Love love. I love living in a place, or state of, love everyday and believe that everyone can. Regardless of relationship status everyone has the ability to live in love.
This post is about how to live in love instead of living in fear. And how to make choices out of love, not fear.
So many of us are living a fear-driven life and don’t even know it. Let us take a venture further into how choices are made with love and fear.
What kinds of factors influence a choice? Mood? Environment? Comminuted? Religion? Family? Perceived outcome? Personal benefit? Selfless acts?
Truly there are too many factors to list here. I wanted to highlight a few common themes though. In all choice making you will go through a mental process to arrive at a decision, that you prefer to move forward with. During that deciding phase, what predominant emotion drives the deciding factor? Is it love? Or fear & hate?
Can you tell which one it is?
Generally, it is fear. Yup, we make choices out of fear most often. Not always of course, sometimes if we pay close attention, we can step outside of fear before deciding.
For generations, fear & hate were ingrained in us from an early age at schools, home and elsewhere. It was how it was, and punishment was a normal way of life. Parents and authority figures would instill the fear factor to deter unwanted behavior. Although times have changed and more recent generations are being raised without the fear factor, it is still a prevalent challenge we face in our day-to-day decision making. Most workplaces now value mental health and have shifted how they shape their employees’ behaviors as well.
How often do you do something (or not) because you are afraid of getting into trouble? How many times have you said to yourself “I had better do this before so-and-so gets home”? Revenge schemes are great examples of choices being made out of hate, stemming from fear, and is completely loveless driven.
What about choosing things for your children, what drives the thought process? That you don’t want them to get hurt, injured, or otherwise have an adverse event? Or that you want them to have a great experience doing said activity? Either way, you’ll likely get them outfitted as best as possible for their activity anyway. Similar outcome, with a difference in the deciding factor. Also, the two ways might have different wording attached to it too.
Could you tell the subtle difference there? The first choice is driving by a fear factor and the second would be a love-based choice. If you could imagine what you might be saying to your child as you get them ready in both of those decision processes? The first might entail something along the lines of “take this umbrella because I don’t want to you to get rained on and make sure you wear your coat because it’s cold out and you don’t want to freeze to death” whereas the second may sound like “take all your gear, umbrella and coat, so that you have it if you need it while you’re having so much fun!”
Let us try a couple other examples, could you remove the fear and make a choice out from a place of love?
“I’m not going to the movies because it’s too crowded” …. What about “I’m choosing to stay home because I value my space to watch a movie”
“You can’t leave the house because I’m scared you will get hurt” …. What about “You are strong and resilient. Stay home out of love and within safety and if you don’t I know you will be OK”
Can’t, won’t don’t – all of these terms are red flags for fear. Listen to what they are saying, what isn’t possible? Could you spot any possibilities out of love? What would a loving heart want to say about those can’t, won’t don’t’s? I hear some “I can’s” and “I will’s” in the future 😉
What other kinds of fear driven choices can be flipped to choice out of love?
Fear of money or lack there of
Fear of the unknown
Fear of what others will think
Fear from past experiences
Fear of responsibility
Fear of others’ actions
Fear of missing out
When you can let fear fall by the wayside, anxiety symptoms have the potential to be diminished as well.
So, let fear and hate fly away to make room for more love. Change hate and fear to love.
Should letting go of fear, or you find yourself stuck in fear, professional counselling and therapy are excellent resources to help you move through these sentiments.
Go forth and choose love. Live in love. Live out of love. Love love.