Where is the Love

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Where is the Love?
Feel Loved More Often with this Happiness Habit

Where is the love? Do you think somebody loves you, but you are not sure? Could you do something yourself to feel more loved?

It turns out that you can by cultivating gratitude. In order to feel loved, you must first notice and appreciate when you are loved. That can be difficult in this fast paced world. It's easy to get caught up in our own focused activities and miss the little gestures others make to express their love and appreciation for us. A daily gratitude practice can help us notice more expressions of love. The more we notice, the more we feel loved.

Gratitude Practice For Love

Set aside a little time each day for a week to make 2 lists. Make both lists each day.

List 1- How I feel loved

List all the ways you feel loved, liked or appreciated. Here are some examples:

I feel loved when someone says I love you.
I feel loved when someone gives me a compliment.
I feel loved when I receive an expensive gift.
I feel loved when I receive a gift that shows someone knows the real me.
I feel loved when someone does little chores for me to make my life better.
I feel loved when someone gives me a hug or a kiss.

The important thing is that every thing on the list must be meaningful to you. As Gary Chapman explains in his book The Five Love Languages, different people feel loved in different ways. Make sure you get at least 10 things on this list the first day and add at least one more every day after that for a week.

List 2- How I was loved today

Now list at least 10 ways that someone showed you they cared about you. You can concentrate on one person in particular, or a group of people, or even how you were loved, liked or noticed by complete strangers. The important thing is to notice anyone that did something to express their care for you.

Gifts

Do this every day for a week and then ask yourself again, where is the love? See how your outlook changes.

Gratitude and Love

In his book Thanks, Dr. Robert Emmons defines gratitude as the spontaneous appreciation of a gift. Part of the emotion is acknowledging that we did nothing directly to earn or deserve this gift. In short, gratitude is our response to feeling loved unconditionally. Although we have no control over how often we are loved unconditionally, the law of attraction says that the more we appreciate being loved, the more unconditional love we attract into our lives.

This principal was made famous by Rhonda Byrne in her book, The Secret. Dr. Emmons has also shown through scientific research, that exercises like the Gratitude practice above do increase our spontaneous feelings of gratitude. Just one week of this practice has shown increased gratitude as much as one month later.

So next time you ask yourself, where is the love, take a little time to notice and appreciate how often somebody shows that you are loved with this gratitude practice. You'll be feeling the love before you know it.