Is love worth it?

Ready for an adventure? How about a trip down memory lane? When you have a moment, reflect on the last time you went shopping for someone you love (or loved) dearly. How did your desire to show your love influence what you bought?

Maybe materialism isn't the way you express love. How do you spend your time with those you love? What level of attention or respect do you offer to those you sense of deep connection with? Have you ever placed a loved-one's needs above your own at the cost of your own health? First things first. Time to tap into how love shows up for you. Here's an quick exercise!

• Grab a pen and piece of paper and within one minute make a Top Ten Love list. List the top-ten people that instantly comes to mind - people you love .
• Next - write a word or two next to each name on how you love them. Example: caring, fun to be with, etc.
• Do this list now before reading the rest of this article. (Really! Please try this exercise. Two minutes - it's worth you time.)

How has your love for a person, place, pet or purpose motivated you to share (or withhold) your worth in some form or fashion. (I bet you have some GREAT stories on how love has moved you to share time or money in the past. Help us celebrate this love by sharing a story in the comment box below.)

Love, a word worth paying attention to!

One of the most dramatic, inspiring, stormy love affairs our species has come to know is our love of - and for - history. Many history lovers weave the warp of time with the weft of experience into a brilliant mosaic cloth of loving memories. Just how do loving memories serve us? In some cases, memories bless us in the form of recalling wonderful times or life-changing lessons. Our lessons feed our sense of worth when we decide to LEARN from our lessons.

We show our love for history every time we record or preserve something in some form. We spend vast sums of money and time on recording or preserving history. (Restoration and scrap booking are a multi-BILLION dollar industries.) However, do memories enslave us to repetition? When we repeat lessons, we consume worth in the form of time, money, respect, health, and reputation. While history may be our teacher, what type of students are we?

History also documents how we LOVE to rally to the cause in times of disaster, disease, death. Once the drama fades however, we often return to our beloved routines. Or less dramatic (on a more annual cycle in the spirit of the holidays), love inspires us to be more generous with our resources. When the holidays pass we historically return to our routines. What inspires such habits?

• limited resources?
• law of diminishing returns (too much of a good thing diminishes it's goodness)?
• fear of being beholding to the gift giver (gifts with unknown strings attached)?
• thermodynamics (systems striving to find an equilibrium pre/post change)?

Maybe we create habits to feel some sense of being normal. The question then turns to "what is normal." Is it normal to spend beyond our means (time, money, etc.) on people we love? How do norms inspire forms of greed such as hoarding ones' worth? Once we feel more secure by feeling normal, do we find ourselves ready for something new or numbed to repeat comfortable, historical cycles?

Over the past three decades, I've discovered a remarkably simply way to address unhealthy norms or cycles (cycles we tend to love as well). How? Listen to your intuition. Our intuition ALWAYS has our best intentions in mind - providing we learn to trust them. If you've lost faith in your intuition, how do you regain trusting intuition? (As a child, we trust our intuition almost 100% of the time.) The first step in trusting your intuition begins with the results of exercise you were invited to do at the topic of this post! Did you create a "Top Ten Love list? If so, was your name on that list?

Surprisingly, when students or clients rapidly jot down 10 people they love dearly, often their name isn't on their list! True, it's easy to link self love with narcissistic overtones of vanity, conceit, egotism, simple selfishness or elitism. If your history reflects you feeling odd about the notion of loving yourself in healthy ways, there's good news! You're at least aware of feeling odd! Now, what might you be willing to do to overcome such feelings? The more you come to KNOW and LOVE yourself the more likely you'll find yourself magically attracting all sorts of worth-while stuff! How? At the risk of being a bit too new-agey (and I'm known for that!) when one senses a genuine love from a person, pet, place or purpose we often feel an attraction of some type. This attraction inspires us into action. With these thoughts in mind, we've just uncovered the secret to those law of attraction we've heard about.

If your Top Ten Love list did indeed include your name, congratulations! In what ways do you love yourself in a healthy, balanced manner. Please do share a few thoughts in the comment box below. Your insights on how you love yourself will inspire others to explore more loving ways - one day, one step at a time. From what I've experienced, genuine love is void of narcissistic overtones. How about your experience with genuine love, including loving your self!? People love to share opinions. How about you? Would you share your ideas on how you experienced genuine love.

Everyone I know who genuinely, unconditionally loves life, lives some of the fullest, most robust and rewarding lives I've come to know. These folks link their personal worth to how many solid, ethical relationships they enjoy. These relationships attract worth in ways people often find to be miraculous. History reflects many a story where miracles and love go hand in hand. What miracles might you inspire today?

Wrapping up, you're invited to expand your personal worth by . . .

Pay Me What I’m Worth:  Key Terms (tag cloud)
ethics, gratitude, health, integrity, love, money, power, property, reputation, respect, time, wisdom, worth