Ten Right Attitudes to Have About Love to Get More
By
Bill Cottringer
“Love is the gentle touching of two souls without the clamor of their external equipment.” ~The Author.
Want more love? Consider adopting these ten right attitudes that will help you enjoy more love:
1. Keep Things in Proper Perspective.
Love fact # 1: “You can’t have the sunshine without the rain,” as Dolly Parton says. There are inevitable ups and downs, highs and lows, and good and bad times in any relationship. When you realize the negatives will pass and be replaced by the positives, it takes the sting off the bad times and frees you to let go of them. The opposite is how you hang onto a wrong perspective—how a bad thing is wrongly imagined to be deserved by you personally and will last forever. That is nonsense and you know it.
2. Grow Tolerance of Your Partner’s Unlovable Moments.
Love fact # 2: Tolerance for un-lovability grows lovability. Growing tolerance and acceptance of your partner’s moments of un-lovability—illness, depression, bad habits, anger, etc. (as long as they aren’t deal breakers)—will always give the other person the needed “permission” to get past these moments of un-lovability and bring on the loving ones. More tolerance and unconditional acceptance will always pave the way for more love.
3. Love is Highly Personal.
Love fact # 3: Giving and getting love is very personal matter. It is a good idea to know what Gary Smalley termed your own and your partners’ preferred “love languages” in giving and getting love—physical affection, presents, romantic gestures, words of appreciation, togetherness in silence, etc. Understand these wants and needs of your partner and mutually communicate them to increase your enjoyment of the love that is given and received.
4. There Are Many Types of Love.
Love fact # 4: Romantic love is only one small part of the love continuum. There are many types of love from pet love to brotherly love to love of life to a love of a higher power. The more you exercise your heart muscles in giving and acknowledging these many other types of love, the bigger your enjoyment and memories of the love sunshine on a rainy day, become. An expanded love toolbox is a great project to work on that will always net quick results.
5. You Can’t Control Love.
Love fact # 5: Love isn’t something you control, just enjoy. The truth be known, you can’t really control any of the various energies or feelings we call “love,” so it is really a waste of time trying. Just accept these feelings when they come naturally and only use them for positive, helpful purposes. That way they are freer to come and go and not control you, just like the similar problem we have with “time” as the tail wagging the dog.
6. Hurt Grows the Heart.
Love fact # 6: Hurt that breaks the heart grows the heart. The bruises and bleeding that come from love lost and disappointment in love are always the most difficult situations to get through. But, getting to the other side of these experiences always grows your capacity to love even more the next time. This certain consolation can offer enough hope so as to not cause you to go out of your way in trying to avoid any potential heart-hurting relationship. Unfortunately, this difficult lesson always has to come after-the-fact.
7. Expectations Get in the Way
Love fact # 7: You Get What You Expect. This would work out fine if your expectations and thinking about them weren’t mostly unconscious. You never really know where love will take you or what challenges it will confront you with, and so a “wait and see,” tentative attitude is usually best. That way you don’t anticipate certain expectations of where you are going or what things should be like, which always have a likely 50-50 chance of resulting in unnecessary disappointment and failure.
8. Conditions Stop Love.
Love fact # 8: Conditions set up wrong expectations that get wrong results in love. Probably the hardest love challenge is to learn how to do it unconditionally. Although it is very natural to have both expectations and set conditions on giving anything, such an arrangement of “utility” usually wears thin sooner or later. Unconditional loving is easy to do with pets, family and best friends, but the trick is to learn how to apply this skill to others outside that inner circle, were unwanted realities kick in.
9. Love is Never Lost.
Love fact # 10: Love is always present waiting to be found. Consciously looking for love can be very frustrating. This is true because it is love that is looking for you and is usually hiding right under your nose. Sometimes it is the magic of serendipity that opens your eyes to see what begs to be seen. But that is most often about good timing and patience which we are all short on.
10. Giving Before Getting.
Love fact # 10: The love flow starts with its giving. This last right attitude is more of the main love law: You have to learn how to give love before you are in position to get any; and you have to learn how to recognize and receive love before you get in the right position. It is exactly like life’s banking system—you must make a deposit before you can make a withdrawal. The nice thing about this system is the interest you accumulate from making your deposits.
Developing and embracing the right attitudes about love will guarantee an abundant harvest. You can’t go wrong here!
William Cottringer, Ph.D. is Executive Vice-President for Employee Relations for Puget Sound Security, Inc. in Bellevue, WA, along with his hobbies in being a Sport Psychologist, Business Success Coach, Photographer and Writer living in the peaceful but invigorating mountains and rivers of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, “You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too” (Executive Excellence), “The Bow-Wow Secrets” (Wisdom Tree), “Do What Matters Most” and “P” Point Management” (Atlantic Book Publishers), “Reality Repair” (Global Vision Press), Reality Repair Rx (Authorsden), and “If Pictures Could Talk,” coming soon. Bill can be reached for comments or questions at (425) 454-5011 or ckuretdoc@comcast.net