Written by: Chifuyu Casaclang, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We talk about love a lot. It seems that we have been talking about love forever. The definition of love is an intense feeling of deep affection, according to Google*. It’s nice to feel love for someone, or something. It’s nice to be loving towards people in your life. It’s awesome to do something you love. It feels incredible when people tell you they love you. We love “love”—the feeling of it, the meaning of it, the act of it, everything. And yet, often we behave against it. And it seems that there’s so much more of the opposite in this world. Why is that? I’ve been thinking about this for a while. And I came up with a theory. While I’m at it, I’ll also explain how we can move toward “love” in our lives.
How we live our reality
We each experience our lives differently. Even if some of us are in the same situation, or reality at the same time in the same place, we still live our lives differently. Because we all interpret and perceive what we’re experiencing differently. We then create feelings from our interpretations which are the thoughts that pop up in our mind. Now here’s the question. Are you perceiving reality from a place of love? Or from a place of lack and fear? Let’s give you an example. Someone gave you a birthday present. You’ve been waiting for this present. You know exactly what they bought because you asked for it. When you opened it, it was the right product, color, and size but a different brand. Not exactly what you asked for. But since you’ve tried to get it yourself but couldn’t, you knew this would have been hard to get. So naturally, they must have gone to several shops for you. What’s your reaction? I mean, how do you interpret this reality?
First of all, your reaction can vary depending on who bought this present for you. Let’s say your interpretation was “I didn’t get exactly what I wanted.” If this was your best friend, you might only say “thank you so much” and show them gratitude but secretly feel a little disappointed. Because you think you don’t want to hurt their feeling. If this was your sibling, you might tell them this wasn’t what you wanted exactly but you would still thank them and appreciate their effort. Because they are your sibling, so you feel they know you enough not to take it personally. If this was your partner, well, depending on your interpretation, your reaction could range from feeling sad to angry. You could perceive their action as “they didn’t put enough effort. They compromised.” You can feel sad in this case. Or you can interpret it as “They weren’t paying attention when I told them I didn’t want it unless they got exactly what I was looking for.” With this interpretation, you can get very irritated. Before I explain why you have a different reaction depending on who you are interacting with, I want you to think about the interpretation. “They didn’t get what I wanted.” Is this coming from a place of love, or lack? If you interpret it from a place of love, I imagine it would sound something like this; “They must have gone to several shops to find this! How very nice of them to go through all that trouble for me.” The next question is, “How are YOU interpreting reality?”
How we start repeating certain perceptions
Our interpretation of reality pretty much determines how we think and how we feel. And how we interpret reality comes from our experiences. If people around you always talked from a place of lack, as a child, you could naturally have learned to think and talk the same way. If your family always talks with love, you might also learn to do so. But the funny thing is, no matter what the surroundings are and no matter what your experiences are, each person still learns to perceive differently. This happens as each person focuses on different things in the moment. What does this mean? Even if the parents are very loving, it doesn’t mean that all the kids become very loving. They can, but not 100%.
Let’s say there are three children. The first child focuses on the parents’ reaction when he misbehaves. Every time he misbehaves or does something wrong, he sensitively notices the parents’ disappointed reaction. He feels guilty because he thinks he is disappointing them. He starts to do his best to please his parents. He hates disappointing his parents, so he keeps trying hard. He’s now putting too much pressure on himself to always get good grades or be the best at sports. He becomes this child with constant stress, fears for mistakes, and gets anxious when he feels he didn’t make enough effort. The second child sees his parents always praising the first child. He starts to pay attention to his parents constantly complimenting him. He feels jealous. If he happens to be great at art instead of good at getting good grades, he might even start to feel less confident in himself. As he focuses more on his parents praising the first child, he feels worse and more jealous. He could become bitter and mean to his brothers. Or he can start rebelling against his parents because he thinks that nothing he does will be good enough for them. The last child is oblivious to what his siblings are thinking and feeling. He has this natural character of always searching for fun. He doesn’t focus too much on his parents or his siblings. He is focusing on how he can have fun today. When he pays attention to his family, he sees how loving his parents are and how much he loves them. He focuses on how great his big brother is at school and he’s very proud of how intelligent he is. He focuses on the great paintings of his second brother with admiration. When his parents scold him, he doesn’t take it too seriously and doesn’t become too emotional. Because naturally, he always tries to find what’s pleasing to him. He looks back on his mistakes and then focuses on what his parents taught him. Soon he learns what not to do or how to do better and moves on. While two brothers perceive reality from a place of lack or fear, the third one perceives it from a place of love, from a place of “enough”.
