Today’s Brilliance from Kit Cassingham

There are many ways of getting love in your life. Being likeable and lovable, dependable and constant, as well as considerate and generous are the obvious ways people attract love.

But there’s another thing to do that’s even more satisfying and rewarding, and that’s giving love. Giving love to all living things, including the earth, is the key to getting love.

What a challenge, especially when you first start the practice! Be mindful of your attitudes and actions. It gets easier with time and practice.

There will be times you’ll think it’s not fair to be doing all the giving, but practice will overcome that reaction, too. It’s like an addiction: the more you give the more you want to give, and the more you get in return. Mother Theresa is the common example of this practice. Can you do it?

As Nike says, Just Do It. Just decide to give love. You’ll get more love in your life that way. Whether you are loving people or nature, love will come back multiplied. And loving nature — the planet — is as important as loving people because the planet is what provides your life. Treat the planet with love to get clean air and water, shelter, and healthy food in return.

Let me share several techniques I’ve learned and practiced to attract love into my life. Maybe they’ll be useful to you too.

Pay attention to what pleases people in your life. Listen and watch for clues. Observe body language, and choices people make. Catalog these observations so you know what to provide them — before they ask.

Whether it’s consciously noticed or appreciated isn’t the point, it will make a difference to the recipient with time. You develop a sense of contentment and satisfaction that fills your heart. Just think! The more people you love, the fuller your heart will be. And others will see and/or sense it too. And it grows from there. Can you see how it cascades and multiplies and expands around you?! Can you see what a better world we’d have if more people gave love? Can you see what a fabulous life you’d have with all that love around you?

The planet doesn’t indicate pleasure in the same way people do; it takes more effort to learn this one. Waste is damaging, so minimize it — pollution comes from waste. Landfills obviously come from waste. Treat the planet better than you do your own backyard.

Another technique is to get into someone’s head to better understand what they need or want so as to feel more contentment or happiness. By doing this you learn things they can’t tell you, either because they don’t consciously know or because they don’t feel comfortable voicing it. You can alter the course of someone’s day, career, or life by caring enough to understand them. What a gift of love that is! What a return it gives to you.

Get into mother earth’s head to understand what she needs for her sense of contentment and balance. Care enough to tend to the planet’s needs. It doesn’t take from your lifestyle to tread more lightly.

Last, expand the concept of you to include others, the planet, and all the planet’s beings. You’ll find you treat others and the world with more care and consideration if they are part of you, as mothers do with their babies. The love conveyed flows to the others in your expanded self. And again, the larger the concept of you, the more love you have filling your heart.

These techniques aren’t necessarily easy, but they are rewarding. Even your first effort at mastering these techniques returns modest rewards of a feeling of love growing in your heart. What a magnificent feeling that is.