Love as a Practice

In our language the word “love” often refers to a feeling, sometimes to a need, and sometimes to a quality of presence (loving presence). Love can also be an action and refer to a practice. You don't have to wait for love to find you. You don't have to stumble upon some magical person that loves you. You can choose to practice love anytime. 

Choosing to practice love doesn't mean giving yourself some vague command like, "be more loving.” Like any mindfulness practice, choosing love includes setting an intention, directing attention moment by moment, exercising compassion, and maintaining consistency.  

Setting Intention

Setting your intention each day gives you direction and provides you with a place to come back to throughout your day. Choose a time each morning to set your intention. It will be easier to remember to do this if you pair it with something you already do every morning. For example, your first sip of morning tea or coffee could be your cue to set your intention for today. Setting your intention might sound something like this: "Today my intention is to practice love. Between each interaction, task, or part of the day, I will focus on breathing through my heart and bringing to awareness ______(a specific person, animal, or place that easily brings up a sense of love). I will keep my attention on my heart until I feel myself relax and soften."

Directing Attention

Any particular snapshot of your experience is infinitely layered and complex. It's important to know exactly how and where you are directing attention as a part of practicing love. 

A simple and powerful place to start is in your body. At a basic level, when you are caught in judgment, anger, or clinging, your body is contracted and tense. When you are practicing love, your body relaxes and softens— especially around your heart. Relaxing and softening doesn't mean collapsing and falling asleep. You can relax and soften in your body while maintaining vibrant attention.

You can also choose to direct your attention to your emotional experience. You can bring a loving tone to whatever emotions are moving through you in the moment. Just practicing a subtle smile in your heart can create a loving emotional tone. Other practices include: putting your hand on your heart, offering yourself a gentle thought of reassurance, or making a wish for the wellbeing of someone in your life.

Lastly, you can choose to direct your attention to your thoughts. Most thoughts are simply habits. When you are not intently focused on a task, your mind will generate the type and quality of thoughts you have most often. By turning your attention to this stream of thoughts, you have an opportunity to influence their content and quality. Your intervention might be as simple as directing your thoughts towards what you are grateful for.

Exercising Compassion

In your love practice, you will find yourself having moments of judgment, anger, and clinging. As you wake up again and again during these moments, it's essential to practice compassion for yourself. You can simply say to yourself in a gentle tone, "I am judging again. That's okay. It's just a habit* and will dissolve over time as I catch myself and return to the practice of love." Take time to grieve the suffering that judgment, anger, and clinging create for you. Take time to study yourself and notice the impact of judgment, anger, and clinging on your body, heart, and mind, and on those around you. 

Each time you do this you will notice another subtlety about how these states show up in your body, heart, and mind. For example, you might notice that judgment brings on a headache or that anger tightens your stomach. As you become more subtle in the study of yourself, you will find yourself waking up to your experience more easily and more often.

Maintaining Consistency

Unless you live in a monastery, it's likely that the world around you isn't set up to support your mindfulness practice. Therefore, it’s essential to set up your own support structure so that you maintain a consistent practice. A consistent practice gives rise to layers of insight and relief from suffering, and thus naturally encourages you. Support for a consistent practice might include regularly participating in a community that practices, having a practice buddy that's doing it with you, checking in with significant others in your life about your practice, setting up your home so that you are surrounded by an environment that supports mindfulness, or setting regular dates for self-reflection, meditation, and acts of loving service in your community.

Practice

Take a couple of minutes right now to check in with your intention for today. What mindfulness practice is just right for you today?  

*Judgments, anger, and clinging are also a sign that you are perceiving a threat to one or more needs, and can be used as cues to practice self-empathy. You can find the handout Self Empathy Steps on the Wise Heart website here