You see, even when kids grow up in the same environment, they all experience different realities depending on their character and where they focus. That determines how they perceive and interpret everything and soon leads to how they think and how they feel. And as they repeat the same interpretation, they repeat similar thoughts and feel similar feelings. They repeat it long enough to create their personality from it. As Dr. Joe Dispenza quotes, “Your personality creates your personal reality.” So how can we start perceiving our experiences from a place of love?
How we act differently to different people
Before we go into the “how”, let’s talk about the reason why we have different reactions to people around us. This depends on the level of closeness to each person in our lives. You wouldn’t be touching and hugging and kissing acquaintances, but you would do exactly that to your family, partner, and close friends. Makes sense. People say it is a “courtesy” to keep your negative emotions (anger, irritation, frustration, etc.) to yourself and not let them blow up in front of people, except for your family and partner. Mind you, some people show all kinds of negative emotions to anyone they can show to. That is a whole different topic we can discuss some other time. Anyway, I’m all in for showing your special affection and love only to your loved ones. But do you really like yelling and getting mad at your loved ones just because they are close to you? This doesn’t make too much sense to me. I used to do it and I hated it with all my being every time I did it. It doesn’t feel good to take it out on people you love. This could be the reason why there is so much opposite of love in this world. We let our negative emotions take over ourselves. And somehow, we justify it by saying they know we didn’t mean it, or they love us no matter what, or the emotions got the best of us. When you feel like you are close enough to the person, your belief is that you can “be yourself” and give yourself permission to blow up. Please know that when you let negative emotions talk or act on your behalf, there might be no respect or consideration. We also let our frustration out too much because often, we pretend to be someone else in society and carry the stress from doing so. If you show up in the world exactly as you are, you probably would be less stressed out. So the reason you react differently to different people is not because of who they are or what they do to you, but because of what you believe and how you interpret reality.
Understanding the “how”
We might not be always able to control our negative emotions. But we can start getting ahead of it. So, let’s get down to “how”. Marisa Peer, who created the revolutionary hypnosis method Rapid Transformational Therapy, explained in one interview how your thoughts dictate your feelings, your feelings dictate your actions, and your actions dictate your events**. This is very true. First, you have thoughts, and you get feelings. How do we get a thought? It can come from many different places, but it first starts from your interpretation and perception. And when you believe your interpretation to be true, it becomes a belief. This is what I mean when I say your interpretations need to be coming from a place of love. You learn to interpret and perceive through the lens of love. Doing so will create positive emotions. Like the example earlier, all you need to do is to look at “good” in a situation and people. And appreciate it. When you appreciate something or someone, you automatically feel good. Focus on what gives you joy and happiness. It’s OK if you can’t always do it, but you can try as much as you can throughout the day. It’s hard to interpret from a place of love if someone is yelling at you. I get it. Try not to take it personally because their anger has nothing to do with you. You probably triggered it, but their reaction would have been the same towards anyone who triggered them. It’s not you, it’s their emotional state. So do your best to accept their emotional state and don’t get dragged into it. Understand that they are upset and you’re not the cause of it unless you purposely try to hurt them. This also can be said about you. When you are irritated about something or someone, you need to realize you are creating this emotion by your interpretation of the experience. When a person feels hurt, they either choose sadness or anger, depending on their habitual interpretation. It is different for each person what emotion they create. There will be many upsetting or tough situations where it is too hard to interpret positively. But we’ve got to try as much as we can. Because when more of us stop reacting and start responding from a place of love, there will be a lot less conflict in this world.
