What do you want more of in your life? I love to ask- of friends, retreat clients, workshop participants and even here on the blog.
I want more laughter in my life.
I want more affection.
I want more collaboration.
These are just a few of the answers I have heard to that question in the last year.
And here’s the funny thing. It wasn’t until those things were claimed out loud that the speaker was able to get herself to move to the next place. To the place where she isn’t just mourning that it’s not there, palpable already in her life, but where she’s consciously asking herself, “What can I do to get more of that very thing I want in my life?”
You know what I’ve noticed about human nature (my own and others). That we can fairly precisely identify and claim what we want more of in our lives, but that we can sometimes apply conditions to how we might receive it.
Take affection for example. We identify that we want more affection in our lives. I don’t know when was the last time I kissed my partner, we might think. And so we decide that we will deliberately kiss our partner back the next time he or she offers us a kiss. A start, sure. But why not just decide I am going to offer a kiss today.
We do this in so many ways– I will be more kind when she is kinder to me. I will be more generous when I am met with generosity. I will treat my body well when it has lost five pounds.
Oh, the conditions.
What if nothing was conditional any longer? What if how we practice our self-acceptance was by identifying what we want more of in our life and taking the first step to getting it by offering it? If we want laughter, we bring the funny. Love, we bring the affection. Collaboration, the magnanimous spirit. Body acceptance, the peace of process and kindness.
We can create what we most want, but it begins by our deciding to offer that very thing to the world. What is it that you want more of in your life? What is keeping you from offering it to yourself and others right now? How can you begin to offer it today?
