Love is the ultimate energy in life, and yet it eludes so many of us.  We hear the New Age mantras of “Love Yourself!” and the Law Of Attraction vibrational thoughts and feeling exercises… but how do you “Love Yourself” more?  How can your mind bring you more love?

You don’t have to work on love. Its always there if you want it.  

 

I just returned from what is utopia in my mind: a remote Japanese village that is filled with magical architecture tended to with care, stripped of massive technology and loaded with people who are committed to community and the highest good they can give to the world. There is no anger that festers.  There are no competitions.  No one person is better than another. There is respect for the land.  There is care for the basics of life.

There is nothing but love in utopia.  And in that space, love is no longer elusive.

Modern world thoughts and lessons about “love” deal with your mind and behavior, and there are thousands of different rules to follow and gurus who teach you secrets to love in a romantic sense.  Self-help manuals tell you to envision yourself surrounded by love, and while there is value in that vision, it stops at your mind.  Our minds don’t love.  We do.  We aren’t just our mind.  If you start from your mind when dealing with emotion, that’s where emotion stops and so does love.

Moving outside of your mind and into connection with others, with nature and with the higher sense of community is where love seems to happen.

In some traditional feng shui, there are tips that involve putting trinkets that have “love attracting power” in different parts of your space like under your bed or in the far right corner of your home.  If you believe enough in anything, the placebo effect might just bring you a romance.  It won’t solve for you the habits you have concerning love, or the ideas piled in your mind (there’s that mind thing again) that will stop you from cultivating that relationship.

This is very limited.

This is also arduous and takes “you” out of the equation, putting your life in the hands of trinkets and symbols alone.

When you think of it that way, the “magic pill” love solutions are not really that attractive, are they?

Feng shui initially intrigued me in the way it mirrored real nature.  The ” five elements” I talk about a lot are the fundamental elements of water, fire, metal, wood and water energy that comprise all of nature.  Nature doesn’t read a book to know how to communicate with a loved one.  Nature doesn’t try to predict the future.  Nature flows in cycles and adapts to its environment, finding the right ways to grow and thrive, to mate and to survive in the greatest ways possible.

Try to cage a wild animal and you’ll see the failure of the modern world to impose “modern rules and regulations” upon the elements.

By getting too caught up in complexity, you get far away from love.

I arrived back from this utopia to hear about drama. I don’t accept it. Drama is petty mind stuff.  The games that are played to “win” where relationships are involved are a lose-lose situation.  How do you “win” by treating people badly to protect yourself?  Where exactly do you “get ahead” by living only for you and what you need for you?

My suggestion to live in a space of more love is to simplify your life a lot more and focus on connecting to your talents, your community and your own larger sense of the universe.

A few simple feng shui suggestions to cultivate a greater sense of love in your life: 

Break your addiction to technology as it corrupts the connection to life.  Shut off your phone while you eat and socialize whenever you can.  Stop working on a computer at least an hour before bed.

See what your life feels like if you can stop focusing on the drama in your life and start crating things you want for yourself instead.  You can have compassion from a distance if that’s what it takes.  You don’t have to hate people who have wronged you. We all are totally imperfect.  So is that person who screwed you over or cheated on you or was not honest.  We’ve all done some version of that.  I don’t advocate letting people walk all over you, but living in victimization or anger does not serve anyone’s greatest good!

Find ways to help more in, and to help ways that are needed.  Open the door for someone.  Carry their bag.  Lend someone a hand when they need it.  One of my favorite people in the universe hugs everyone, amazing hugs.  Have people over for dinner.  Teach someone to do something that is a skill. Help in my world doesn’t mean pouring your energy into an endless pit of sorting out drama for other people; we have to do that for ourselves.  Help to me means caring and doing what we can to act more communally, putting convenience and self-interest aside for the sake of overall wellbeing.

Take more care for your life in basic, fundamental ways. I have said before that balance is not boring– stability is an exciting space to build a solid foundation for a huge life.  Coming from a place where everyone ate at set times, slept as set times and took great care for nature and for their homes, I saw first hand on a grand scale the importance of care for one’s life in this basic way.  Simple things like being fed, rested and in synch with one’s own schedule takes a lot of random chaos and emotional mayhem out of the day.

But… how does this help you find your girlfriend/boyfriend/soulmate/best friend? Where is the secret trick to that? 

If I said there was an absolute trick, you should stop reading now. Anyone who claims they know a fool-proof way to bring together people in somewhat mystical unions with certainty is shilling snake oil.  That said, if you can clear more space in your life of drama and infuse it with connection, purpose and, yes, love…. its far more likely that you will not be interested in unhealthy realationships.  You’ll glow more.  You’ll be happier on your own.  And from there, whatever verion of love you desire is much more tangible without mind games and intense striving.

Love is not the end product in my world. Its the starting point.  You don’t “work on” love, no matter how many people have made an industry out of it.  It is there. You might “work” on communication, but you can’t “work” on emotion. Love doesn’t “develop”, it always is.  Whether or not you can quiet your life and srip down the modern lavish distraction enough to accept and give more from a place of ease and compassion is up to you.  Whether it is loving your friends, family, partners, pets or strangers, it is already there, all that love.  Engage it!  xoxo Dana

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And, if you want to dive in to your own personalized feng shui in a modern, practical way, say hello to Feng Shui 101.  Its the guide I made for you to create your own personalized feng shui at home, in the office, wherever you may be… in 8 weeks.  It’s not filled with strict rules or what you “must” do.  Its filled with information, questions, exercises and even videos and classes to help you confidently create amazing spaces with killer feng shui and live with more flow.

 Learn more about the 8-week feng shui adventure & grab your copy to get started right HERE…   And, as always, please let me know what happens!