A powerful mindfulness exercise that I do is to practice love.

“Wait a minute,” you might say. “Isn’t love something you either feel or not?”

I’m glad you asked! The answer is that every feeling you have is either a derivative of love or fear. The more you shift your thoughts towards love, the more you love your life–and allow love into your life.

When you consider that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed, doesn’t it make sense to begin to shift any fear-based catabolic emotional energy more towards love-based anabolic energy? In other words, to practice love?

I usually do this exercise just before going to sleep, but it really can be done any place you can sit quietly, relax, and focus.

To begin, bring to mind something that you totally and completely love. This may be your spouse or partner, pets, children, etc. Sit a moment and envision them totally enveloped in love. Get creative here. See them in a warm golden light, a big hug, or whatever feels like being embraced by the biggest expression of love you can imagine.

Then bring someone or something else that you love into the picture. As you stay in that feeling of love, start to include more and more people and things—and even places—that you love. Eventually you want to work up to having the entire planet embraced in your vision of love.

For me, this may look something like this:

I envision my husband being surrounded by a warm, golden light that is pure love. That light expands to include our pets, our families, and our friends. It spreads to include our home and everything in it. It expands to include my job and all the people I work with. It grows and encircles our town, and all the places where I have ever lived. It expands to cover the states where I have lived, and spreads to the whole country. It then moves around the world embracing everyone and everything. It encompasses the planet itself and everyone and everything is enriched and enhanced by this feeling of love.

You can make the exercise last a long time, or just a few minutes. Practice this daily and watch for examples of more love coming into your life.

Together we can do it!

Photo by happykanppy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net