Giving what you have to others…
creates more love, in you, for them.
Falling in love is awesome! We fall in love and get married, we fall in love with newborn babies, we fall in love with new friends, we fall in love with ideas, we fall in love with new places.
All of this love is awesome.
The hard part is to stay in love.
When we first fall in love there are so many rushes of emotion, excitement, and thrilling feelings. We never want them to end. But eventually, they do. We want to keep feeling that fluttery, cool love but in time love changes.
And that’s normal. The depth that follows becomes something even more amazing.
When we are first in love we think of the other person. They are amazing! We want to do little things for them to make sure they know we love them. We write notes, sweet texts, pick up their dry cleaning without being bugged, meet them at their class, make them a lunch, put notes on their windshield.
Love is a verb
It ain’t a thing
It’s not something you hold
It’s not something you screamSo you gotta show, show, show me
Show, show, show me
Show, show, show me
That love is a verb-John Mayer
And then life comes along and changes all of that. The people we love most get our leftover, warmed over giving. The good stuff was given to someone else.
Even though I definitely don’t believe that February is the only month of the year for giving the people we love most our truest love, I think February is a great reminder that we want to be giving our best stuff to the people we love most.
January is always a time when we think about weight loss, organizing, being better at managing money, saying no, saying yes. We start with lots of goals. January makes the new year feel like the beginning of The Year of Goals.
So with February arriving in just a few days…it feels like the beginning of the Year of Love. And I start to think about how I’m going to be so much better at loving the people I love.
Love becomes a verb the longer you love someone. It becomes more about the being there, the listening, the caring, the little errands done without an attitude, the unseen kindnesses…
I start making plans about how I’m going to be so much better at:
showing my love in little ways
thinking of someone else before myself
giving away the last cookie when I want to eat it
seeing little ways to really BE with the people that matter to me
With the Year of Love beginning…what are some things you’re hoping to be better at when it comes to loving the people you love? (that feels like I just read it out of Dr. Suess!)
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Davina Fear is a Familyness Adventurer. She enjoys a bowl of Lucky Charms occasionally. Her favorite part of breakfast, though, is eating it with one of her favorite people.
She blogs at davinafear.com and teaches The Familyness Photo Workshop.
Comment
I’m always so much in my own head and my own space that I unintentionally ignore the people around me that I love the most. I want to be better about being *aware* of my loved ones needs and being proactive about helping them with those needs. And showing my love by being more “present” in the everyday stuff. You know, listening to them without the phone in my hand, etc.