It’s February, the month of love, and this is the time to celebrate love for everyone. Everyone that’s in your life, remind yourself to be loving, to be love. This month we’re going to talk about the things we can do to enhance the relationship with ourselves and others. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Love. Love. Who doesn’t love love? Where do we get this sweet little valentine holiday? Well, according to legend, Roman priest Saint Valentine was associated with this love focused holiday. He performed weddings for soldiers. According to Roman law at the time, they were not allowed to get married. Roman emperor said a married soldier is a crappy soldier and he wouldn’t allow it. But Saint Valentine broke the rules and helped these love birds come together.

In the bible, there are over 600 commandments and admonishments to love. We came here to be love. To feel love, to express love, to have love. It’s a healing transformative experience. Love is a verb.  We’re going to talk about love and what we can do to enhance and feel more love.

For good reason, our human brains are trained to focus on negativity. We tend to remember the negative because we’re constantly in a battle to stay safe, to be safe. So you can be in a play. You can get 500 rave reviews, but you’re going to focus on those 10 people who said, “I didn’t think they had any talent. I didn’t think it was very good.” Even though you had 500 other people saying, “It was amazing.”

We focus on the negativity because we mistakenly think that that’s what’s going to help us stay alive. However, it’s not true. Criticism and complaints are destructive to our self, our self-worth, and to our relationships. It’s time that we focus on the positive. Rewire our brains so that we can practice seeing good in ourselves and seeing good in others. We want to raise the level of awareness towards what’s already working.

When you think of the word praise, I want you to remember in that word is embedded raise. So raise the temperature. Raise the vibration. When you see your children walk into the room, make a concentrated effort to smile. It can be so tempting to see someone we love and care about, and we sometimes mistakenly believe that this other person is a reflection of us. So it’s tempting to want to pull on their collar, to want to adjust their sleeves, to check their knees for dirt and ashy-ness.

Resist that temptation. Allow the people that you love to enter the room, and let their light fill, fill, fill you with joy and positivity. When you do that, you’re filling the room with love. It will enhance and foster a beautiful relationship with the people in your life. Smile. Smile at the children that come into your room. Smile at your partner as they enter your space.

Don’t complain about their appearance. Ask them a question beyond did you have a good day? Ask a question about what happened today? Did you learn something cool? Did you do something fun? Did you solve a good problem? Did you get a tip at work?

Find a question that will enhance conversation and interact with the person on the things that they care about. Don’t look for flaws and pick at your children or your friends. Enjoy them. Enjoy playing with them. Enjoy them having a part of your life. Don’t complain to or about your sweetheart. This is the time. This is the week to lift ourselves up in praise.

In this month of love, each week I will share a short lesson from my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh who died January of 2022. Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, and educator. He walked this earth as an advocate and apostle of peace. He has impacted millions of people around the world. As the author of over 100 books, the founder of several monasteries around the world, and the spark or the seed planted that resulted in hundreds and hundreds of law circles known as sanghas all over the world. I have sat with my sangha for the last nine years, and it has enhanced my life tremendously.

A fundamental aspect of the practice is to understand and accept that everything is impermanent. That there is a polarity to life. In order to be happy and recognize it and be mindful of it you have to have an awareness that there have been times in your life of sorrow, of sadness. Thich Nhat Hanh has a practice that he shares with us in regard to how we can be loving and be a good friend at times of sorrow.

According to this practice, the most precious thing that you can offer your beloved is your presence. How can you love if you’re not there? In order to love, you have to be there. To be there is a practice. It could be that very often your body is there but your mind is elsewhere. You’re lost in your thinking, your sorrow, your fear. You’re really not there for her. So breathe in and focus your attention on your in breath. You are brining your mind home to your body and you become present.

Simply to be there is the most important part of the practice. When you are truly there, you can go to the person you love. Look into her eyes and say to her, “I am here for you.” The most precious thing you can offer the person you love is your presence. It’s not something you can buy in the supermarket.

So at this time of February 2022, I want to offer and invite you to consider these aspects of love and how we can enhance and build and create loving relationships with the people in our lives. We want to be a person that looks upon our beloved with kindness and praise. Rather than looking for something that’s wrong, we allow them to enter into our rooms and into our lives with true gratitude and praise.

So we don’t complain about people’s appearances or complain about their behaviors behind their back. We no longer expect everyone to be happy all the time. It is normal and healthy to have a relationship wherein it is safe to express one’s sorrow. Rather than being the type of person, loved one, friend, or relative that needs to fix everything, we show true love when we can be truly present.

So when you see your loved one, your beloved, experiencing sorrow, rather than rushing in to fix it, practice. Decide to be fully present. Beyond just having your mind in the room, you want to join your mind with your body in the room and be there now. Be there for your friend. Be there for your loved one. Be there for your partner. Be present and be aware enough to listen. Bring your whole self to the experience of loving those before.  This is a mindfulness practice. This is true love.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. In this episode, we talked about the joy and blessing of love. There’s more than one kind of love. It’s more than just romantic love. There’s friendships, colleagues, and family relationships and romantic relationships. Each one of these relationships gives us an opportunity to show up as our very best self. To consider who am I being right now?

So we no longer look for the negative. We are ready and willing and join in circulation of praise and positivity. We’re looking for the good and we’re sharing it. We don’t expect our friends, families, and loved ones to always feel great. We are there for the long haul, and we show up with our presence. Our presence is the greatest present we can give at any time.

Thank you for listening to the podcast this week. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find it at loriaharris.com/31. This is episode 31. If you’ve enjoyed it, share it with a friend and go to Apple podcast. Sign up to follow the show, rate and review the show, and let other people know how much you’re enjoying it. If there’s something you would love to see added or improved, I would love to hear that too. I’d love a five star review, but whatever you have to say that’s true and from your heart is great and I want to know all about it. Thank you for listening. Remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.