Falling in love - daily

Ahhh.... falling in love! Can there be a more wonderful feeling in the whole world? Out of no where life takes on a rainbow-tinge: people seem friendlier, the weather is better, chores become delights... Regardless of what is happening in our lives, they can be transformed overnight by simply falling in love.

We see in our beloved all that is most wonderful in life: they embody the best of all characteristics. We feel alive and whole when we are with them. It can even seem as though they bring out the best in us.

When we fall in love with another, we are actually falling in love with ourselves. They see our quirks as cute, our hobbies as interesting, our passions as inspiring ... and our jokes as funny! They give us permission to see ourselves as cute, interesting, inspiring, funny people. Falling in love allows us to reconnect with the best of who we are and it feels wonderful.

When we fall in love we are suddenly reconnected to our Source and our Higher Selves because we are seen as our very best selves in the beginning of a relationship.

As the relationship goes on, instead of looking for the best, our beloved (and we ourselves) no longer focus exclusively on the positive: we begin to see the imperfections, we even start to look for the flaws. This is a crucial turning point because when we move from seeing the best of who we are to focusing on 'flaws' we move from appreciation to criticism, from acceptance to defensiveness.

Have we changed overnight? Have our jokes got worse? Or quirks become more peculiar? No. It is that simple shift from seeing the best in another to looking for the flaws. And that very act disconnects us from our own joy which changes the dyanmic of the relationship and our own sense of well-being.

But it's possible to go beyond that cycle. It's possible to keep that falling-in-love feeling. The secret (or so I’ve read!) is to move from seeking love outside ourselves to finding it inside ourselves. By focusing on thoughts that make us feel good, we recapture that feeling of joy and magic, so we are lighter in ourselves. And we are lighter with our beloved.

I've been experimenting with this principle - focusing on the good that exists, thinking positive thoughts and seeing the best interpretation rather than the worst, for the past two weeks.

And my empirical evidence is this: it does improve relationships! That vibrant, viceral feeling of love makes us stronger yet lighter.

I've seen that when I'm feeling really happy, Dirk's mood lifts to meet me. When he's feeling great, my mood lifts to meet his. Our natural inclination is to feel good so we naturally gravitate to people who help us feel that way (babies are masters at this!). And being able to create that feeling within ourselves – that joyful, easy flow of love – means that we need never be dependent on a ‘once in a lifetime high’, we can choose to live that joyful love every day.