: How to Love

How to Love

It is my opinion that most people become uncomfortable when they have to share about love. This may be because there are so many opinions on how to love that people are afraid they their opinion is the wrong opinion. As a result, people often clam up when it comes to giving advice or opinions about what love is. Consequently, some of the golden nuggets about love and how to love have gone unnoticed and unclaimed. The purpose of this blog is to notice and reclaim those nuggets.

Expressions of love can be simple and easy. Sometimes we get caught up in making an expression of love overly grand. Twelve dozens of roses is a wonderful thing, but it's neither simple nor easy necessarily. Sometimes, a small note to a loved one will cause the same stir of emotions. Often stating the positive things that you admire about a significant other is what helps them through a difficult day. And often, oh so often, the gift of a single piece of chocolate does the trick. We can learn how to love through simple and effective expressions. And the smiles, hugs, and kisses we receive in return keep the cycle of love turning.

A Little Love Goes a Long Way When We Realize What’s Simple About Love!
Sound off and Comment! How do you keep love simple?

AJ's 30 Second Rule

About Love

It is really easy to come to work and not take notice of people. Yes, most of us come to work slightly disgruntled with a single mission and purpose: "To tolerate the hours ahead so that I can get back home!" And a few lucky ones out there love their job so much that they spend more time at work then at home. However, love it or hate it, disgruntled or overly cozy, it is really effortless to over look our coworkers. The overly cozy perceive coworkers as close family. So close in fact that sometimes they may forget to say hello or good morning. And the disgruntled, well the disgruntled are so tightly focused on getting back home that they often walk through the work day with blinders on!

So...AJ's 30 second rule. Depending on the size of your work environment, try to spend 30 seconds with everyone that you can. A simple, "Hey, how was your weekend!?!" will often do the trick. It is just enough time spent to connect to your coworkers, and gain their trust and loyalty. This communicates interest, care, and love. As a result, people will perceive you differently, and you might begin to be a bit less disgruntled. And for the overly cozy, AJ's 30 second rule helps you never forget a key element to making work so pleasurable. And if you do not get the opportunity to spend at least 30 seconds with everyone in day, don't feel bad. Over the course of a week, in most cases, you will have reached everyone!

A Little Love Goes a Long Way when you spend a little time!

Give AJ's 30 Second Rule a try...Comment! Let me know how it works for you!

I'm Sorry and I Love You

A Lesson in

How to Love

It is so interesting how hard it is for us as a species to say "I'm Sorry" or "I Love You." These two very powerful expressions of emotion have started and saved relationships throughout the centuries. But these two very powerful expressions of emotion, for some reason, are reserved internally to the degree that their utterance can stop a crowd. I would guess that the vulnerability that ensues when we say I'm Sorry" or "I Love You" is what makes it so difficult to say. It's the state of emotional nakedness that we submit ourselves to when we use these words that is so awkward. And especially, in public, most of us do not like to be naked.

However, when we open ourselves up to these emotions, and express them in actions and in words, we seem to always feel better, our heart pours out, and that burdened feeling is lifted. I am not sure that many of us regret telling someone "I'm Sorry" or "I Love You," even when the sentiment is unrequited. In fact, the last expression of many people as they are facing death is that they regret not saying "I'm Sorry" or "I Love You" enough in life. And not only do we feel better when we use these expressions, but it changes us, it changes the situations we are in, and changes the people that what say it to. And in the end, life is lived that much sweeter.

A Little Love Goes a Long Way when we I'm Sorry or I Love You. Make a commitment and start saying it more! Comment!

Love, Gratitude, and Meaning Thank You

Love Is

Some of the dads that I know took the time to share with me the particulars of their Father's Day 2011. I had the pleasure of hearing a range of stories from breakfast in bed to a surprise vacation. It was refreshing to hear these stories because they all reflected a sense of love and gratitude for "Dad." This implies that these dads were good ones! Way to go Gentlemen!

But what was even more amazing was hearing these men speak of the gratitude and love they have for their families. So it so often seems, men might not be the best of the two genders at outwardly expressing emotions and feelings. Lots of men have been told that they need to understand how to better show love. However, it does not mean that those emotions and feelings are nonexistent. And the types of emotions and feelings that they expressed to me reaffirmed that showing love and gratitude through a simple manifestation of love such as breakfast in bed, or washing someone's car for them, puts even the toughest guy in a different frame of mind. Love is viral. And a day that honors a group or a person often promotes that person or group to express love, and keeps our focus on and about love.

The cherry on top of this sundae of love and gratitude was how many of these men said Thank You to their families. One dad proclaimed, "I had to look at my wife directly in her eyes so that she understood that I was really meaning thank you when I said thank you. This time, I actually meant thank you!" This was all promoted from a simple expression of love, and helps create a "cycle" of love being expressed within a family or between a couple.

There is no mystery in how to show love to others. I think we just need reminders and help along the way. Whether it takes national days of recognition, or, simply coming home to your loved ones, we need reminders. And these reminders bring us that much closer.


A Little Love Goes a Long Way When We Take Time to Recognize Others

Share your experiences! Comment!

About Love

Kids: A Little Love Goes a Long Way When They Do Wrong

About Love

If you have children like I do then you have come to the realization that they may not always do things that we would approve of.  Recently, my daughter tested the very fibers of my patience by playing leapfrog between the family couch, the love seat, "Daddy's" recliner, and the ottoman. She knows well that there is an expectation that most furniture is not to be played on.  Although I was able to identify this, in the moment, all I could see is another trip to the emergency room, stitches, and lots of tears coming if she continued her furniture conquest. All I could feel is disappointment of rule breaking and the panic of knowing my child might be hurt.

My first intuition was to yell and reprimand. Luckily, I was able to catch myself this time (I'm working on it). Instead, I remembered that A Little Love Goes a Long Way when we break the rules. So, I tried something new this time. After I physically caught her mid-air froggy hop between the couch and love seat I calmly told her a story about how I one day broke a house rule when I was "about her age." Instead of focusing how I felt when I was caught breaking the rule, I focused on how my father felt when he caught me breaking the rule. I spoke of how I disappointed him and hurt his feelings. How much we wanted me to be safe, healthy, and in one piece. How much he loved me! After telling my story, she gave me a big hug and apologized. I was amazed and I think so was she! I realized that a simple manifestation of love when a person does wrong goes a long way. It provided reflection, forgiveness, and acceptance.

A Little Love Goes a Long Way When They Do Wrong

Give it a try and Comment! Let me know how it works for you! And, post any similar positive strategies about love you have found effective.

Three Calls of Love

About Love

It is amazing how easy it is these days to get caught up in all the drama and responsibilities of the world. And a natural consequence of doing so is that we lose touch with loved ones. A close friend, sibling, or cousin that you are normally in touch with frequently becomes an "Oops" or "Oh I forgot!" before you know it. And although it may be our heart's desire to extend love through frequent check-ins, on the practical end, it's hard to at times. So this week, dedicate your heart to contacting THREE people that you have not connected with in a while. I don't, by any means, suggest your high school sweetheart. Rather, those you have been close to, but have started to drift from. Make the calls, and you and they will feel a lot better! And...its how to love!

A Little Love Goes a Long Way when you reconnect!

Place the three calls ASAP! Comment! Let me know how it works for you!