Jungle of Life

Love keeps us together, right? But what hap­pens when our soci­ety por­trays love through per­fec­tion, wealth, lust, and greed? What do we teach our chil­dren about love? With a skewed def­i­n­i­tion in place, it is even more impor­tant to share with our fam­ily the true mean­ing of love: which encom­passes hope, pos­i­tive behav­ior, strength and giv­ing unconditionally.

Some­times to achieve the pos­i­tive effects of an emo­tion, we must let go of other emo­tions that are tak­ing up too much energy. So to let Love in, We must let other emo­tions OUT. This means get­ting rid of anger, guilt, resent­ment, and judgment.

L= Let Go of neg­a­tive destruc­tive emotions

1. Raise aware­ness of when you are putting your­self or oth­ers down

a. Carry a note­book for a day, and write down when a neg­a­tive thought comes in

b. Carry a golf clicker and keep track

2. Notice where you are feel­ing these emo­tions in your body: your chest, shoul­ders, neck, stom­ach? Where do they seem to con­cen­trate the most?

3. Breath….as you exhale, prac­tice see­ing those thoughts dis­si­pate into thin air, as you inhale, prac­tice replac­ing those emo­tions with a pos­i­tive one, such as joy, hap­pi­ness, love, life, forgiveness.

When we hold on to destruc­tive emo­tions, we hold our­selves back from the many ben­e­fits of love. Let go of neg­a­tive and destruc­tive emo­tions. Let LOVE in.

O=Open your heart to new possibilities

1. Start with HOPE and let go of JUDGEMENT

One can be hope­ful or judg­men­tal, but you can­not be both at the same time!

2. Act like a kid. Kids don’t think too much about going into new sit­u­a­tions, they just go with the flow, open to any out­come because they don’t have any pre­con­ceived ideas about how it is “sup­posed” to flow. Next time you enter a new sit­u­a­tion, try to clear your mind and let what­ever hap­pens unfold with­out plac­ing any undue expec­ta­tion on the event. See what happens.

3. Rec­og­nize that open­ing up can be painful but also heal­ing. Heal­ing takes TIME

Open your heart to new pos­si­bil­i­ties. Let LOVE in.

V=Visualize

Heal­ing just isn’t going to hap­pen with­out love. See your­self being loved. Take note of every source where you feel your­self being loved. See your­self being wor­thy of triple the love you cur­rently feel.

There is almost always more love for us to encounter than we can ever imag­ine. Visu­al­ize love. Let LOVE in.

E=Educate your­self on Emo­tional Intelligence!

Emo­tional intel­li­gence rep­re­sents an abil­ity to validly rea­son with emo­tions and to use emo­tions to enhance thought. We are not used to this in our soci­ety. Most of us were taught to sup­press emo­tions at a young age, but edu­cat­ing your­self on how emo­tional intel­li­gence can help you gain clar­ity and enhance emo­tions such as love.

EI has poten­tial to bring in more love and mean­ing into our daily inter­ac­tions at work, fam­ily, and in our community.

Edu­cate your­self on Emo­tional Intel­li­gence. Let LOVE in.

Love, the right kind of love, will not only bring us together. It will, indeed, keep us together. Let LOVE in.

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by Jen Slay­den