Cultivating a Practice of Love and Kindness

Love is selfless and calls to the most virtuous parts of ourselves to manifest and serve. (Serlena Bessonova/Shutterstock)

Writer Aldous Huxley once said, “There isn’t any formula or method. You learn to love by loving.”

Love can be shown through our actions, our words, our attitudes, our energy, our intentions, and our thoughts. Let’s consider how much love, compassion, kindness, and care we’re offering the people in our lives and beyond.

Love is truly beautiful. When we’re at our best, we offer love to our significant other, our children, our parents, our siblings, our extended family members, our friends, our neighbors, our acquaintances, and our fellow humans. Love is selfless and calls to the most virtuous parts of ourselves to manifest and serve.

Like any aspect of life, each of us can improve in our capacity to love. Doing so, of course, not only enriches the lives of those who receive our love but our own lives as well. As ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu put it, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

Here are some practical ways to enhance our ability to share the love.

Gratitude

When your heart is filled with appreciation, awe, and gratitude for the many blessings and abundance life offers, it has forged a foundation to offer goodness generously. Maintaining a grateful heart is something that can be regularly practiced and cultivated. Make a point of noticing all the good that comes your way. When you turn on a faucet and water magically appears—be grateful. When you wake up in bed, warm and comfortable under your blankets—be grateful. When you pass by someone who smiles in your direction—be grateful.

There are countless blessings to notice and be grateful for every single day.

Prayer

Perhaps, for some of us, the relationships with the most need for improvement are the ones closest to us. We tend to take for granted our closest loves, when we should be offering our love in abundance to them.

One way to muster your deepest compassion, appreciation, and love for others is to pray for them. Pray for wisdom in understanding what they need from you, in knowing who they truly are, and in recognizing how to best support and cherish them. Pray for the ability to be able to fulfill your role in their lives to the best of your ability.

Doing so reminds you that each person is a spirit, a soul deserving of love and kindness.

Generosity

You may believe that giving is something for the wealthy to do, but no matter your financial circumstances, you have so much to give. A generous heart can be fostered with simple acts of generosity and kindness. Offer others your smile, best wishes, encouragement, enthusiasm, understanding, forgiveness, warmth, gentility, comfort, attention, help, wisdom, time, and, yes, even your worldly possessions if you’re so inclined.

There are countless ways to walk your path of life with a generous heart. Maximize your generosity.

Nurture

As we all journey this life together, might we each nurture and care for each other along the way? Take it upon yourself to be a nurturer to anyone you can.

Just as we’d nurture our sick child with warm hugs, chicken soup, and ever-present care, we’d do well to recognize that there are countless forms of struggle and suffering in this life and no one is immune to them. To be gentle, warm, understanding, and compassionate to others, forgiving of their mistakes, patient with their shortcomings, and sympathetic to their plight, is to offer grace and care to our fellow man.

When the store clerk is rude, when your teenager rolls her eyes, when your friend doesn’t keep her word—remember that you too make mistakes, lose your patience, and fall short of your own standards for yourself from time to time, and usually when you’re struggling in some way. They say hurt people hurt people. A nurturing and caring response is an act of love.

Ease

When we go through life trying to control our circumstances, protect our interests, and avoid suffering or discomfort, we tend to look upon others as potential threats rather than fellow brothers and sisters.

Set down your desire to control fate, put your faith in a higher power, and greet your loved ones with more ease. Your impact on the environment will have a calming effect and allow you to become more broad-minded and open to others. Let go of your expectations. Be authentic and relaxed. Set your mind at ease.

Practice

Ancient philosophies and religions alike have centered on the importance of love and compassion. As the Bible says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; against such things there is no law."(Galatians 5:22–23).

Love is an act, a mindset, a way of being. It must be practiced and cultivated. Make a concerted effort to foster more loving thoughts in your mind, more loving feelings in your heart, and spread love wherever you go. The world needs it now more than ever.