10 Ways to Love Others →

Some guidelines for loving:

1. Tell them about their brilliance. They likely can’t see it and they don’t know its immensity, but you can see it, and you can illuminate it for them.

2. Be authentic, and give others the gift of the real you and a real relationship. Ask your real questions. Share your real beliefs. Go for your real dreams. Tell your truth.

3. Don’t confuse “authenticity” with sharing every complaint, resentment, or petty reaction in the name of “being yourself.” Meditate, write, or do yoga to work through anxiety, resentment, and stress on your own so you don’t hand off those negative moods to everyone around you. Sure, share sadness, honest dilemmas, and fears, but be mindful: don’t pollute.

4. Listen, listen, listen. Don’t listen to determine if you agree or disagree. Listen to get to know what is true for the person in front of you. Get to know an inner landscape that is different from your own, and enjoy the journey. Remember that if, in any conversation, nothing piqued your curiosity and nothing surprised you, you weren’t really listening.

5. Don’t waste your time or energy thinking about how they need to be different.  Really. Chuck that whole thing. Their habits are their habits. Their personalities are their personalities. Let them be, and work on what you want to change about you—not what you think would be good to change about them.

6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them. 

7. Don’t conflate accepting with being a doormat or betraying yourself. Let them be who they are, entirely. Then, you decide what you need, in light of who they are. Do you need to make a direct request that they change their behavior in some way? Do you need to take care of yourself better? Do you need to set a boundary or to change the relationship? Take care of yourself well, without holding anyone else in contempt.

8. Give of yourself, but never sacrifice or compromise yourself. Stop if resentment is building and retool. Don’t do the martyr thing. It helps no one and nothing.

9. Remember that everyone you encounter was created by divine intelligence and has an important role to play in the universe. Treat them as such.

10. If you want to keep growing emotionally and spiritually for the rest of your life, accept this as your mantra and try to live as if it were true: Everything that I experience from another human being is either love, or a call for love.

(Source: ohapoeticsoul)

∞ 2/15/2012 (11:07am) 7,331 notes

Notes (7331)

  1. dominate-the-courts reblogged this from beautyofhappiness
  2. beautyofhappiness reblogged this from gabifresh
  3. saccharinesynergy reblogged this from adrientalks
  4. missdiazepam reblogged this from bohemianarthouse
  5. hlpyrslf reblogged this from ohapoeticsoul
  6. lvico reblogged this from gabifresh
  7. ginhouseblues reblogged this from vagabondaesthetics and added:
    well, damn. I LOVE this. lots of lessons for me to learn. - ginhouseblues
  8. acracy reblogged this from badass-bharat-deafmuslimpunkstar
  9. snark-infested-waters reblogged this from heavymuffintop
  10. phantomoftheoprah reblogged this from goscrewaduck
  11. bythebeautifulsea reblogged this from goscrewaduck
  12. goscrewaduck reblogged this from obamasbutt
  13. myadultproblems reblogged this from ilikejoaquin
  14. thealternativepost reblogged this from ilikejoaquin
  15. tortillerafrijolera reblogged this from phialamariposa
  16. sophiehossein reblogged this from whereismimente and added:
    “6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them”
  17. springsteenmellencamp reblogged this from alisonofagun
  18. touchedbythehandofgoth reblogged this from squattingdogg and added:
    Steve basically did the opposite of all of these, except for the first one, but then at the end, he did the opposite of...
  19. squattingdogg reblogged this from chicanacrush-em
  20. jaimitoelcartero2 reblogged this from whereismimente
  21. yourlocalhomosexual reblogged this from whereismimente and added:
    Hmmm
  22. elsayraul reblogged this from chicanacrush-em
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  24. chicanacrush-em reblogged this from phialamariposa