Practicing Love
“If you practice the principle of love, you will soon find your feelings taking their cue from your actions…” — Nido R. Qubein
It has long been proven by medical research that your feelings follow your actions. In other words, if you act one way, and do so with passion for a sufficient length of time, you will soon find your feelings following your actions. If you will notice, Mr. Qubein said, “If you practice the principle of love…” There is a phrase that states, “practice makes perfect.” The truth is, even though you practice something over and over, if your heart is not in it, you will not become any more than mediocre at best. If however, you will make a quality decision to take a serious interest in what you are practicing, this will help you begin to like what you do, and the passion will grow into a love for what you desire to become, which in this case, is the best at what it is you are practicing.
In the summer of 1971, a Psychology Professor, Phillips Zimbardo of Stanford, divided a group of undergrads randomly into two groups, prisoners and prison guards. He arranged they should act out their respective roles in a mock prison set up in a basement at the university. Within days of the guards displaying their authoritarian attitudes, which included subjecting the prisoners to humiliation, the prisoners developed passive attitudes, and many sunk into a very depressed state. The experiment had to be stopped after only 6 days. This clearly illustrated the power of behavior to elicit real powerful emotions. Once the students began to act their part, they soon began to feel the part. Once they felt the part the reality of what they were acting became real to them and their emotions followed.
Psychologist/philosopher William James also believed emotions arise out of bodily actions. He came to this conclusion after watching actors and actresses who were role playing as a loving couple in a script, wind up falling in love in reality. They are acting like they care for each other, they look into each other’s eyes, touch each other and even do love scenes. It was no wonder, to James, the emotion followed.
Steven Reidbord, MD, says to choose your actions, and not your feelings. He further states we can’t help how we feel, but we can chose how we act. He believes there is a vast difference between feeling an emotion and acting on it. He notes how commonly people blame themselves for feeling, or not feeling, a certain emotion:
“I should be more grateful after all she has done for me.”
“It’s wrong of me to get angry at other drivers, they are just trying to get home same as me.”
“It’s silly to mourn the death of a my dog. He was just a pet.”
Dr. Reidbord, believes actions are able to be put under our control and through acting properly we can bring our emotions in line with our actions.
The bottom line is, we can get what we want by acting out that which we DESIRE TO HAVE, and know our feelings will follow. If you will practice the principle of love, you will find yourself being challenged by having to love that which does not seem lovable. Shake that off and allow LOVE to flow through you anyway, you will eventually be glad you did.
Best of LUCK as you
Labor Under Correct Knowledge…
Respectfully,
Rick Cox