Love is Habit

I know, you’re probably thinking that Love is passion and intense emotion. And it is.

Like everything though, it translates into daily thoughts and actions. If you want more Love in your life, you’ll want to adopt more loving habits.

It's our habits that create our lives on a day to day basis on autopilot. Our brains have adopted these habits as a way of minimizing effort for repeated tasks. Once you do something enough, it becomes easy. It’s second nature. You literally don’t have to think about it.

So what do you do without thinking?

Is it time to change some habits?

If you're routinely skipping self-care such as exercise, proper nutrition or enough rest, you're sure to feel a lack of Love creep into your existence. Do you find yourself snapping at Loved ones for minor indiscretions?

Honestly, I'm super focused right now on reforming my reactions to some of my three year old’s behaviors. It's essentially become a habit for me to over-react. You know, the protective Mother instinct gone awry.

Really, I’m just letting my fear of injury overshadow my faith in Life. In the long run, a bump or a bruise will heal and be forgotten. The controlling mother act will do more harm than good! In fact, anytime fear is running the show, you can bet that True Love is needed on the scene.

Because I now recognize this situation for what it is, I can do something about it. This is my most important work: develop loving habits. Take time every day to act with Love. Stick with it until it is consistent. Until it is easy and I don’t even have to think about it.

If you realize that your current habits have you defaulting to anything other tha
Love (Anxiety, fear, anger, etc.), choose to change them! Here’s the plan:

1. Determine your ideal habits.

2. Choose the most important one to change. Work on this one first.

3. Find a cue that triggers your desired behavior. In my case, when my beautiful daughter doesn’t listen to me, it will be my cue to apply my new habit and say, “I love you, I have faith in you.” before I proceed any further.

4. Pick a reward to affirm your new habit. Something simple like an internal, “Well done, Mama.” is enough to encourage the improved behavior. If it is a bigger habit shift, make the reward appropriately matched.

5. Focus on this new practice for a few weeks or until it feels consistent and automatic.

6. Move on to the next most important replacement habit and repeat the process!

This might seem like a lot of work, but the whole idea is to get the Love flowing in your life easily and without much effort at all. Start building a set of loving habits today so that you can reap the benefits for the rest of your days!