Your Heart Follows Your Attention

Contribute by Andrew Love

Have you ever given someone a compliment that somehow changed how you saw the person and how they even saw themselves?

The power of our words and thoughts is enormous because that is where we put our emotional attention. The more you repeat a thought in your mind, the more you start to feel the accompanying emotions and the more it becomes true to you.

With that in mind, consider how our words are inextricably linked to our experience of intimacy with others. Think about the last time you were in an argument with a loved one. Consider how hard it was to think and say nice things about them in the heat of battle.

The more we think in a certain way about somebody, the more we look for ways to validate our biases. That is to say, when we’re in love we tend to only see the virtuous qualities and the object of our adoration. Conversely, we have the tendency to vilify those that we are at odds with.

What is happening here is that we are emotionally investing in proving what we want to believe to be true. If we aren’t careful, we can create problems where they need not exist by following our unconscious train of thought.

So practically speaking, one way that we can always maintain a high level of love in the relationships that matter to us is to decide how we want to think and feel about those people. If negativity arises at some point, then we can decide whether we want to follow that negativity or not, instead of being pulled down into a dark hole.

Here’s a very easy tip to practice right now! If you have anyone in your life with him you are lacking intimacy, figure out how you would like to feel about them first. Second, start thinking thoughts that support you feeling that way about them.

If it is a spouse, find a way to feel gratitude for them by remembering all that you love about them. As soon as you can, transmute that feeling of gratitude to them by complementing them. Repeat this until the dynamic between you and your spouse shifts.

Although this may sound extremely obvious, it is something often overlooked by most of us. We invest too much time and energy into thinking negatively about the people who matter most to us and the net result is a distance of heart.

We feel disconnected from them.
We forget why we love them.
We forget that they are God’s child.

Yet, we change our thoughts, the stories in our head about them, we can start to choose a different and more productive approach.

Take the time to think loving thoughts of people in your life that you are committed to loving. When you can feel gratitude for them, let them know. It will help to spark a new sense of appreciation and eventually adoration for them.

Practice this to create peace and intimacy in your life.