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Category: Understanding Love

Connection Initiative

Published on April 27, 2023

“I love being by myself, but then, I get lonely and don’t have anybody to listen to me.”

…Was sent to me as a reply on Twitter.

To which I spent some time thinking about… and replied back with this:

“A question that has helped me with this: ‘Where do people like me, who like doing the same kinds of things I like to do, hang out?’ And then I go there and let common ground take care of the rest.”

I have found this to be the best strategy for combating loneliness—deliberate, heart-guided, initiative.

Friends aren’t just going to come knocking at your door while you binge Netflix series or doom scroll. And work friends can sometimes come with layered complications.

But people who are doing the things you also love to do—just for the hell of it? …Opens up a door WIDE for connection.

…You just have to show up and walk through.

Inner work prompt: How might you respond to that reply? Send me a… reply :)

The Gift of Receiving

Published on April 25, 2023

Giving is the easy part.

Giving means you have more than you need and you’re able to offer others some of what you have.

Of course, not everybody wants to give for the right reasons. Some want to give to manipulate—so others will be indebted to them and they can be owed.

But for many, this isn’t the case at all.

Many want to give simply because it makes them feel great inside; because it satisfies their nurturing nature; because they genuinely feel blessed, know what it’s like to suffer, and want others to suffer less.

Genuine giving is one of the most beautiful experiences on the planet for both the giver and receiver.

What most people don’t talk about, however, is the difficulty (and importance) of receiving.

For some, it’s because they’ve been manipulated through gifts and don’t want to be indebted to others—which is a terrible shame. For others, it’s because nurturing is in their nature and being a receiver of nurturing feels against their nature. And for others still, receiving conflicts with pride—it creates a sense of guilt because they weren’t able to acquire “enough” on their own.

But, without receiving there can be no giving.

And while it may seem like a prideful, honorable, noble thing to do—to reject gifts—it often can have the opposite effect. Once trust is established in the genuineness of the gifts (and it isn’t manipulative), receiving wholeheartedly becomes (what most people miss) a gift (and a damn beautiful one at that) in and of itself.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

The Checklist That Makes Me Feel Like I *Actually* Visited A Place

Published on April 24, 2023

Below is my highly refined checklist of what makes me feel like I actually visited a place when I travel to visit a place. Because as some of you may relate, there have been plenty of times when I visited a place, did some things, left, and felt like I didn’t really visit the place at all. The list below is my unique concoction of things that act as an antidote to that feeling.

In no particular order:

  • One local bookstore
  • One quaint coffee shop
  • One offbeat nature path
  • One unique-to-the-area attraction
  • One conversation with a stranger
  • One conversation with a local friend (if applicable)

…How about you? What makes you feel like you’ve actually visited a place when you visit a place? I’d love to hear in a reply.

P.s. This was my vacation reflection from Monday, April 24, 2023.

The In-Between Time

Published on April 8, 2023

Before deep inner work can begin, an empty block of time—filled with nothing at all—needs to be present.

What I’m also learning, while visiting family out of town, is that having an empty block of time—filled with nothing at all—is a great strategy for allowing deep inter-relational work to begin.

Having structured activities, sightseeing adventures/tours, and meals planned together is undoubtedly great. But, it seems to me that it is in the in-between time—in the moments where nothing is happening at all—where all the magic happens.

Warmth and Light

Published on March 30, 2023

We are at our best when we’re radiating the warmth of love. Not towards one person, per se, but towards all of life.

And that warmth, as mentioned yesterday, is generally a composition of patience, kindness, joy, forgiveness, and gratitude.

Which means, a great question to consider as you go about your day and handle tasks, requests, surprises, confrontations, challenges, manipulations, curveballs, frustrations, adversities, irritations, unmet expectations, etc…

How can I use this or how can I respond to that in a way where it feeds the fire of my love (aka my patience, kindness, joy, forgiveness, and gratitude)?

Because if you’re unable to find a way to have it do either of those things… then the byproduct will be a more blocked love. It’s a binary path. We’re either feeding the fire of our love or blocking it.

And unless we’re finding ways to constantly feed those inner flames… it will slowly cool, fade, and eventually suffocate. And that’s the last thing we need in this already cold, harsh world.

What we need are more people who have found ways to perform at their best and can serve as brilliant sources of warmth and light—not just for themselves… but for us all.

P.s. This became the introduction for: An Exercise In Forgiveness—To Help You Let Go Of Anger and Find Peace

What Is Love?

Published on March 29, 2023

Love is an unconditional warmth that radiates outwards from a person’s center towards all other beings. More specifically, a warmth that’s really just a majestic composition of patience, kindness, joy, forgiveness, and gratitude. Different people are made up of different compositions, but each unique composition has the same outward radiating result.

Love is not selective. Love brings warmth even to those who are cold, impatient, rude, upset, angry, and/or ungrateful. Which isn’t to say we accept, ignore, or make it our mission to change these behaviors. It’s merely to say, as the backyard fire pit warms anyone and everyone who climbs near… so, too, will love warm anyone and everyone who steps near.

What you see when people radiate warmth towards some, but act ice cold towards others is blocked love. When too many layers of cold, corrupt, malevolent, manipulative, hateful, “un-burnable” actions/circumstances gets piled on top of a person’s innate love… they’re only able to partially radiate warmth on sides where there are unblocked openings. And cold towards all is a sign of a completely smothered love.

What you see when two people devote their love specifically towards each other isn’t selective love per se. What you’re seeing are two fires who enjoy each other’s warmth so much that they decide to combine to create a bonfire. This magnifies the warmth that either individual could radiate alone and creates a combined effect that (unconditionally) warms at scale.

When a combining of fires has the opposite effect (and cools), you know it isn’t a love that’s meant to be. Love shouldn’t be something that only makes one or two of us warmer… love is something that should warm us ALL.

There’s More To The Story

Published on March 26, 2023

I had an incredibly sobering moment today on the basketball court.

While playing with 12 other guys and in the midst of non-stop madness consisting of dribbling, shooting, jumping, sprinting, cutting, grunting, picking, rolling, fouling, falling, etc… and in a happenstance moment where time slowed down to a crawl for a brief moment…

I saw, hidden behind one of the player’s ears and peaking out just ever so slightly from his sweaty, overlaying hair… a “;” tattoo.

Now, for those who aren’t familiar, the people who generally get a semi-colon tattoo are suicide survivors. Its meaning is pulled from the dictionary definition of a semi-colon and essentially means there’s more to the story.

Looking at this dude… and in the midst of a chaotic, enjoyable, flow-state kind of time… I never would have known.

And it was a sobering reminder that everyone we meet is living a life as rich and as complicated as we are who are oftentimes facing battles we know nothing about looking at their outward appearance.

…It was a sobering reminder to be kind; to initiate connection, and to try not to judge.

And I hope it might be for you, too.

P.s. 101 Acts of Kindness To Help Recalibrate The World.