Monday 29th January 2018
Morning Vibes With Dr. Jerry - the First
Hello and welcome to
#MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst-Episode 138
Title: 3 Critical
Choices To Make In This 2018 - Choose Love
In the past 2 days I had
been discussing what I termed the critical choices to make in order to make
2018 a great year.
I had discussed Choose
Health as the first, and I had discussed Choose Yourself as the second, today I
want to discuss the third one and which is Choose Love
What Is Love?
In the course of preparing
this text, I had called up some persons I know and asked them what I thought
was a simple question - What is love?, the answers I got ranged from the very
banal to the very esoteric.
Searching online, did not
help matters either because the definitions were muddled and confusing. As
confusing as stating that love was simply sex. Like seriously?
Isn't it amazing that one
of the most extraordinary and satisfying feelings we can have as human beings
cannot really be captured by us in words?
However, I eventually
found a definition of love that satisfied me and would satisfy you too.
So, what is love?
Love is “An intangible
connection between two people that feels exceptionally good.”
The strength and depth of
the connection is determined by two conditions.
The level of
self-acceptance each person has for themselves.
How open, honest and
exposed each individual is willing to be.
Qualities always present
with these connections are:
Trust – believing in their
integrity and good intentions towards you.
Respect – concluding they
are good and worthy of appreciation.
Affection – demonstrating
your good intentions through your actions.
Love is not an emotion.
Love is the connection. Your feelings are a reaction to the quality of that
connection.
From the above definition,
there are two parts to love
Loving Yourself First
The part I find most
interesting in this definition is the condition that makes love more powerful.
First, self-acceptance.
You’ve heard the phrase “you can’t love someone more than you love yourself.”
What exactly does that mean and how does it work?
If there are
aspects of yourself you reject, these issues are your hot buttons. They’re a source of discomfort. When someone hits or
gets near one of your buttons, you’ll unmindfully react to the discomfort with
blame, shame, disrespect and withhold your affection until the discomfort
dissipates. So even if you are a parent who profoundly loves your child, you
will not be loving towards them when they tickle your insecurities.
The second condition
necessary is openness. Think of two people you feel the closest to in your
life. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
I bet one of the common
denominators in both relationships is – you have let them see who you really
are. They have witnessed you being strong, capable and exceptional, but they
have also seen you be scared, neurotic and weak. You’re honest with them about
what you’re facing and feeling. You let it all hang out. It’s not surprising
the love is palpable, it’s real! Love is
genuine when you take off the masks, otherwise it’s a ruse.
All of us crave truth and
relationships that are real.
With most everyone else,
you hide your imperfections. When you don’t let someone see the icky parts of
you, you question their love. Would they love me if they knew I was [ fill in
the blank ]? This unanswered question lingers between the two of you as an
impenetrable web. Open up to them and the barrier easily splits in two. The more you let them know
your shortcomings, AND they stick around, the more powerful the love.
Being honest and open is
not easy. Working at being at peace with the things you wish weren’t a part of
you is hard work. Not only is it a tough internal process, but you’re also
working against a culture that doesn’t understand, appreciate or support these
changes. You’ll need to be Don Quixote, fighting dragons only you can see and
tilting at windmills as far as anyone else is concerned. Be prepared, you’re
going to get bumped around.
In the end, the love you
experience will make it all worthwhile. You might end up having less relationships, but the ones
you have, will be infinitely more precious.
Types Of Love
I shall just mention them
in passing, and hoping to deal with them in details in the next two or three
conversations
They are
Eros or erotic love
Philia or affectionate
love
Storge or familiar love
Ludus or playful love
Mania or obsessive love
Pragma or enduring love
Philautia or self love
Agape or Universal love
So when I advise you to
Choose Love if you want your year to be great, what exactly do I mean?
I mean to draw your
attention to your innate ability to acquire the knowledge, attitude, and skills
you need to choose love in any situation.
These abilities include:
Understanding and managing
emotions
(self-awareness and self-management),
setting and achieving
positive goals,
feeling and showing
empathy and compassion for others
(social awareness),
establishing and
maintaining positive relationships, and
making responsible
decisions.
To be able to choose love
to overcome any situation or circumstance, you have to learn to exhibit these 4
character values so that you can stoop to conquer
COURAGE:
Courage is the willingness
and ability to work through obstacles despite feeling embarrassment, fear,
reluctance, or uncertainty.
GRATITUDE:
You have to learn that
gratitude is mindful thankfulness and the ability to be thankful even when
things in life are challenging.
FORGIVENESS:
Forgiveness means choosing
to let go of anger and resentment toward yourself or someone else, to surrender
thoughts of revenge, and to move forward with your personal power intact.
COMPASSION IN ACTION:
Compassion is the
understanding of a problem or the suffering of another and acting to solve the
problem or alleviate the suffering.
You apply your empathy and
communication skills to support other persons through compassionate action.
These 4 character values help
to cultivate optimism, resilience and personal responsibility. Included
elements are positive psychology, mindfulness, neuroscience, character values,
and many more.
You get
to learn that Choosing Love means choosing to live a life with Courage and
Gratitude, practicing Forgiveness, and being Compassionate individuals.
Being
able to Choose Love promotes your resilience in challenging times. This helps
you to learn personal responsibility and the understanding that you always have
a choice in how to respond to extenuating situations and circumstances.
The
world is deeply hurting and if we all are to practice an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth, very soon we shall all be blind and toothless.
But
when you choose love, you have the power to choose to love yourself, and show
compassion to others who are also hurting and who may even hurt you out of
deeply engrained self defence mechanisms.
When you willingly and
willfully open up to love, you derive these benefits
• Less
anxiety and stress
• Less fearful (in the present and future)
• Enhanced self-esteem
• Improved ability to express oneself and
one’s feelings
• Increased self-awareness
• Willingness to try difficult tasks
"Although
we can't always choose what happens to us, we can always choose how to respond.
We can learn to choose a loving thought over an angry one. When we realize that
we have the power to positively impact ourselves and those around us, it is
empowering and perpetuates our positive actions and interactions
Through
decades of research, including long-term studies spanning over 30+ years, we
know that SEL is the most proactive and preventative mental health initiative
available.
SEL is
the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the
knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions,
set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and
maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions
You
cannot love and fear at the same time. These two states of being cannot exist in the
same space. You have to let go of one or the other.
What
we fear always turns out to be a “boogieman” when faced. What we fear can also become a self-fulfilling
prophecy should we choose not to face it.
Life
abhors a vacuum—and when we
choose to let go of fear, dreams rush in to fill that space.
Life
never turns out the way we plan it. But it often turns out better when we simply let go of our fear
of life.
Love
is what we are, and when we refuse to love, we too are dying. Our loved ones would not want that for us. They’d
want us to choose love. They’d want us to choose life.
Love can
help you feel your power, feel safe in your bodies, and remove any shame or
guilt that is holding you back from reaching your full potential.
Today I
ask you to choose love over hatred, choose love over anger, choose love over
spite, choose love over blackmail, choose love over petty jealousies and envy.
The more
you choose love over these temporal emotions, the more stable you are in your
personality and which can make you very dependable.
Until I come your way
again, this is #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst
Keep it coming!!!
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#DrJTF
PS:
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This Program is powered by Topitup Media & Communication Nigeria.
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