Category: Love

Taking a Moment to BE instead of Do

4/27/2016

Dear One,

I am filled with love and peacefulness as I take in the beauty of this morning that I have set aside to catch up on some work that I got behind on. Instead of the work, I have taken time for myself to read a bit in some magnificent books and to just relish the messages in them.

Like bathing in warm, healing honey, the generous feeling to be loving everyone and everything envelopes me as I direct love to all of the parts of me that I have not loved while playing at being busy, busy, busy. We tend to forget who we really are when lost in doing or hurting from unloving thoughts.

All it takes is to direct love to the parts of ourselves that are hurting from our own or other's judging. We ALWAYS have that choice to send love to the part of us that is hurt. As Matt Kahn would say, "because it needs MORE love, not less".

The beauty of this practice is that it is purely in our control; our choice, and can be done at any time, in any place, in a moment's time. It is ours to have and to hold and can never be taken from us. Even better? When we give love to the parts of us that are hurting, judging, grudging, and unresourceful, we are healing it for mankind.

Try it and notice how differently you see and feel about others. It cracks your heart open and allows light to cleanse and heal the broken parts of us. In that action, our capacity to love ourselves and others grows.

Play with this Dear One and ENJOY!,
Nina

Nina Potter, Core Spirit Relationship Coach
http://PlayInYourMarriage.com

P.S. The books I was reveling in this morning? "Whatever Arises, Love That" by Matt Kahn and "For Giving Love" by Leonard Laskow, M.D. If you want more recommendations for your specific situations in life, contact me for a free consultation at nina(at)ninapottercoach.com or from the contact page at http://PlayInYourMarriage.com

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Love is a Second Language

10/5/2015

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Dear One,

Learning to love your partner is like learning a foreign language.
When you speak it often in practice, it flows from you naturally and you begin to think and dream in it. When you know your love’s particular love language (ala Gary Chapman in “The 5 Love Languages) and you practice it, your partner EXPERIENCES your love more.

If, on the other hand (and I’m not talking about sign language here), you let this language go unused and unpracticed, you start to lose it. You lose both the love YOU feel for your partner and you lose the appreciation and gratitude they once felt for you.

If you are not feeling the warmth and appreciation you once felt for your loved one, try consciously choosing to do something nice for them (preferably in THEIR love language). You will be pleasantly surprised at how you feel a surge of warmth created within you as you anticipate their delight. You will find yourself feeling more love internally and you will want to share it.

I think of the French movie Amelie where she discovers joy in doing kind things for people anonymously. She hides and watches to see their pleasure and she gets as much or more joy from the experience as they do. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it for both inspiration and entertainment as it is quite funny.

Go Do Something Nice for Someone You Love,
Nina

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The Infinite Love Within Us

9/29/2015

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Dear One,

Yesterday I wrote about how we have ingrained habits modeled since childhood to try to “get” love from others. Like you and everyone else, I find myself forgetting who I really am and trying to blame others for my own pinched off feelings of separation.

Today I want to write about how our love comes not from receiving from others, but rather from within our own wellspring of being.

Think about the last thing you appreciated so much you felt AWE well up within you. This, my friend, is your love! It happens when we feel appreciation for beauty, for kindness, for whimsy, strength, courage. It can even be measured by instruments measuring brainwaves and patterns, heart rate variability, and other physiological manifestations.

You might be thinking those responses are to an outside stimulus and while those stimuli CAN be a catalyst for the feeling, you can still create the feeling independent of the stimuli. Try it right now…think of someone you really adore. Maybe it is a pet. It could be someone who has passed, like a favorite Grandparent. Notice how that FEELS.

If you think about ANYTHING you really appreciate, your body will respond by releasing endorphins and other chemicals that affect your body in positive ways! When you first meet that someone special, you create an image of who and what you think they are and you APPRECIATE their inner and outer beauty.

