Week 5: Center in Love + Day 1: Journal & Set Intentions

For the first four weeks of this challenge, you have deep-dived into your reasons for living, made a map of your path forward, and a plan for how to give full effort to your priorities. This next four weeks you will center your living in love.

Love is the key to happiness and success in all areas: Life is lived in relationship and in community- and no matter how brilliant and effective you are, you will struggle if you have poor relationships with the people in your life.

Love is also a frame for your bond with the earth, with God, and with yourself.

Contrary to popular belief, love is not a belief or feeling; it's a way of being, a set of habits learned over a lifetime, practicing such skills as on compassion, generosity, equanimity, understanding, and kindness. For this next 30 days you will cultivate and improve the habits that allow you to keep love central in your life, and in your everyday interactions, and continue on your life-long path to transformation into the wisest and best version of yourself.

The Love Habit has many parts, which we will take one day at a time. You will start this week by defining and setting intentions to center your life in love.

A note about fear

Surprisingly, I find that the antithesis of love is not hate - it is fear. When we are afraid, we close our hearts; we get defensive, and we withdraw or lash out. Fear is pernicious. It grows, and can become a way of life - worry, doubt, and fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty, lead to seeking security in very odd places. 

Love is like a balm to a fearful mind. We each have an infinite supply of love, and when we remember to access it, we can heal the world.

One of my favorite love writer, Ed Bacon, in his book "8 Habits of Love" says, “By celebrating—and sharing—the love that already lives inside us, we can free ourselves from the fear, anger, and sadness that cause so much suffering. I have seen firsthand that when we open our hearts to love’s abundance we are able to transform our lives and make the world a more just and peaceful place."

Day 1: Journal & Set Intentions

Get out your (old) journal notebook and write "Love and Service" or some other heading like that. This exercise has three parts again, so allot 5 -10 minutes for each part:

• Part One - collect information. Back on Week 1, Day 1, I asked you to make some lists of goals, dreams, and exciting ideas in broad categories. Today I want you to review and add new ideas to these two lists:

            -Love, social skills, friends and family, and

            -Activism and service

Brainstorm some goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for your future in the areas of your relationships, your family, your friends, and your community, and ways you want to be of service. Just write whatever you think of, without judgement; put down everything you really want to do, and everything you only dream of doing, and include at least a few crazy, improbable ideas.

• Part 2 - reflect. Write about the condition of your relationships. Write about your habitual behaviors, your reactivity, and your attitudes about people. Write about your service commitments and what you hope to achieve. Write about challenges and successes. Write about your values, beliefs, and priorities and how they support love. 

• Part 3 - weigh the possibilities. Take a break for a few minutes. Get a fresh cup of tea or go outside to look at the sky, then come back and read what you wrote. List just a few (2-4) specific Love Goals for this next month (30 days), such as a particular change in your attitude or responses, a person you want to get closer to, a habit you want to improve, or a service you want to share.

• Add these few new goals to your Month Map and your priority grid, spreading them out in a reasonable way.

Set intentions for the week:

• Write about your top priorities in the next week, including your small daily disciplines, and any big projects or tasks that lead you in the direction of your dreams. List the strongest, most compelling reasons you want to do them.

• List potential challenges- parts you don’t enjoy, things you don’t know how to do, or feel blocked on.

• Set intentions for this week to follow through with each one of your priorities, being sure to include your deepest reasons. Give special attention to any "low-status" priorities.