5 Ways to Feel More Love & Compassion For Yourself & Others

By Erin Lanahan

“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Lately I’ve been feeling a sense of vulnerability that I always wished I could feel without being afraid.

I have always wished I was one of those people who could show my authentic self to the world, and still be able to look you in the eye, after I let you see me, without quivering in shame or regret.

Not too long ago, I shared my feelings with someone who I deeply loved. This was one of the hardest, scariest things I’ve ever done, but it gave me the freedom to be vulnerable and to finally have a heart that’s ready to let love in.

Loving this person has taught me so much about love, forgiveness, and acceptance. Although he did not want the same things I want, just having him in my life has taught me more about how to feel unconditional love and genuine compassion for myself.

As a result, I am experiencing a deep level of unconditional love and compassion for others.

I use to walk around taking things very personally.

If I walked by a stranger who gave me a dirty look, or if a bank teller was rude, or if the man I loved didn’t want to love me back in the way I wanted him to, I thought it meant there was something wrong with me. However, what I’m realizing is that none of it has anything to do with me.

I have a brand new sense of awareness now.

When I begin to experience negative self-talk inside of me, I seem to be shifting almost immediately to a place of self-love, forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion for myself. This inner awakening has begun to translate into a new perception of my outside world.

Instead of my usual thoughts and reactions that occur when confronted with less than ideal responses from the external world, I am able to see me in you and you in me.

Right away I begin to feel compassion, because I know you hurt, just like me, and you feel joy, just like me. You worry and feel scared sometimes, just like me. You have bad days, just like me, and you have amazing days, just like me. You are seeking, just like me. You want to believe in love, just like me.

I look at people passing me by in the store, on the streets, or in traffic, and have a deep sense of knowing that they too feel separate sometimes, and they too have times when they fear they will never be enough—just like me.

We all feel the same things.

This realization has allowed me to continue loving even when it isn’t returned to me in the exact way I initially wanted it. True love, after all, is to love someone and expect nothing in return.

I practice this daily by being honest about what’s in my heart, without holding on too tightly to the outcome.

For me, practicing love is the same as practicing the art of letting go, and giving others the freedom to just be—accepting them exactly the way they are. It’s something we can do with friends, family, love interests, and strangers alike.

I can now look this special man in the eyes and smile because I know he is just like me. I know that he can see me now, because I finally revealed myself to him, and I feel good about myself for doing that.

I can accept him and just experience him for who he is and where he is on his path because I know now that we are the same. I know that what will happen, will happen, and what will not, will not.

In the meantime, I continue to make more room inside of my heart to give and receive love.

The simple act of making a shift within has completely transformed the type of relationships I’m attracting. When you live from a place of self love, the world mirrors love and compassion back to you.

When you give yourself unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance, you’re then able to give that to others.

Here are 5 tips to feel more love and compassion for yourself and therefore reflect that back to the world:

1. If you don’t feel real love for yourself yet, act as if.

Act lovingly towards yourself and do things that nurture you, make you stronger, and make you proud of who you are and how you live your life. Exercise, meditation, helping others freely, and eating a healthy diet work really well for me. Practice progress, not perfection.

2. When you feel hurt by someone else, remind yourself that they are just like you.

They hurt, feel fear, have insecurities, and feel the need to defend and protect themselves. They are no different than you and me.

At times, we all react to the programming in our minds. As you commit to feeling unconditional love and compassion for self and others, you will begin to transform the programming in your brain. All you need is awareness. Just be aware.

3. Remember, others are on their path just like you are on yours.

You are both just doing the best you can.

4. Be of service in the world.

Nothing will help you find compassion within yourself and for others like coming face to face with people who have much less materially and way bigger problems than you.

5. Turn within and ask your higher knowing to show you where you lack integrity, love, trust, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Then ask yourself to heal.

Be patient with the process. Sometimes small shifts happen over time. Allowing your own process to unfold is an act of love in and of itself.

Give Meaning to Life

By Sharice Harris

-There is only one way to live life and that is to live life completely and absolutely in Love-

One autumn day while everyone was busy being busy, I decided to hide in a corner and read a short story I will never forget: ‘The Girl Who Loved Too Much’.

The fictional tale was about a young girl who fell head over heels in Love with life and everything it had to offer. She fell in Love with the blue sky, she fell in love with the birds, she fell in Love with the clouds and the bright warm sun, she fell in Love with the brooks, streams and rolling meadows. She loved so much that everyone and everything was beckoned and drawn to her infectious Love for life.

However the girl began to notice that each time she loved more, everyone and everything began to inch closer and closer. As she loved the trees, they came closer, as she loved the brook, it came closer, the clouds, the sun and the sky all came closer as she gave her Love away, even nearby animals and people who saw the girl’s Love came closer. Before long everything and everyone had come so close that the young girl no longer had room to breathe.

I never forgot that story throughout my years and on a few occasions, I found myself reflecting heavily back on that story, Why did I Love that story so much? And why did Loving so hard seem to be a reoccurring theme for my life?

Sure, I was successful at giving my Love to others but sometimes it seemed like the people I knew seemed to have a special secret reserve on theirs. I saw them wanting to give Love and wondered what were they waiting for?

At times it seemed as though many of the people I met or let into my home, wanted so badly to give Love but yet seemed so frightened to do so, it seemed that they feared that if they gave Love away, they might lose it or get lost in it somehow.

But how can one be lost in Love? And when did we start fearing Love?

