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Essay
Love and Happiness: How Love Can Keep You Happy
by Dr. Aymee

Before we can experience unconditional love from others, we first should nurture this in ourselves. When we learn to love ourselves we can then attract more love from others and increase our happiness!

Do you want more love in your life?

Do you want more happiness in your life?

More love and more happiness help create your upward spiral*!

The only pursuit that may be more popular than the pursuit of happiness is that of unconditional love. Our soul’s deepest desire is to be held, caressed, nurtured, cared for and accepted for being ourselves.

In order to access this experience of unconditional love, we first need to be happy within ourselves. Before we can experience unconditional love from others, we first should nurture this in ourselves.

As we continue to become our own best friend and lover through accepting ourselves, our relationships should become stronger, deeper and more unconditionally loving.

Unconditional love is the result of unconditional acceptance.
"Acceptance" is a word we throw around as if it is so easy -- yet the weight of this word could sink a ship!

When we approach ourselves with high acceptance, we are able to extend it into the relationships around us, which then allows for deeper intimacy. Simply by being accepting of yourself, you are accepting others. This ability of deep self-acceptance expands the boundaries of connections with others. This is because we feel safe in an environment where judgment is absent -- and therefore we feel total acceptance. We feel confident being accepted for our true selves, and this allows us to relax and be comfortable with others.

We move beyond self-acceptance into using acceptance, in general, in order to experience greater love in ourselves and in our relationships.

One of my mentors, Dr. Bob Nozik, author of Happy 4 Life: Here’s How to Do It, reminded me of the power of his saying: “No matter what happens, I am okay with it.”

Disclaimer: This is not to say you need to like things; it merely means you accept things that are out of your control.

When you can "give up the struggle" and live in your own levels of acceptance, you can experience a freedom that allows true love to flow in you and around you.

This is what your upward spiral consists of: true love, unconditional acceptance, freedom, and sustainable happiness.

So, when you accept yourself entirely, you create deeper intimacy with those around you. This intimacy is a birthplace for unconditional love, thus fueling the happiness in your upward spiral of life!

I recognize I have been a tad philosophical in my introduction of the concept of unconditional acceptance being the basis for unconditional love, which is accessed through the ability to accept yourself. But there are practical steps you can take to learn how to increase your self-acceptance:

Step 1 - Choose happiness:

You know it by now! I recommend responding to your circumstances with happiness, and in the case of wanting more love, responding with acceptance.

Step 2 - Focus on Acceptance:

(1) Decide to Accept:

We can choose how to respond to any given scenario. Instead of reacting to the circumstance, decide to do something different. Simply take a deep breath and realize you are going to use the acceptance model to handle it.

(2) Accept:

This does not mean you have to like your circumstances. Instead, accept that some things are out of our control, and that we are unable to change what happened in the past. I believe in a notion of "faith," that only good will come from a situation. For example: rain grows grass or rainbows come after rain. Acceptance helps us neutralize our emotional experience so we can think clearly in dealing with the situation, like a cool, calm firefighter in the midst of a fire.

(3) Pragmatic Response:

Every situation needs to be handled -- in one way, shape or form. When we come to a pragmatic response through acceptance, instead of reaction, we are able to gain mastery over the circumstance instead of the circumstance having mastery over us.

(4) Ask your inner heart voice, "What did I learn?"

Every situation offers a learning lesson. Close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, take a deep breath, and ask your inner voice, “What did I learn?” And then ask, “Anything else?” -- because you may have multiple learning lessons from a situation. Think back to to step (2) of Acceptance above and the idea that grass only grows with rain, and the rainbow comes from the rain. Then, when our awareness grows, our upward spiral can expand.

(5) Gratitude for Learning:

Say: “I am grateful for _____ because it adds _____ to my life.” This allows for us to come into deeper sense of gratitude for the learning which we just endured when a "negative circumstance" has enhanced our lives through the gift of expanded awareness.
Step 3 - Generate Your Upward Spiral:
As your sense of self-acceptance grows, you’ll generate an upward spiral that should help increase your experience of unconditional love, expand feelings of bliss and increase the likelihood of attracting loving feelings from those in your life.
There you have it: three steps to more love and more happiness in your life!

If you answered Yes to:

Do you want more love in your life?

Do you want more happiness in your life?
Then you can achieve more love and happiness by following these three steps. When you learn how to unlock your own upward spiral of love and happiness, you're usually more able to then aid and inspire others. In other words:
more love and happiness inside
=
more love and happiness outside

A consistent learning process, unfolding in life through the practice of continual acceptance of self and others, allows for enormous opportunity for personal growth. When we enhance our own personal growth, we often become happier. And when we become happier, we can achieve life’s greatest offering: more love and happiness.