Here's another great guest post by Lisa McCourt as we continue to focus on January or Self-Love Month:
Having sold over 5 million books about unconditional love, I thought I was a real smartypants on the subject. Turns out I wasn’t so smart after all. But now that I am so much wiser, I’m going to teach you the biggest secret I learned about love. The best way to teach it is to demonstrate it, so play along with me now, kay?
Take the Love-Test:
- I want you to take a few deep breaths, shake out your shoulders, roll your head around, get really comfy. I want you to suck in all of the attention you’ve got stuck in the past; suck back all the attention you have scattered in the future . . . and then drop that big ball of your energetic presence right down into your heart center. (I’m not talking about the organ that is your heart; I’m talking about that energetic space in our bodies that we call our heart.)
- I want you to imagine opening your heart, as wide as you can, however that feels for you.
- Have you got your heart open wide? Now imagine the flow of love.
- I’m going to ask you a question now, and I want you to answer it silently and truthfully, with the very first response that comes up for you.
- Imagine the flow of love. In which direction is the love flowing?
My guess is that you feel love pouring out of your heart. You might have automatically called up an image of your kids, or your pet, or your beloved, but I want you to really feel how easy it is for you to pour love out into the world this way. For many of us, this is just our default setting. I love to love, and I could always easily imagine just globbing love out all over everyone.
But when I started developing my Juicy Joy trainings, I realized something interesting. I want you to stop imagining the love flowing out of your heart for a moment.
- Now imagine love flowing into your heart. Pause long enough to really imagine that. Is it as easy for you to imagine? If you were able to imagine it, how does the flow feel? Does it have the same volume, the same energy, the same intensity as the love you sent out?
For many of us, this is a real eye-opener. It certainly was for me. It’s harder to imagine the love flowing in, isn’t it? It might be tempting at this juncture to point to the people in our lives and say, “They’re not loving me enough.” But guess what. No one can give you more love than you are equipped to receive. And that amount is not determined by how much love you want. You could want mountains of love, but if you can’t close your eyes and imagine love pouring into your heart like a tidal wave, and feel what that would feel like, there’s no way anyone can give it to you.
Love is energy, and you are an energetic being and you control the traffic in and out of your energy field. Most people are controlling it unconsciously. You’re going to learn how to control it consciously. Many of us have had painful experiences when our hearts have been wide open. Our protective instinct to close our hearts to receiving love is so common and understandable. But it doesn’t serve us.
This is the biggest secret I learned about love. We have this misperception that the only thing we can control is how much love we give. We think it’s up to other people to decide how much love we get. It’s not. That’s the lie. You are actually in charge of how much love you receive.
Practice imagining love flowing into your heart. Start with whatever feels comfortable for you and then gradually build it up. Call to mind the people you already know love you. Deeply feel what receiving their love feels like, and then amplify it in your imagination. Allowing someone to love you; inviting someone to love you, isn’t selfish or greedy. All of our hearts want to give love. Letting someone love you to the best of their ability is the kindest thing you can do for that person. Pretend your heart is a giant vacuum, and practice sucking in love from everyone you encounter. Your family, the bank teller, the kid who delivers your pizza.
You’re not pouting and demanding people’s attention—that kind of behavior comes from a closed heart. You’re joyfully, gratefully, allowing the natural love that exists everywhere to flow, graciously toward you. And when you do that, you don’t even have to think about sending love to others. You’ll be doing that automatically. When you fill up with love like this, you’re a love fountain. It will ooze out your pores. You will be love.
That’s why I’m much more interested in teaching you to receive love than I am in teaching you to give love. Being loved is as simple—and as crazy difficult—as granting yourself access to the abundant flow of love that’s always available to you.
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About the Author: Unconditional love expert Lisa McCourt is a dynamic speaker, seminar leader and author whose 34 books have sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide. Her new book, Juicy Joy – 7 Simple Steps to Your Glorious, Gutsy Self, teaches people to embrace "radical authenticity" to fully experience unbridled joy in life. Lisa lives in South Florida with her two children. For a free Juicy Joy audio program, visit www.LisaMcCourt.com.
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