Feel

Love is always inside our hearts. When we were children, we felt love easily, because we’re born with our hearts open to love. But for most of us, the emotional wounds we endure – in childhood and beyond – teach to close our hearts, to protect ourselves from more pain.

We start to believe that love is something that arises within us in response to someone or something outside of us. We may think other people, pets, possessions, or experiences cause us to feel love for them. An alternative perspective is that the person or object of our love simply inspires us to open our hearts and allow love to flow through us.

One way to embrace love is to practice opening our hearts and allowing love to flow through us, without another person as the object of our love. Our own hearts can be the object of our love. With practice, we can remember how to freely let love flow through our hearts, with or without another person to inspire us to love.

We can practice opening our hearts to love by sitting still and remembering a time we felt love – really allowing ourselves to relive the memory. Relived memories activate the same brain circuits as the original experience, so remembering a time of love actually enables us to feel love. Once we’re feeling love, then we can consciously choose to open our hearts to love.

Let’s give that a try right now! This practice will be much more accessible if we slow down our racing minds and unplug from the frantic pace of life first, so it might be a good idea to practice a relaxation meditation, or at least a 5-minute breathing meditation first.

When you’re feeling calm, relaxed, and grounded in your body, lets practice bringing love into our hearts.

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Another beautiful practice to feel love in our hearts is by saying out-loud to ourselves the words: I love you.

Let’s give that a try too!

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Heart-Centered Practices