The Love Experiment: Introduction

On Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 I am going to start a 7-day experiment with love and I invite all of you to try it with me.

Before I tell you what the experiment consists of, I need to tell you how I came up with the idea.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and meditation in the last week and the idea of love kept coming up. It pursued me further in movie lines, song lyrics and StumbleUpon articles. It then became ridiculous when love showed up in two articles sent to me by some readers. Obviously “love was in there air.”

Feeling compelled to look into the idea of love further, I began re-reading a book that speaks almost only about love: “Conversations with God” by Neale Walsch. (Note: The title sounds religious but the content is anything but) I already have two posts of quotes from that book alone but those apparently were not enough. The following quote hit home immediately:

“Masters are those who have chosen only love.
In every instance. In every moment. In every circumstance.”

The word ‘Master’ in this case is referring to someone who has mastered life. That’s a pretty vague definition, but I bet you know someone that’s pretty close to being a ‘master of life.’ It’s that one person that just LOVES life. They never frown, never complain and they show kindness to everyone they meet. For some strange reason, everything works out for them. Money, loving relationships and chance  opportunities seem to fall into their lap and you don’t know why. Well as you can probably guess, my theory is this happens because of the amount of love they put out into the world.

I never refer to religion to support my ideas in my articles. However on the subject of love, I think the religions of the world got it right for once. While the major religions disagree on most things, they all agree on the importance of love. Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad all preached of the amazing power that love can have on an individual and those around him.

So how do I apply this love thing?

Now before you get on me about becoming too “new-agey” or even question my staunch agnosticism, I want you to try the first part of this love experiment. It’s commonly called a Loving/Kindness meditation and this first time we’ll just do it for just 1 minute.

Close your eyes. Now think of the one person that you love hugging the most because it fills you with such an intense joy. Now imagine that you are hugging them right now and feel that joy. Hold onto that sensation for a minute and allow that warm, fuzzy feeling to pervade every part of your body. If it’s strong enough, perhaps even let it radiate off of you like you’re glowing.

Does that not feel ridiculously good?

The Experiment

With this love experiment, we’re going to see how persistent we can make that feeling. We’re also going to see what kind of effect constant love can have on you, the people around you and your environment. Are you ready to try it out?

1. Loving/Kindness Meditation

   2-3 times daily you will take anywhere from 1 to 30 minutes to exercise that Loving/Kindness meditation. Obviously it will have a bigger effect the longer you do it, but don’t feel pressured to go longer than feels comfortable.

2. “What would love do?”

   As often as you can during your waking hours, ask yourself if you are being love. By that I mean your thoughts, words and actions are all filled with love and nothing else. This does not mean you need to be constantly saying and thinking fluffy,  lovey-dovey things. I do not want to turn you into one of those “let’s all dance on rainbows and smile together” type of people! Just check as often as you can that your thoughts reflect love, not fear, anger, envy, discontent, etc.

3. Exude Love

   As often as you feel comfortable, give people compliments and wishes of happiness in your head. Of course you could say it out loud but most people aren’t use to acts of random kindness so you might get some weird looks :) Even something as simple as “I hope you have a wonderful day.” Today, for example, I saw a man smoking a cigarette (never smoked one, never will) and I silently thought “I sincerely hope you enjoy that cigarette more than any other.”

What is that going to do?

To be honest, I have no idea. This is why I call it an experiment! However as it is an experiment, I do have a hypothesis:

I predict that through these 3 exercises, you will feel better this week than you have in a long time. I think things will work out for you easily like they have never before. In fact, I think you might have one of the best weeks of your life.”

I will be starting a new discussion each day for participants to discuss what they are doing to embody love and any observed results. Please comment below if you want to be part of this! I cannot wait to see how this turns out :)

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Click here to read the conclusion of the Love Experiment!