What a fake rose reminded me about love

There’s an infinite amount of possibilities to wish for - more this, more that, more of this but with a little of that. More like them but less like those people. Desires are unique to us, yet not novel at all. If you listen to someone detail what they dream for - and really listen - it orbits around versions of the same thing: to feel love. 

The pathway we think will take us there, to that feeling, is one of pursuit. One outside of ourselves. We view love as something that we need to meet out there: from the people that choose us, people that show up for us, people that say nice things, people that buy our things, people that see our value and make us feel seen, valid and worthy. While those people are love, it can't be our source. 

Only in spiritual and religious circles (and Ghandi quotes on social media, obvi) will you be consistently reminded that love isn't something to chase, but something to generate. To be love. To actively show up and demonstrate the love you wish to receive. 

Love is an echo. What goes out, comes back.

Here’s what’s wild, when you take that prescription for love and choose to be it...feel it...show it before it’s done onto you, something happens…you very much feel loved. You feel the tingle of the things that you wished were coming to you, because essentially you beat reality to it. 

That’s where being in love with your life starts - where you are, with what you have, as things are.

Believe it or not you don’t actually need to do much to self-generate love, either. You don’t need things to change. You don’t need a person. You don’t need a vacation. You don’t need the house or the meditation practice or the drugs. You don't even need to be in love yourself either (although, that will likely come as a fast follow). You just need to get your head to stop spinning in thoughts, creating such a strong centrifugal force that you become separated from the energy of love that’s all around you. 

I was walking through the park last week and a man handed me a dried palm that he’d tied into the shape of a rose. I didn’t have any cash to give him in return but he smiled and said he didn’t want any. He just wanted to give a rose to the lady in red (I was wearing a red dress) - and it delighted me, obviously. That rose is still on the mantle in my living room as a reminder that love shows up in random moments and in surprising ways, provided we choose to see it as such.

The moments of love like this - the ones that make us feel open and connected with our lives - are everywhere, if your brain is trained to look for them. Like the kind text out of the blue. The smile from a stranger. The person in front of you who buys your coffee. The smell of your neighbor's rose garden wafting through the air to your seat on the porch. The puppy that licks your leg. To see it, you have to view it through the lens of love. You’ve got to step into the frequency of that feeling – and the moment will morph into one of connection and kindness. It requires you to start filtering your reality as such.

I don’t always feel loving. When my brain gets going, or I get worried, or I’m just in a mood from shit "not going my way"…I could stay that way and chalk it up as an off day or hormones or needing more vegetables and praying for the right circumstance to feel love “tomorrow”. That’s basically the method I’ve followed for years. Don’t get too down about a down day, but don’t do much to immediately shift it either.

I’ve been on a journey to take a different approach, to access love in an instant because it's always with me so why wouldn't I? I literally (true statement) breathe and imagine a white neon light flower-thingy blossoming from my chest. I’ve been trying to train my body to shift quickly into feeling that source of gratitude and love from any state – eyes open, eyes shut, standing up, or laying down. And that’s the image that helps me.

Your pathway from funk to feel-good could be looking at a photo of your baby or dog or partner, or thinking about something loving in the future, or stretching your chest cavity open and breathing into it, or staring at tree in awe of the way light drips in through the leaves, or playing music and allowing your body to be lifted by the harmonics – Essentially looking for love until you not only see it, but feel it. I promise it'll show. It always does when you place your attention there.

Falling completely in love with your life simply requires nothing more than that, focusing on it until you feel it.

“The best way to hide love from a human is to put it within them.”

So, go there and find the love.

Woman on xx