Only it isn’t THEIR beauty (as anyone who is old enough to have seen the Twilight Zone episode “Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder” knows ;-), it is YOUR OWN PERCEPTION and judgment of that beauty. YOU are creating that feeling within your own body, NOT the other person!

Think about this for a moment…if you got a text or email by mistake that you thought was from your lover saying they no longer loved you, and never wanted to speak to you again. You might be devastated. But if it was a mistake and the message was NOT from your lover, but from cyber space somehow sent to your mailbox by mistake, your lover STILL LOVES YOU. Nothing has changed but your own inner belief. If the love you experience actually CAME FROM THEM, then you would not have felt that pain at all.

We generate our own loving feelings so because as long as we have breath, we can APPRECIATE, the wellspring is infinite within us.

Today, go through your day finding things to appreciate about your surroundings. Look for things to appreciate in each person you see. Feel the love you can generate for yourself and notice how others are ATTRACTED to that vibration.

If you are in a love relationship, try shifting any negative thoughts about them to thoughts of appreciation (I don’t care if it is deep or superficial, just as long as it is sincere appreciation!). Notice how they respond to you SHARING your love instead of expecting to “get” love from them.

If you feel called to let me know how you experience your day, please leave a comment below. And really enjoy the flow of love you can generate within.

In Joy,
Nina

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How Trying to Get Love Causes Our Suffering... and How To Love Instead

9/28/2015

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“Why can’t you”, Why won’t he”, “When will she”,
“How can I get them to…”

Dear One,

These tried and untrue statements are so familiar to us because we grew up hearing all the adults in our surroundings repeat them over and over. So WE learned to repeat them and teach our children to repeat them. So what is so untrue about them?

First of all, they take all responsibility for our experience and put it squarely onto someone else (where we believe it belongs to the point of ruining our precious relationships over it). “But it IS their fault!” and “it IS their responsibility!” we cry. And then we weep over the demise of our love.

This shifting of our responsibility onto another shows up in our love life as trying to “get” love instead of sharing love. We stamp our foot and think “You owe me this love, now pay up!”. The interesting thing is it never works. No one wants to have their love demanded.

The harder we try to “get” love from others, the further they distance themselves. Then we try even harder to “get” the love (kind of like when speaking to someone in a different language and they don’t understand, we say it LOUDER). Sometimes we try so hard, we end up “getting” them to leave the relationship altogether.

It does NOT have to be that way!

If you are struggling in a relationship it may be time to take a clear look at what you are expecting from this other person. Are you expecting them to somehow fill up your black hole of emotional need from childhood, adolescence and beyond? Have you been trying to buy them or bribe them or trick them into loving you?

How unhappy is that making you? How does that make you suffer?

What if you just stopped attempting to “get” their love and instead, focused on the deeper, infinite well of love that is within yourself? Then SHARE that love instead? How might you attract them instead of repel them?

Remember what you did initially when you met? You had an image of who and what you THOUGHT this person was and your appreciation for that welled up inside of you as love and you felt compelled to SHARE it. You fell all over yourself trying to share it. And they LIKED it! They even reciprocated with love and appreciation of their own. You were happy with the illusion of who you thought they were.

It was YOUR illusion and it was YOUR appreciation that was welling up in you as love. It was not about you “getting” anything, it was about you sharing the love you were generating INSIDE YOURSELF. Remember how you didn't need to be in their presence to feel their love? That wasn't THEIR love you were experiencing, it was YOURS.

If you don’t believe you are capable of this deeper, infinite love within you, check in for tomorrow’s blog post and I will share a way to experience that love.

Until then, Be Well and Aware,
Nina

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Taking a Moment to BE instead of Do

Love is a Second Language

The Infinite Love Within Us

How Trying to Get Love Causes Our Suffering... and How To Love Instead

Author

Categories

Taking ﻿a﻿ Moment to BE instead of Do

​Love is a Second Language﻿

The Infinite Love Within Us

How Trying to Get Love Causes Our Suffering... and How To Love Instead

Author

Categories

Taking a Moment to BE instead of Do

Love is a Second Language