Love, LOve, LOVe, LOVE!!!!

Just having returned from my trip to Arizona to see Dr. Hawkins publicly speak for the last time, I am all about Love, LOve, LOVe, LOVE (his theme was love :)).  When I broke my nail today, I looked at my broken nail with love and acceptance, as opposed to, with hatred. When I looked at one of my students making poor choices (biting the pages in their book and talking, talking, talking during independent work time) today, I looked at my student with love and acceptance, as opposed to, with annoyance. When I looked at my scar on my leg today, I looked at it with love and acceptance, as opposed to, with disgust. When I passed someone who threw their cigarette out of the car window today, I looked at them with love and acceptance, as opposed to, with anger.  When I looked at the dead branches hanging from my tree in my backyard today, I looked at them with love and acceptance, as opposed to, with distaste. 

This new outlook seems simple, but I hadn't been viewing things this way. Sure, I had been loving the things that I had already looked at with love (that was easy), but I wasn't loving the things that I was annoyed with, upset with, disgusted with, etc.

My body LOVES the feeling of love :) When I feel love towards things (all things), my body is relaxed and I feel like I have more energy. When I don't feel love towards things, my body is tense and I feel like all the energy has been sucked out of me. Those last few sentences make me think of my last Friday in school. I was really struggling with some of my students' behaviors. In response to their behaviors, I let them make me tense, uptight, irritable, negative, crabby, etc. I left Friday afternoon feeling completely drained (and mad). Of course I knew that my mood was my fault, but I wasn't sure what to do. Today, some of my students had the same behaviors, but when they acted out the behaviors, I looked at them with love and didn't allow myself to get upset. I talked to them about their behaviors, carried out their consequence (loss of behavior stick), and went on with my day. I even looked at them with love (the kind of love I have for my puppy dogs when they make poor choices - i.e. eating things they shouldn't) as they handed me their behavior stick. In return, those students stopped those behaviors and my mood wasn't affected (either way, it would have been all good). I was still nice and happy to all my students. None of my non-poor choice behaving students had to deal with a crabby teacher who was crabby because of something they didn't even do ;)

Since this whole looking-at-things-that-I-don't-normally-feel-love-towards-with-love thing is new to me, I know the Universe is going to present me with some wonderful lessons! Oh yes, here come the spiders, changes at work, booger picking, etc. I will make a conscious effort to love all things...to feel love towards all things. It is natural for me to love. I intend to love all things and I will pay attention to make sure that I do.