The momentum of the year is well underway; and as we move into the second month of the year, it’s time to renew and refocus our energy.
This month, let’s mobilize the love we showed ourselves through January’s theme: Start with Self Care.
We made sure to fill our own cups at the top of the year, and we are now able to turn our attention, appreciation, and affection to the life and love that’s all around us.
The month of February is associated with many symbolic meanings from which we can draw inspiration.
It has been linked to new beginnings, ambition, clarity, and enlightenment.
It is Black History Month, calling us toward acknowledgement and appreciation of the beauty, creativity, resilience, and magic painted across history by those who have come before us, the same that we all can discover, piece by piece, within ourselves.
Finally, with Valentine’s day right dab smack in the middle of it, February is often symbolic of love.
Pink hearts, candy, and commercialism aside, love is a concept worth landing on.
Reflecting on the concept that life itself is truly a work of heart, February’s theme is:
Lean Into Love
Lean Into Defining Love
Love is a word that is loaded with meaning, emotion, power, and even pain. Used both as noun and verb, its definitions are as varied as the number of people in existence. Similar to beauty, love is something defined by the eyes and mind of the beholder.
Oftentimes, our own personal understanding of love is based on our upbringing, family, and experiences during our youth.
For some of us, our childhoods fostered a sense of secure engagement with our physical and emotional environments. For many of us, our early experiences created vulnerabilities that may still impact our understanding of and interaction with the love in our lives today.
Instead of living and loving by default, it is important that we begin to define love for ourselves.
By reflecting on what love has felt like, what we think it should feel like, and what we want it to feel like, we empower ourselves to release old habits of mind and heart. We free ourselves to find, feel, and recognize the beautiful love that is meant for us.
Lean Into the Feeling of Love
Take some time to consider your own ideas about love. Recall what it has felt like to engage with someone for whom, or something for which, you feel deep love. Recognize whether or not love has always felt positive, and if there may be parts of your heart that are in need of healing.
Think of when, where, and with whom you have experienced purely positive love. Focus your mind on that feeling and let it fill you up. It might feel like light or joy, like peace or safety, like excitement or connection or creativity, like clarity or inspiration.
Once we have identified what moments of purely positive love feel like, we are able to recognize the exquisite love that already exists in our lives. We can also identify and release anything (and/ or interaction with anyone) that doesn’t feel like love, even if we previously thought they did.
Most importantly, we are able to find, feel, and focus our attention on more and more of the kind of love that feels like magic.
Lean Into First Loving Yourself
There is a reason we started the new year with self care. It is the same reason that as we lean into love, we must first lean into ourselves.
The connection we maintain with ourselves is our most important and enduring relationship. Not only does our engagement in self love influence our personal perception, it also impacts on all of the relationships and interactions in which we participate.
Let’s lean into listening to, understanding, appreciating and honoring ourselves first. Let’s get really good at the art of knowing and loving someone so completely, while also aligning with the feeling of being genuinely known and deeply loved.
Let us develop the crucial understanding that the experience of true love always has been and always will be ours to relish, entirely irrelative to anyone else.
When we understand this, we’re able to release the need to rely on the people around us to validate and make us feel loved. We also ease the heavy tension that sense of need can create.
Furthermore, we can now apply our practiced skills of listening to, understanding, appreciating and honoring others. We are able to share with them the high quality kind of love we now expect for and from ourselves.
Lean Into Your Love Connections
Now, let’s begin to recognize the people, places, and activities in our everyday lives that vibrate with love’s energy. We may feel it when we pour passion into a particular project, listen with our hearts to a favorite song, laugh with our bellies alongside a dear friend, or stare adoringly at the moon in the night sky.
We have far more love connections than we realize. So often, we are taught to associate love with mere romance. What an unfortunate underestimation of this powerful and multifaceted force.
Sharing in a romantic relationship can be beautiful and illuminating; but so can dancing freely, speaking honestly, and teaching patiently. Love is at the core of the human experience, and it’s available in abundance to every one of us.
Being aware of our opportunities to engage with love’s sweet sense of satisfaction enables us to appreciate and honor them.
Locate and lean into all which most closely connects you to love. Carve out time to dedicate to your passions, personal relationships, and gratitude. Spend quality time with friends and family; let yourself appreciate all of their best qualities. Revel in tiny moments that make you smile; and zealously savor those cherished moments which happen only once in a lifetime.
Recognize that life, and our joyful living of it, connects us infinitely to love.
Lean Into Loving Contrast
Of course, not everything we encounter is going to feel entirely satisfying. There will be occasions when we come face to face with conflict, discomfort, even intense irritation. These too, however, are moments we can learn to appreciate.
Disagreements give us the opportunity to understand perspectives that are different than our own. Feeling uncomfortable can either push us to acclimate to new horizons, or help us to clearly define our personal boundaries. Being downright bothered, presents a chance to evaluate the importance of any given irritant, and prioritize the amount of emotional energy we’re willing to invest (what a valuable skill!).
Even the most devastating of times can hold so much meaning and eminent importance. When we seek to find value in even our greatest challenges, we become wiser, more grateful, more present. At times when it seems peace and joy are nowhere to be found, let us be reminded that the most significant love lives within us. The power to share, shine, and relish in the light of love is ours, now and always.
Lean Into All the Love
This month, let’s make a big deal of all the love in our lives. Perhaps that just means allowing ourselves to soak in and savor positive moments, or facilitating communication among our inner circles so that love can be felt and fixed at the center. We may learn to appreciate the magic of everyday interactions and rediscover joy we’ve taken for granted. By leaning into love, we can find, feel, and focus on the best life has to offer.
