How easy is it for you to receive love?
Many of us are good at giving, and not so good at receiving. Well it turns out that our pets can help us with that!
That’s right...our pets can help us increase our capacity to take in and receive love from others!
You see, each time we stop and absorb the love our pets pour into us we increase the amount of love we can receive in general.
Sometimes it feels easier to allow our animals’ love into our hearts than it does to take in love from another person. Why? Because our pets are unconditional, loyal and don’t reject us. They don’t take it personally when we make mistakes with them. Even if there is a time our pet looks sad because we left them at home or didn’t share our food with them it’s over and forgotten very quickly…and life goes on in the normal fun-loving way.
With the people in our lives there have been judgments, rejections and unpredictability so we’re more likely to carry those past experiences into the “now” moment, and block the love that others are making available to us. This can happen even if we’re meeting the person for the first time!
Okay, let’s go back to how our pets help us increase the amount of love we can receive…
The trick is to be aware that you are actually taking in and absorbing (a.k.a receiving) love from your pets! Pay attention to what happens inside you when your pet excitedly greets you as you walk in the door. Do you feel lighter? Is there a smile on your face? Does your voice become more enthusiastic? Just notice!
If you are reading this and you do not live with a pet, how do you feel when someone else’s pet sweetly comes to greet you? Or perhaps when you witness the majestic gallop of a horse? Most likely, a similar thing happens within you.
This is you absorbing the animal’s love!
And…you’ve just had a positive feeling experience! Great job hooman (that’s pet speak for human)!
When you see how good you are at allowing in your pet’s love, pat yourself on the back. Giving yourself this acknowledgement will encourage taking small risks to receive love from other humans. The more you stretch, the more space you create to receive. If you continue doing this, in no time you’ll have created lots of space to receive from others!
You can think of it like this...it’s kind of like putting on a new pair of shoes...at first they feel snug. Each time you put on the shoes they stretch a little and before you know it they are perfectly comfortable with plenty of room.
It’s the same with increasing the amount of love we can receive!
This sounds like a winning deal to me!!
There’s one more secret…
Humans can be a bit more challenging than our pets so remember to give yourself plenty of space and time to practice this!
One of my spiritual mentors says, “The slower you go the faster you’ll arrive.” In this case, I think by noticing the love we’re absorbing from our pets, acknowledging that we’re doing so and taking small steps to keep stretching will help us become relaxed and comfortable with receiving love from others (and big bonus…receive love from OURSELVES too…Woo hoo)!
So keep putting on that new pair of shoes and keep noticing how much more comfortable you are becoming!
Happy receiving!