What Is Love - Do We Really Know?

Written By Don Shetterly

Every day I see people making statements about love and how we should love one another.  This is the time of year where love is in the air.  Unfortunately, the more I hear about love, the more I wonder if anyone realizes what it means.

Love isn't something that goes around boasting about how much it exists or how it exists.  It doesn't grandstand or exclaim, "hey, look at me!"  For it does not have to do this since love can be seen, felt, and acknowledged for its existence.

Readily Seen

Love isn't something we have to convince others that we have.  If we have love within our hearts, it will be readily seen through our thoughts, actions, and words. It will just be evident without us banging our chests as if we are the most pronounced dealers in the world of love.

Love isn't about what others think of us or how much our ego enjoys to be noticed.  It requires that we be there for others in a pure, unselfish and unadulterated manner.  The behavior we see on display these days tends to be anything but this.

Transcends Everything

Love isn't about keeping score of what you've done for other people or how you've been successful.  It is not about the latest stories and trends and rants or raves of the day.  There is no need for it to connect with trending topics because love transcends everything.

Love is more than puffing up one's spiritual beliefs as it blinds them to the deeper truth in their own lives and worlds.   For love is something that operates at a higher moment than any man-made set of truths derived from beliefs, customs, and ideas passed from one generation to the next.

Sits Quietly

Love is not a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  Often, pure and true unadulterated love sits quietly in the background spreading to every corner of the room.  It needs to not draw attention because everyone in the room will know if it is there or not.

Love comes from deep within the heart of our mind and body, not the ego that we see at every turn today in our world.  It is felt within the body, not dictated by the mind.  When you're thinking about what you should do or how you should react, love is not necessarily the one in control.

Support

Love comes from surrendering to feelings and emotions of all types, not just the select few we wish to engage.  It is about bringing balance to the extremes, but recognizing that the extremes in life exist.

Love is full of compassion and help, assistance and support.  It knows and sees a bigger picture because it is connected at the core of all that it exists.  Since it is connected, there is a knowing and understanding that rises above the common discourse of the day.

In The Knowing

If you ask, what is love?  Go deep into your heart to search for the answers.  They will not be in what others proclaim or how other people say love will show up.  Love will be in the knowing and understanding that there is more which transcends this current moment.

We will see love through the thoughts, words, and actions of those that it inhabits.  It will just be there automatically without effort.

Connection

It will connect with others in a way that they know it exists.  Nothing will need to be said to see it, for it is a felt emotion that is strong and powerful and never-ending.

Love is more than enough.

Love is in great enough supply.

We need to tap into it and discard the darkness in our hearts so that we not only feel it, but we share it with everyone.

The world needs love.

The world needs love in a big way.

May we all find and embrace the love that flows to every person in this world.

Let us all be open to pure love without trying to mold it into what we think it should be.

Also, read the blog post, I Send Out Love.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2/13/18 by Don Shetterly

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Do You Listen Or Do You Hear?

Today, I saw a tweet on my twitter feed that I thought was very good.  It is about a subject that I think is at the heart of many of our problems in this world.  If you've read this blog for very long, you will have seen me discuss this topic. 

Yet, it seems like what I write barely moves the needle.  Maybe I expect to much with my words.

All too often we act as if we are listening to others, but are we truly doing this?  Do we actually listen like we think we do, or are we just going through the motions.  Do we listen or do we actually hear those around us?

If you're staring at your smart phone while someone is talking and nodding your head, you're probably just going through the motions and not truly listening.  If you're thinking about how you need to respond back to the person you are listening to, then you are truly not hearing.

If you think that everything they are saying is wrong or inaccurate or misguided, you may be listening, but you're not hearing them.  If you're calling them all kinds of nicknames and labels, then you're barely listening and definitely not hearing them.

If you're waiting to get off the phone as quickly as you can, you're not hearing them.  Sure, you may be listening to what they say, but your mind is elsewhere.  If you're thinking about a million things other than what they are saying, more than likely you're not hearing them.

The most successful people understand the difference between listening and actually hearing. pic.twitter.com/ghcOAmyhs5

— Steve Keating (@LeadToday) March 29, 2017

So often we are busy in our own minds.  We're focused on the 50 million tasks that we think are extremely important to our day, crowding our mind out from truly being connected to the moment.  We are so focused on the latest political story or social media post and how we need to respond, but we've forced our minds to be too busy to comprehend what the mind body connection is.

There is so much noise in our day and if we don't stop and take a step back, we get wrapped up in it to the point where our minds are just too busy to hear other people.  When we get so wrapped up into all the things that we think we must do, we become too busy in our minds to hear others.

If you really take a hard look at yourself, what are you really saying to others.  Are your mind, body, and actions really saying that you are not only listening but hearing the other person?  Is that really true about your life and your presence in this world, both in person and online?

Or - are you so busy in your mind that your presence only takes up physical space, but you're absent in the mind body connection and so you're not there hearing other people?

There definitely is and we don't do enough hearing. Too many are too busy in their own minds to actually hear https://t.co/7GoR0hoEy6

— Don Shetterly (@mindbodythought) March 29, 2017

Hearing others involves an active participation with not only some body behavior, but with your mind and your heart.  Hearing involves true listening where you fully engage and don't become distracted by things that really dish the person you are with at that moment.  Hearing involves being there in that moment with that person as if they are the only thing that is present.

Hearing means that you're listening with your heart and trying to understand.  You're trying to connect with them and show them the respect that they deserve.  Hearing means that you're functioning on a more conscious level, rather than just going through the motions.

Test this out today and see what you're doing.  Are you truly listening or not? 

Become present with your behavior, not just a puppet to it.

People need others to really listen to them.  Kids need adults to listen to them.  Be someone positive in the world by doing more than listening.  Be the one that hears others by staying consciously connected in your mind body.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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