5 Life Long Lessons I’ve Learned About Love

1.) Opening Your Heart and showing Love to others is not a sign of weakness. It takes a really strong and stable-minded soul to courageously give Love.

2.)The best way to Love others is to Love yourself fully and the best way to Love yourself fully is to accept and respect your journey, irrespective to what anybody may think, say or feels about it. At the end it’s yours and you can spread as much Love as you want to. Have you ever met a person who complained about being Loved too much?


3.)If you feel hurt or drained from giving your Love to another then that person is not reciprocating Love back to you. The hidden reservoir of immeasurable Love that each of us have within us has the capability to give Love unconditionally without ‘running out’ or ‘trying to hard’.

4.)Love and yes expressing Love is your birthright and it is up to all of us to remember that we are temporary tenants in this life, given a fairly short amount time, Love is the least we can give back to life for all that it has given us.

5.)Love’s the Highest Honor and Dignity any soul can obtain and it’s the most valuable thing you can actually take with you when you leave your physical body. The greatest form of self-mastery is living a life in Love!

Giving Love for no reason in my personal experience is, has and always will be the very secret to that keeps our world turning.

A Call For Grace

The Call for Grace

“Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others." -Thomas Jefferson

Has anyone noticed that negatively directed criticism seems to be the number one divider worldwide? How many hearts actually keep their dreams a secret because they are aware that the environment they live in doesn't support cheerful optimism? Mother Teresa once said "If you judge people, you have no time to love them”. It is so easy in a second to speak hateful or hurtful words but it’s takes careful time and consideration to actually understand what someone else might be going through in their own life. It requires that we dig deeper and do the hard inner work.

The Greek word (kritikós) or critic is a person who offers reasoned judgement or analysis, valued judgement, interpretation, or observation. However, many times the people who are criticizing our dreams or beliefs on our personal self discovery journey are not in fact expert judges or even experienced connoisseurs, most times they are people just like you and me having a human experience as well. They are usually people who live within our immediate social circles, our spouses, parents and many times even friends. Yet they can be the harshest critics many of us will ever cross. Ideally, these same people are suppose to positively want our success, right? So what happened? Why is it when you joyously leap through the air and announce your brilliantly self inspired plan to arrive at a successful destination in your life, the people closest to you seem less than enthusiastic? Are they all out to get you?

Hasn’t negative criticism been forewarned to us in almost every great text from the bible to Judaism and even in Buddhist practices? So why are we still throwing stones directed at hurting others chances of personal success? Shouldn’t everyone be allowed to harness their innate power to create the life that they want? I mean we are not the ultimate decision makers in their lives and we have enough challenges living our own lives to our highest success. So why do we send out these hopeful failures upon others, when we could just as gracefully send them loving supporting thoughts that could help them help themselves and maybe someone else on this journey through life? Are we crabs in a bucket desperately doing our best to pull the next crab down so they won’t succeed? If we are, we must now ask deeper questions, such as: Am I a negative person? What happened to me? When did I stop smiling? When did I stop enjoying and loving life? Why did I start hating people? and what can I do now to change?

Negative criticism is almost always the shadow of some success looming, rather it be spiritual or emotional growth. And yes, everyone from Jesus to Gandhi was criticized even although their entire life’s work was to expose the power of virtues such as love, tolerance, dignity, grace and compassion. Compassion, discernment and understanding are all wise tools of grace. We can practice using our tools of grace in combination with our power of positive focus during times of any prolonged negative critical attack. Whether it is verbal or nonverbally aimed at bringing down our psyche.

Another loss for negative criticism is that it comes from an insecure state of mind. That is why it lashes out on others it considers ‘weak’. In the moment of negatively criticizing another, the person who is criticizing doesn’t have to focus on the non- incessant and regular negative self talk they hear going on in their own mind. In those moments of negatively criticizing another person, the negative criticizer is able to escape working on themselves by redirecting their negative energy on you. That is why there seems to be so many negatively pessimistic people. It’s a lot easier to criticize someone else than it is to look inside of ourselves and start cleaning up our own mess.

Nevertheless, this ignorant closed hearted state of mind has the capability to cut down your dreams if you are unconscious about when you will arrive. Fool-proofing your success is always a sure way to counteract such negative critical attacks.

What’s more is when we witness negativity, we learn that the giver is many times unknowingly shining light on their insecurities, they are shining light on their lack of faith in life, their lack of optimism and lastly their belief in their incapacity to love unconditionally. So basically, all of their negative criticism is in fact a sign of their own inner suffering.

Keeping light on negative criticism we can also notice that nine times out of ten people who subconsciously throw these hate directed daggers of failure, usually feel threatened by even the slightest possibility of your success. That’s right, that means if you are reading this and experiencing a negative critical event in your life, you are most likely harnessing your power to positively change not only your life but also, positively affect those around you! This use of your personal power will immediately make the critical attacker aware that you are using something they feel they don’t know how to use.

So why all the ruckus over your success in life?

Well, when you achieve the success that others swore you would never be able to do, and we have all heard the word ‘never’. People in your immediate circle are forced to ask deeper questions and possible face change. That’s a lot of inner work! Your success is a critical factor in determining how far other people within your circle of life feel they can go in their own lives.

Seeing someone on T.V. who is already successful in their personal or financial life makes many people feel comfortable with complacency. That person is far away or at least on a screen which doesn’t look back at them. But your successes are so tangible and so close to home that you are literally shaking up their whole perception about what they thought was possible.