Are You any Good at Sharing and Spreading Love?
Paul White's nationally distributed syndicated column, “Are You any Good at Sharing and Spreading Love?” is published in 22 publications across seven states. This includes the following newspapers and digital publications: Midland Daily News (MI), SFGate (CA), Seattle PI (WA), Connecticut Post (CT), Laredo Morning Times (TX), Huron Daily Tribune (MI), The Telegraph (IL), and more. In this week's article, Paul shares a perspective on sharing and spreading love.
“Are you any good at sharing and spreading love?” It’s a valid question. Why? Because we ALL perpetually crave receiving love from others. We also experience a receiving dose of love when we spread and share our love with others. This concept has been around as long as humankind. So, why aren’t we better at dishing it out and why aren’t we receiving as much as we crave? Let’s explore this thought process and create a solid perspective.
The reality is that sharing and spreading sincere love is pretty simple. It requires a conscious decision on our part but doesn’t require a forced strategic plan. Planning may be involved for people you’re familiar with, but with strangers it flows instantaneously from the heart like it’s a conditioned reflex. An example of what I mean that might make you laugh comes from the book “The Noticer” where author Andy Andrews shares a story about a church pastor that asked if there were any prayer requests. Someone responded with “Yes, I’d like us to pray for some smiling faces in this church. I think more people would want to go to heaven if they weren’t afraid it’d be like church when they got there!” Funny, right? But there’s some truth in that short story. Can a simple smile really be that powerful? I believe it can.
Receiving love from others is really the greatest gift a person can receive. Sometimes it might be a profound act of love like having someone donate their kidney to save a person’s life, and sometimes it may be as simple as a smile exchange. I feel like someone willing to donate a kidney became that kind of person through recognition, whether conscious or subconscious, of the benefits of sharing love in its most natural way. Their life journey led them to a place of joy, gratitude, and love through life experiences that consistently supported the proven theory that helping and loving others provides a direct path to those positive emotions. I imagine that before they got all the way up to donating a kidney, their life was filled with positive reinforcements that grew each time they received or gave away any act of kindness.
It’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge that the happiest people you know seem to be people that are consistently engaged in a wide variety of “helping others” moments. They volunteer and are the first to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. If you have a chance to observe them, they seem to smile a lot…a WHOLE lot…like more than normal a lot. They’re the ones that are always letting a waiting vehicle cut in the line or driving by the up-front space in the parking lot that they could have pulled into first. Okay, I’ve moved off the path of sharing and spreading love a little bit but I’m betting there’s at least one person that comes to the front of your mind right now.
Ask yourself this, if there had been an elective class offered in high school or college entitled “Sharing and Spreading Love” would you have signed up for it? Not likely. Yet the subject matter theoretically offered would have a long-term larger impact on your life than any of the other classes you could have taken. Need proof? Well let’s take a look at what some of the lessons would look like in a class focused on sharing and spreading love. Daily lessons in no particular order might include Be kind to others, Be nice to others, Be aware of the cues that someone is hurting or suffering, Seek first to understand…then to be understood, smile…smile again, let others go first, never be in a hurry, pay for the car behind you in the drive-thru, when sharing…always take the smaller half, never have a personal gain at another person’s expense, do the dishes more than your share. I’ll let you come up with the next 100 or so lessons. They’re pretty obvious but we just don’t spend any time thinking about stuff like this (until now). Do those things on a regular basis and you will become an expert at sharing and spreading love.
Everything I just listed involved action on your part with the love flowing out from you to others. But what about receiving it back? The point I’m trying to make is that when love is flowing out from you a “boomerang effect” takes hold and without any additional effort on your part, love comes flowing back to you at approximately 10 times what you sent out. Please don’t ask me to provide the science behind it. I’m just sharing what my life experience has proven which has been reinforced by dozens of other people I’ve spoken to regarding this subject. And yes, they were all people that I consider experts at sharing and spreading love.
So I’m asking you…to at least make some sort of effort that involves sharing and spreading love. Call someone up right now that you haven’t seen in a while. Ask how they’re doing. Better yet, ask them to share the things that have been bringing the most joy to their life recently. Then sit back and enjoy the love that’s being returned to you. This isn’t hard and YOU, yes YOU are entirely capable of growing in the amount of love you share and spread. Pretty soon you’ll not only be good…you’ll be GREAT! Just be prepared for the onslaught of love that’s going to boomerang back to you. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!
Paul White is a guest columnist and author. Purchase his life-changing book “The Answer Discovery – How to Change the World by Helping Others…and Ourselves” at http://bit.ly/PaulWhiteAmazon. If you’re interested in getting in touch with Paul, please submit an inquiry via our Contact Page.