“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Good morning lovely you.
As I sit here sipping my morning tea and watching little Zuzu spying on the birds having a snack at the bird feeder, I am feeling such a mix of emotions. As you know, my beloved New Zealand was rocked the other week with the tragic mass shooting in Christchurch. I spent many days after, as I’m sure you did, wondering how much more of this can humanity take?
I have lived a lot of life and seen a lot of things in my day, but I don’t think I have ever experienced another time like the one we are living in right now. It seems there is so much hate and darkness in the world. So much chaos, fear and blatant killing of each other.
But then there is always something that reminds me that to every bit of darkness, there is light. And to every act of hate, there are acts of love. We need only look for them and when we do they are everywhere just waiting for us to grab hold of so we can bring the light back.
How to Be More Loving When the World Seems Full of Hate
Fred Rogers, better known as Mr. Rogers, once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
What a profound lesson to teach a child. It is something I think we all need to do more of – look for the goodness in ourselves and the rest of humanity.
The truth is, life is about duality. There is light and there is dark. There MUST be both. And there are hateful acts and loving acts. We have a choice what we want to focus our attention on. Do we want to look for all of the hate and violence in the world? It’s really easy to find it, especially with 24/7 news cycles and social media.
Or do we want to focus our hearts and minds on love?
When we focus on the dark aspects of life and human nature, we become filled with darkness. But when we focus on the light, we become filled with light. It seems to be some kind of rule like gravity.
The more all of us choose to be ‘of the light’ – the more light there will be in the world. The more we choose to love ourselves and one another, the more love there will be in the world. This love can go viral if we all choose to start LOVING MORE. The world needs us to all LOVE MORE.
But it’s not so easy to feel light and love when you are constantly bombarded with hate and darkness. It’s not easy to feel love or be loving when you struggle each day with your health or with trying to make ends meet or both!
Here is a bit of a cheat sheet to getting started loving more. The following will help you be more loving, even when you don’t necessarily feel like it:
Recognize Being Loving is a Win/Win
The first thing you must do is recognize that being loving is good for your body, mind and spirit. This is not about being “nice” to other people. Sure, being nice can feel like a chore most days. But being loving means being filled with love. And being filled with love is COMPLETELY beneficial to every cell in your body. When you are full of love for yourself and others, you feel lighter, more energized and happier. Being more loving will be as good for you as it will be for those around you.
Unplug from the Dark Side
Emotions are addictive. Emotions literally create a chemical response inside of you and your body can become addicted to these chemicals, just as it can become addicted to alcohol and nicotine.
While you may think it hard to believe, it is quite easy to become addicted to the darkness; addicted to anger and resentment and hatred. You may be addicted to these emotions right this minute.
You’ll have to go cold turkey with these emotions – I am being very serious here. Stay away from sources of darkness. To be filled with light and love, you’ll have to focus on light and love. This means stop paying attention to all of the miserable news. Stop feeding your own anger and darkness. Surround yourself with positive people. Watch positive films and television. Spend more time in nature.
If you find yourself searching for something on Youtube that’s just going to get you riled up, STOP, click out, and go take a walk. Do whatever it takes to get into the habit of loading your heart, mind and life with positivity, light and love.
Be More Understanding
Becoming angry and filled with hatred is a result of not understanding someone.
Someone cuts you off in traffic, the natural response is to become angry. Why? Because we feel we have been wronged by someone. Someone else did something TO us that was bad and we are now angry.
But what if you found out later that the person who cut you off was rushing to get to the hospital because his father was just brought in having a heart attack? Your hate-filled heart would INSTANTLY melt. You would INSTANTLY feel compassion and love toward that other driver and send positive thoughts or prayers in his family’s direction.
We can’t think that we know each other’s hearts and minds. Not really. Life is hard for a lot of people, and whether it seems like it or not, most of us are doing the best job we can at being a human being on this crazy scary planet.
It will be far easier to be loving if you look at your fellow man with compassionate eyes. Try to understand where people come from. And if you don’t know specific circumstances of their life, don’t assume the worst about them. Assume they are struggling and dealing with their own pain, just like you.
Remember, You’re Human
When you begin to feel more loving and act more loving, you will start living on cloud nine with all of this love. It will feel so utterly amazing. And then one day, BLAMMO – you fall back down to earth and feel miserable. You get angry in traffic or feel negative energy toward a coworker or your doctor. It’s going to happen because you are human. Being more loving is not about being perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist. What DOES exist are choices. Your job is to make as many loving choices as you can each day. When you have a bad day, that’s fine, choose to make better choices the next day.
Each and every one of us has the power to change the world through love. That is the only way things can possibly change. So I encourage you to be more loving to yourself, your family and friends, and the people in your community.
Let’s make love go viral!
Sending much LIGHT and LOVE your way today!
Prue
Here at Prue’s Place we are healing our lives one day at a time!
