“Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Love brings clarity and focus to your life. Love helps you see what is truly important compared to what is trivial. Love empowers you to help others find its healing grace while you are showered with its grace along the way.

To bring more love into your life, you may need to draw a new map or shake your compass a little if it’s stuck. Finding new ways to let more love in your life can be simple to do when your heart is ready for the journey:

1. Acknowledge the walls holding love back.
Often what keeps you from bringing more love into your life is you. Step back and notice the barriers that are holding love back. Are you withholding love from others because of jealously, spite or a lack of emotion? Do you see love as a burden or something unimportant? Do you allow self-love to flow through you?

Bringing more love into your life takes action and awareness. Begin by knocking down the walls that are keeping love away. When you do, love will not come in drips, it will come all at once.

2. Change and grow.
Love is not static. People change; relationships change and you change, too. Becoming aware of the changing needs of the people in your life and then changing how you extend love to meet these needs will allow love to grow.

3. Determine what you are willing to release to experience more love.
Consider what it would feel like to let go of past expectations, rules or experiences of love. In the place where regret once lived, fill this space with hope and imagine what your life could look like from this point forward. Let go of the past and take hold of love.

4. Stop controlling love.
Love knows no boundaries and is limitless in its potential. The idea of controlling love is temporary at best. To bring more love into your life you must be willing to surrender to it. Put down your anxiety and allow love to fill your life on its schedule; not yours.

5. Imagine what love looks like to you.
Close your eyes and feel love spread over you. What does it look like to you? Is it peace, security and wonder? Does it look like loving your partner or child unconditionally? Does it look like repairing a part of your past? Or does it look like having the confidence to love you a little more each day? No matter what love looks like to you, keep this picture in front of you and refer to it often when it feels like love is slipping away.

6. Recognize your expectations of love.
Love often disappoints when your expectations are unrealistic. Love can be the bridge that brings two people together, but the bridge looks different each day. Some days it is paved with passion and on other days it is filled with a simple, subtle knowing.

Celebrate each day for what it brings and understand that to realize intense intimacy a baseline has to be established. The “baseline days” of sharing gentle tenderness can be just as passionate when your expectations are appropriately calibrated.

7. Practice giving.
Love grows in abundance by how much you are willing to give – so practice giving. Donate to the disadvantaged, find ways to help someone in need and give your time and attention to worthwhile causes. Find ways to make your partner’s day a little easier and be fully present for your children. Practice giving more of yourself. With practice, love will grow in strength.

8. Know what’s temporary.
Shortcuts in love may feel good, but they don’t last. Instant gratification isn’t really love at all. Commit to the journey of learning how you can bring more love to others. Resist the temptation of doing what feels good at the moment and replace it with what you really want for the long term.

About Alex Blackwell

Alex Blackwell is a father, husband and writer. He writes about inspiring things at The BridgeMaker.
Web | Simple Paths | How to Love Consciously