How we express and act on love
People usually respond a lot better to loving, kind, and respectful words. But their interpretation can still let them react negatively even to those words. To express love, the best we can do is to use the words that we want others to use. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Expressing love is to use loving and positive words as you interpret reality with appreciation. State only the facts leaving your opinions out and be true to your words. If you feel you are becoming emotional, step aside and calm yourself first. If you feel the need to justify or defend yourself, or you need to be right, you are probably not able to express love that well.
Acting on love is very similar to expressing love. You accept their emotional state, understand the fact that they are trying to convey, and do what you want to do with love and respect. Again, no need to justify or defend yourself and you certainly do not need to be right. Because what’s right and wrong is subjective. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Do what feels good without expecting others’ positive reactions.
How to become love
Lastly, what does it mean to “become love”? It means that you perceive everything and everyone from a place of love. You say and do everything from a place of love. You express love, kindness, appreciation. You act with the intention of giving, supporting, and loving. Accept people for who they are, and the emotional state they are in. Be attached to nothing. There is no blame, resentment, judgment, guilt, or shame in you. Because you know everyone is going through something and that has nothing to do with you. You see the good in people. You know in your heart that people are born good. You are aware that people sometimes hurt other people and hurt themselves because they are not happy. You know it’s not you. You support them and be there for them in what they are going through and not letting their irrational words and behaviours get to you. Because you’re not seeing their rudeness or hurtful words. You are seeing the pain in their heart behind their reaction. So you show them that you understand where they are coming from. Instead of putting up with whatever people do and letting them hurt you, you stand tall and tell them the truth. It’s okay to feel hurt. It’s okay to go through tough times. You let them know that every time they hurt people, they are hurting themselves. Sometimes you might need a distance from them. Just enough that they can’t hurt you but close enough that you can still show them you care about them, and that you still love and accept them.
What they need is awareness. Awareness that they are hurt. Awareness that they are the only ones that can make themselves feel better. They are the ones that need to realize how amazing they are. You help them recognize themselves by your acceptance of them. Become “love”. Small steps at a time. First focus on yourself and what you like and what you want. Focus on what makes you feel good and do it. Look at the beauty of nature. See the good in people. Appreciate what you have. Don’t take anything personally. Like I said, it’s not you. If you feel negative emotions, ask yourself, “What do I want to focus on that gives me the good feeling?” In the beginning, becoming “love” might be a bit hard. It’ll take some practice. But soon, you’ll realize how easily this comes to you. How amazing it feels. How great you feel about yourself and others. Seeing good in everything. Living in the moment. Enjoying every moment searching for joy and fun. Satisfying your curiosity. Loving and giving. This is how babies are. This is who we are by nature. Becoming love means going back to who we are. By becoming love, think about what message you’re sending to the world. At the end of the day, one more person who becomes love is one less person who does the opposite. As Mother Teresa said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” Time for each of us to cast a stone across the waters.
*Google dictionary, definition from Oxford Languages “definition of love”
lewishowes.com – Marisa Peer, Change your mind to attract love, abundance, and wealth
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Chifuyu Casaclang, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Chifuyu is a therapeutic counsellor and an RTT practitioner. She uses a unique way of counselling with the knowledge of how the body/mind works, Rapid Transformational Therapy skills, and the gift of intuition to help you realize your long-term false beliefs and overcome who you learned to be. She has this absolute “knowing” that everyone is more than capable of becoming the “extraordinary”. Believing in yourself is the key to transforming yourself. You are what you believe. Chifuyu guides your journey of discovering and mastering yourself through overwriting your false beliefs. Above all, she shows you how to have fun in the process, on your way to becoming your “ideal” self.
