LOVE

LOVE

Love is the one true reality, and the most important decision we ever make.  It is the ultimate game changer.  If you desire anything in your life to be different, figure out how to pour love into it.

Love is the very essence of life.  It is as abundant as the air we breathe and just as essential.  Love is a shape-changer.   It shows itself in a multitude of forms: kindness, generosity, compassion, thoughtfulness, caring, giving, dedication, appreciation, forgiveness, understanding, gratitude, and patience (to name a few).

Life is a continuous series of choices between love and fear.  Every choice for fear will bring us pain.  Every choice for love will ultimately bring us freedom.  The number of times you get to choose daily is virtually infinite.  You become a master of life when, in every moment, you are able to create the space to choose love.  No matter what the circumstances, there is always a way to choose love.

Many people believe that love is a rare commodity; that the planet is awash in hatred, separation and dysfunction.  This is a common misperception.  YES there is a lot of ugliness and suffering in our world.  But the balance sheet of good versus evil is dramatically weighted on the side of goodness.  Every single day billions of acts of kindness, caring and generosity are selflessly performed by human beings.  The very reason our daily lives continue the way they do is that love is more prevalent on the planet than hate, understanding and compassion are more prevalent than violence. 

This is not a trivial point.  It matters that we all understand this.  When we walk around with the doom and gloom view that the world is a stinking mess, we are less motivated to act from the goodness in our selves.  This negative belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When we get clear about the truth of the situation - that love, compassion, thoughtfulness, kindness and caring are happening all around us, every minute of the day, we begin to notice those acts and to contribute more of our own.

The lens we use to look at the world has a significant influence on the way we act.  Bad news will always be prominently broadcasted by both the news agencies and individuals.  It is the massive goodness in the world that needs to be noticed, celebrated, and remembered.  Look around you today and begin to see just how loving and kind human beings are day in and day out.  This is the truth in every part of the world.

In every moment of every day, each of us has the opportunity to choose love.  This is where our essential power lies.  Every time we choose love, the energy of the planet shifts.  Every time we choose love our heart is expanded and our capacity for joy increases.  Like everything else in life, choosing love is a practice.  The more we do it, the better we are at it.  This is the one practice that will change your life forever. 

When love becomes your practice and your priority, you will see it everywhere.  You will feel like a blind person who has been given the gift of sight.  Don’t wait for this gift.  Choose it.  Love is the gift you must give yourself.  With every choice for love your heart will expand.  As your heart expands, everything that is not love is dissolved.  That is when true living begins.  Life is an expression of love.  Love is an expression of life. 

© Text Copyright 2014 River Cocco

 This is a copyrighted material, so please do not copy it for any purpose.     If you want additional copies to share with loved ones please contact the author at: rivercocco@gmail.com

 The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

- Arabian Proverb 

The words that we speak ripple forward into the world creating waves of impact.  How many of us are consciously aware of the nature of the waves our speech creates?  Do our words generate peace, understanding, communication, respect, approval, and kindness?  Or do they engender defensiveness, hostility, judgment, criticism, distance, and distrust?

Every time we speak we have the opportunity to promote either goodness or negativity.  And when we are in a calm and/or positive state of mind it is fairly easy to choose the high road.  But what about those moments of tension, stress, overwhelm, frustration, disappointment, and anger?  How conscious are we in those moments about the words we send out into the world?  For most of us the answer is: not very conscious.

The antidote to spewing negativity in 'the heat of the moment' is to s-l-o-w  it down.  The more emotionally charged a moment is, the less access we have to our normal reasoning faculties.  Malcolm Caldwell, in his international bestseller Blink says, "Arousal leaves us mind-blind."  The best choice in these moments is to slow everything down: slow our breathing (which will slow our racing heart), slow our thinking, slow our response time.

Why?  Because these moments are the opportunity to create the world we really want to live in: a world of peace, kindness and connection.  And in order to seize that opportunity we need to ask ourselves some important questions.  The first one is 'What do I truly want?'  Do I want to walk away from this situation being 'right'? Or do I want to create connection and understanding?

It is very enticing, in the moment, to want to be right.  But it is a short lived and shallow thrill.   Rightness is merely a matter of perspective anyway (another subject for another time).  Being right makes someone else wrong.  How good do you feel when someone makes you wrong?  There are other choices: understanding, acceptance, compromise, forgiveness.  These choices promote what we all want and need: connection and respect.

Every communication we send forth into the world has effects.  Each of us has a choice in every moment about what type of ripples we want to generate.  And in our 'heated' moments the stakes are raised.  These are the moments that we can truly manifest change in the world by choosing wisely.  These are the moments to move slowly and choose consciously to promote peace, understanding, respect and connection.