Daphne Rose Kingma - 101 Ways to Have True Love in Your Life

First published in 2006 by Conari Press,

an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

York Beach, ME

With offices at:

368 Congress Street

Boston, MA 02210

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2006 Daphne Rose Kingma

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kingma, Daphne Rose.

101 ways to have true love in your life / Daphne Rose Kingma.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-57324-256-X (alk. paper)

1. Love. I. Title: One hundred and one ways to have true love in your life.

II. Title: One hundred one ways to have true love in your life. III. Title.

BF575.L8K49652 2006

152.41dc22

2005017660

Typeset in New Baskerville by Suzanne Albertson

Printed in Canada

FR

13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

www.redwheelweiser.com

www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter

Love is the one thing that, invariably, people want more of in their lives. A lot of people want more money; a lot of people want more time, more peace, more friends, more fun, longer vacations, more radiant health, or a promotion at work; but just about everybody wants a true love.

We don't even know exactly what love is. We talk about it, long for it, fall apart when it goes away, and do just about anything to try and get it back; but no matter what our particular stance about it at any given moment, somewhere in our hearts we know that love is the most important thing in our lives.

Love is energy. It is the energy that is our very essence, an energy so glorious that when we're tapped into it, our feelings and our very lives are instantly transformed. We love to love, and to be in love; and our search for true love is one of our chief life's occupations. We're overwhelmed with the beauty of new romance, the solace of abiding love, the steadfast joy of deep friendship. We are always seeking love, because our search for love is our soul's reach for that sublime state in which our separateness is dissolved and we feel a profound and joy-filled sense of connection. That is precisely why so much of our lives is consumed by this undertaking. We know that love is the best we can ever experience, the highest we can be.

The discouraging part of our search is that sometimes it can feel as if love is the path of the angels and not of mere struggling mortals whose childhoods and daily experiences are so endlessly mundane as to make love seem endlessly elusive. Indeed, it is in the area of love and relationships, precisely, that most of us have received so little instruction. Instead, it's assumed that we all know how to love, how to get loved and how to keep love alive. As a consequence, we're not aware of the simple things we can do to nurture the heart and soul of our relationships. The great news is that no matter what your circumstances, you can learn to feel love and give love, to be loved and loving, and to draw the experience of true love into your life. As you do, your growing experience of love will transform your life and bring you increasingly into an awareness of your existence as a hauntingly beautiful gift.

Achieving true love, especially in the form of a particular person to love deeply and long, is a practice. Even if you aren't particularly gifted at it, you can learn how to love. Like the strength of your muscles or your singing voice, your capacity to love and to attract love can be developed. First of all, you need to know the attitudes and behaviors that can bring an outcome of love. Second, through the repeated enactment of these behaviors, you will see more and more love emerging in your life. Through the combination of learning and practice you can actually call more love into your life.

This book is a guide, a sampler, really, of 101 things you can do to bring true love into your life and to sustain it once it's arrived. The information will enhance your intention; but it is your enactmentyour practicethat will make real love come alive. Study, and then act on these simple ways; and I promise you'll be the happier for it. Love will start to lead and follow you; and you will have a sense of the incredible beauty and preciousness of your life and of the gift of love that lies like a precious jewel in the midst of your relationships.

I wish you true love.

L oving yourself is of the utmost importance. If you don't know how to love yourself, you won't know how or how well to treat others, and you may have problems with what we call boundaries. Instead of having clarity, you'll stumble through swamps of low self-esteem and thickets of self-loathing that will derail you in your efforts to love others as yourself.

In order to love yourself, you must first understand that self-love isn't narcissism. Nor is it egotism, self-righteousness, excessive self-involvement, stubbornness, conceit, or greed, all of which have given real self-love a bad name. Rather, it is the solid internal grounding from which you can become your most authentic self.

Learning to love yourself is a process. For when you really learn to love yourself, you'll no longer have to work at it every minute. By continually reminding yourself of how important you are, how important loving yourself is, you will eventually arrive at the place where self-compassion comes almost automatically. From the steady practice of a gentle unconditional care of yourself, you will be able to reach out to others with exquisite generosity and a bounteous open heart.

In time you will see that self-love is also a spiritual matter. It's not just learning to treat yourself better, it's also learning to see and feel yourself as one of the threads in the vast human shawl, as deeply, indeed, unconditionally received by a caring and beautifully ordered universe. It is when you embrace this connection that you can truly love yourself. This true, felt sense of yourself as a precious part of the universe is really the ultimate source from which you can love others.

Begin this beautiful, powerful journey to yourself by taking a single step of caring for yourself today. For you, what would that step be? Write it down on a piece of paper. Paste it up on your bathroom mirror and then take it!

W hen we come into life, our souls step out of the timeless eternal and into the finite moment of living as human beings. In this moment, and in the remarkable context of living on earth, we become both agents and receivers of the gifts of personality. We acquire that vast, amusing, unique, and frustrating array of attributes and attitudes, predilections and possibilities, from which we compose the symphonies of our individual lives. When it comes to personality, no human being is exactly like any other; and no matter how much you may share with, be influenced by, or bond with another, only you can be yourself.

It's a pleasure and a privilege to be yourself. In fact, just being born is a compliment. Having a chance to feel, see, and live your life, in precisely the way that only you will, is a sterling, never-to-come-again opportunity.