Where Love Is and How To Get It!
Love is found in a certain mindset. Read on to see if your mindset is increasing your love or if your mindset is a LOVE BLOCKER. When you make a hypothesis about someone, your brain is wired to look for evidence to support your hypothesis. In other words, what you look for you will find/see! This is called confirmation bias. It is defined as the tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms one's pre-existing beliefs or hypothesis, while giving less consideration to alternative possibilities. It is much stronger for emotionally charged issues or deep seated beliefs.
Can we challenge ourselves to change our hypothesis in areas that aren't loving? The awareness that you made a hypothesis may not even be there. It may not be based on truth. We translate our perceptions into facts. It's actually based on evidence we sought after to support our hypothesis. It creates missed opportunities to connect with others and see the good, love and strength in humankind. You choose what to see. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Choose to see goodness, choose love and recognize wrong doing (errors, sin, moral crime, or what ever you name it) as what it is, human weakness but forgivable. If we can't forgive their misguidedness, we can't forgive our own. Their wrong doing is not what defines them, that is but a small part of their whole self. We have the choice and power to see the goodness around us and expand love or to recognize a weakness and diminish it.
Sometimes we believe we are more right minded than others but we merely use it as a platform to look down on others. We continue to see more of it. We build a hypothesis to justify our own platform. We in turn, block love. This choice makes us separate from love. We remain unconnected and lonely. Looking for what is not love, is wrong in itself. The days I look for love, all is well. The days I look for wrong doers, I live in hell.
Truly honoring God means choosing to see love in all people. Making the choice to see love lights the flame that is in us all. Light their flame, light your own. How do you want people to see you? Some bring out your best and others bring out your worst. Why? They are choosing love. They see the best in your heart. They are choosing to breathe oxygen on your flame! Therefore they swell the love in you and bring out more.
Simply Stated: Choose to see good= Choose Love = Happiness
A beautiful quote from Wayne Dyer sums it up below. As you think, so you shall be.
Types of Hypothesis: This person is crazy, this man is evil, people are greedy, he/she is a ______, (you fill it in). As always, the key is awareness. Ask yourself, what hypothesis am I making? Expect it to appear true to you because it will. Our brain is simply wired for this.
Ways to consider this in action:
Social Media- When friends post their activities, do you allow yourself to see it as an event you were "uninvited" to? If so, you will continue to find evidence of this and you will find many un-invitations. You will believe you have been rejected.
The Unfriendly Employee- Today, while blogging from Maryland, I ordered a sandwich at the deli. The man at the register told me they would call number 265 when it was ready. I sat at my computer and listened intently. Soon seeing that people who ordered after me were already eating, I approached the counter. The woman behind the counter noticed me but would not look at me. She continued to wipe counters and walk directly by me without even making eye contact. Feeling uncomfortable, I finally said kindly, "Excuse me, do you know if number 265 was called?" Without looking up she made a hand gesture that could have been a point down the counter. I looked around uncertain and then I spotted a lone sandwich. Unable to discern its contents, I looed at her, looked at the sandwich.... repeat. Desperate for confirmation, I finally said "Do you know if this is 265?" Annoyed, she said, "read the ticket!" I looked at the ticket for a while and finally found 265 embedded into a extremely long number. Apparently some secret code in the deli world. Feeling ignored, stupid and then angry, within 5 seconds I had an imaginary show down with her manager. It was a good one. I had her fired and she was out the door. I returned to my seat and my computer. There it was, this blog. Sigh..... Every time I write something I am put to the test. So I decided to change my thinking, rid my anger and return to love. I decided that she must have received some really bad news today. Yes, that's it, her mom is sick. No....maybe her life is falling apart and she is in financial crisis. Wait...I'll bet her husband is cheating and she just found out today......Whatever it is, I am sad for her. She is disconnected and therefore hurting. I found my own happy place again because I chose love.
Or Perhaps the Hypothesis Is About Groups of People or Organizations: What you look for, you WILL find. If you attach a negative hypothesis to an entire group or organization, you now see them as one. Truly they are not. Look into your own groups and organizations. Are you different than some? Do you want to be judged by affiliation? Choose love. Choose it for yourself. Choose heaven on Earth. Whatever you look for will return to you! If you choose to share this, love may return to you!
Consider yourself pushed towards love,
Cindy Walter
