Are you a crappy lover? Wait…what kind of love were you thinking of? Come on! We’re talking love in the sense of “operate with love”, the first of the four LIFE principles. Lock it up!
Ahead of you today, is a blog that I am writing for myself. Yea, it’s a selfish act but hopefully it can help you too.
The truth is operating with love is often the most difficult LIFE principle for me. I have always been an independent person, good to live alone, and do my own thing. Selfishness is my nature and I admit, I’m darn good at it. But last September, it had to end. I got married to the most amazing women I had ever met, and my selfish ways would only lead to destruction. A few months earlier, I started the Brother’s LIFE Council and began to preach a message of selfless friendship – add that nail to the coffin of my selfish lifestyle too. As a result of my awareness mixed with my habits, I’ve found myself consistently noticing areas and moments that I fail miserably to operate with love. But I have found a few mindsets to help me reengage and refocus. The three P’s of love: patience, presence, and positivity.
Patience
Facial expressions, eye rolls, walking away, sarcastic questions – all ways that I love to show how impatient I truly am. Impatience in our lives and relationships boils down to a simple truth. We believe that our time is the most precious thing on earth and we sure as heck won’t let someone else take it from us. Even if that person is someone we promised to have and hold until death or a friend who stood by us in the toughest moment of our lives. This is selfish and a complete lack of love.
We believe that our time is the most precious thing on earth and we sure as heck won’t let someone else take it from us.
To be a better lover, be more patient. Stop acting as if every second you spend listening to someone else’s issues or about their day are seconds you otherwise could have used to change the world. We both know that you’d use those seconds to play Call of Duty or watch the newest episode of the Spring Baking Championship (just me?).
Your time matters but not more than someone else’s and certainly not more than friends and family. If you feel like you have no time to listen and engage in their lives, it’s a reflection of your lack of discipline and time management. Get up earlier. Plan your day out better. Then when you get the chance to listen to someone and speak life into them, you take that with all the gratitude you can muster. What a privilege to be able to sit down to a meal, hear about someone else’s experience, and offer whatever you can to support them. Stop treating folks like an inconvenience and find the patience to love better.
Presence
A close cousin to patience, is presence. It’s simple: you can’t love someone well if your body is with them but your mind is elsewhere. When was the last time someone told you something and your only response was, “huh?” That’s annoying because it indicates to the other person that you aren’t present. Instead, you are uninterested, distracted, selfish, or some combination of the three.
We must find a way to get the phone or whatever else distracts us put away and our whole selves tuned in to the people with us at the moment
I recently joined the Instagram crowd to better get the word out on the LIFE Council work (you should follow me @LIFE.enacted). Even after a couple of weeks I can feel the temptation to focus on it instead of the people right next to me. I’m working to fight that temptation and schedule the time on social media to post and get in touch with folks but it’s not as easy as it sounds. However, for the sake of our relationships we must find a way to get the phone or whatever else distracts us put away and our whole selves tuned in to the people with us at the moment. Be present, love better.
Positivity
One of the most profound ideas that I took away from my brothers at our first LIFE Council retreat was positive energy. I learned from them that being positive is cool but bringing positivity is better. Here’s a litmus test from recent news that can tell you what kind of energy you bring to people around you. If you saw that Adele lost weight and got healthy, but you reacted with anger or “poor me”, you are probably a crappy lover with negativity in your wake. If, on the other hand, you were able to realize you don’t know her, the situation, her goals, or anything else for that matter and feel good for her positive change, then you might be a good lover.
Here’s the easiest thing you can do to start loving better right now. When you enter a space to be with your partner or friends, pause before going in and ask yourself out loud (whisper so you’re not a weirdo), “what kind of energy am I bringing to these people that I love?” If the answer isn’t positive, take a second for a couple deep breaths, and try to center on something you’re grateful for.
I’m not saying you have to be positive all the time but if you’re like me, it sure wouldn’t hurt to bring more positive energy to your life. You get to have bad days and vent to people but if that is your normal way of operating, you’re not fun or healthy to be around. It’s hard truth, but truth it is. Focus less on being positive and more on bringing positivity and you’ll be a more pleasant person who operates with love every day.
You get to have bad days and vent to people but if that is your normal way of operating, you’re not fun or healthy to be around. It’s hard truth, but truth it is.
That’s it. Three P’s to operate with love. I needed to hear these and now I need to act on them. Reading is fun but if it doesn’t impact how you act and think, it’s a wasted exercise. Here’s a challenge for you this weekend to start to enact the first LIFE principle through these three P’s.
Weekend Challenge
This weekend be honest with yourself and choose to focus on the “P” that hinders you the most in your relationships. Then, take stock of why it gets in the way. Maybe it’s underlying selfishness like me, a childhood thing you still carry with you, or a habit of negativity you haven’t shaken. Once you have this “why”, make a commitment to do one thing this weekend that would flip the script and write it down. For me, I’m committing to catch my impatient facial expressions that signal, “get to the point, I have other stuff to do.” They are so frequent for me that I’m sure I’ll miss some but catching any would be improvement.
Share what you take on with our community on Facebook with Brothers LIFE Council or Instagram (@LIFE.enacted).