Originally posted on Facebook HERE
That sun is kinda wild today. I read a quote in a magazine today that said, “While we might think of love as a feeling, we can also think of it as an ability” (Sharon Salzberg). Stopped me for a second. I think we all know the feeling of love, at least I hope we do. We love people, or things, in our lives. There are things we love to do. Not sure I ever thought about love as an “ability”, though. All of us have things we have an innate ability for. My father was a musician, I inherited natural musical ability from him. I have a natural ability in sales. There are abilities we aren’t born with, too. I didn’t learn to swim until my mid 50’s, and I can say that does NOT come naturally for me. You don’t want me preparing dinner, either – cooking isn’t my thing. So, if we think about love as an “ability”, then it would follow that some of us are born with a natural ability to exude love and some of us aren’t. And, when I start to think about love in that context I see that I have a lot of work to do. I think that altogether too often when I’m being squeezed or pushed by a life event, my natural response is anger. My ego is very strong. I don’t mean that in the way many people would view that, as an “I’m full of myself” comment, but in the battle between being in touch with love, and trying to make that be the norm (a higher consciousness), and letting my conscious mind react, the conscious “ego” reaction is often the first response. Like anything, we can hone our abilities. Just because I had natural musical ability didn’t mean I didn’t have to work at it to be successful. What’s the quote? “Nothing is more common than an unsuccessful man with talent”? When I think of love as an ability, I see why it’s so important to me to read self help and spiritual material on a regular basis, and meditate as often as possible. I need to increase my ability to love. These are the ways I do it. A quick look through my Facebook feed says we’re not a very tolerable, loving society right now, at least on social media. Maybe if more people started to work on their ability to love, we could change that. I will do my best to do my part. I look forward to a day when I can see every person, and every situation with love in my heart. It’s not even easy to think about, because our egos want revenge. Egos like to win. And, over time our egos can get a foothold on our subconscious. Raising our ability to love is a lifelong process. We have the ability to do it, if we make it a priority.
