When you hear the word LOVE, does it make your heart melt or does it have you running for the hills? For some, love can be a scary feeling, especially if you were raised in an environment where love was not displayed or talked about. Allowing yourself to feel the feelings of love can be an enlightening experience.

When we pour our heart out in gratitude, we are showing our love and appreciation for something. So, when we display our love each and every day by doing things that make us feel joy and purpose, we live a life of love. Taking the time to recognize our feelings and move up the emotional scale to a place of true contentment and love can sometimes seem daunting.  But once we get there, we feel inspired to live our lives from that peace.

Sometimes people feel that love has a price tag. That if we give too much or love too much that you will “owe” someone. Love is unconditional. What do you do to show love? We cannot feel love and hate at the same time. We can feel it alternatively, but we can only choose one feeling at a time. We all do things that feel good and that we love to do, or else we wouldn’t do them.

Here are a couple tools to help you “feel” the love. When we feel love we also end up living happier lives; therefore, many of the same tools for happiness can be the same for sharing and living a life of love.

Gratitude Journal: Keep track of all the things in your life – big and small – that you are thankful for. This way, you start to realize the good and happy things that are happening on a daily basis. Start out by writing five things every night. Move that up to a few more items every week. Soon, you’ll learn to appreciate and LOVE everything in your life – which makes you happier also!

Affirmations: Taking control of your thoughts and bringing them back to a place of contentment is one way that you will be able to show self-love, which in turn will rub off onto the rest of your life. When you take what you’re thinking and turn it around into a positive sentence, things show up in your life that you never would have thought were possible. When you state, “I’m in the process of…..” and finish with what you want from your life, continue to repeat this statement over and over again, until ultimately, you find pure contentment. Use this affirmation when trying to find the perfect mate, as well as any other quest for improving your quality of life! Try it out and you will notice a shift in your thinking. When you notice yourself drifting back to a negative place, start saying the affirmation again and again.

Having a love for others is important, but having love for your own self is ultimate. When we feel true love and satisfaction with ourselves, we can then be able to show others wholeheartedly our love towards them. You are the only one that you can depend on to love yourself, so why would you want to sabotage that? We are all unique and loveable, no matter what has happened in our past. Take control of your thinking today and give yourself the love you deserve. Once you begin to do that, others will take notice and will show and tell you just how important you are in their lives!