By: Christine Behlmann Love and Gratitude By: Christine Behlmann

The Practices Whether it’s through praying, meditating, helping the poor, or we come up with something of our own, we can easily express our love and gratitude toward others. These practices are not meant for everyone to follow if they choose it’s just not for them. However, each practice comes with it’s own benefits in helping us grow in spirituality and love. While some of the practices can be seen as “difficult”, it’s up to the person preforming that exercise to make it easy on themselves. In other words, each exercise fits the specific need of each person. It’s just up to each person to decide which practice is meant for him/her. Love and Gratitude are what make the world go round practically. Without them, we would have greedy, mean, and selfish people overpopulating the world! Therefore, it’s really important that people try to commit to at least one practice and try to do it at it’s best ability.

Physical Benefits of the Exercises “Spiritual practices can reduce stress, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels” (Walsh) Therefore, these practices are intended to help reduce stress and confusion and build confidence and a calm state in life. By learning how to love and give gratitude even better through these exercises, people can find themselves learning to appreciate the world, themselves, and others a lot better than they originally did. “…may help alleviate insomnia, muscle spasms, and diseases ranging from migraine to chronic pain” (Walsh). By learning how to calm oneself and not get so stressed over the little things, people can find themselves to be a lot healthier. In taking the exercises seriously, by learning to love others, we are also learning how to love ourselves and give ourselves a little gratitude every once in awhile. Luckily, this means that we can see ourselves in a brighter light, as well as the world around us. “One Harvard study showed that nursing home patients who were in their eighties when they first began meditation felt happier, functioned better, and lived longer than non-meditators” (Walsh). Finally, we are given proof to how well these exercises can pay off. Not only does it help us love ourselves and others, but also tries to teach us not to sweat the small stuff and get worked up over nothing. In doing so, we can actually expand our lives and be happier people all around!

Spiritual Benefits of the Exercises “Gradually, the heart begins to open, fear and anger melt, greed and jealousy dwindle, happiness and joy grow, love flowers, peace replaces agitation, concern for others blossoms, wisdom matures, and both psychological and physical health improve” (Walsh). Here we see that these exercises can truly make an impact in who we are as people and where our spirituality lies. By practicing the exercises, a person can literally become happier with life and those around us. Along with this, the inner calm that we all have will only improve and so will our outlook on life. “…intellectual gifts of enhanced creativity, intelligence, and academic achievement” (Walsh). Basically all this is saying is that with spiritual love and peace comes great rewards. Not only do we learn more about ourselves but also our spirituality and all that it can do for us. Along with this, our natural abilities tend to get better and help us even more in our daily tasks than before. Even though this is just a couple of examples, there are several more spiritual benefits that go along with these exercises. However, while reading over them, I felt these two were at the top of most important.

My Exercise The exercise I like the most can only be described as verbal. In other words, I prefer telling people how much I love them, miss them, or thank them. Words are powerful things and should be used with care and creativity. Therefore, I like to pick and choose my words carefully as I try to express how I feel toward that person or people. While I’m a big believer in actions speaking louder than words, I’ve always preferred to play around with words and make them say exactly how I feel. When it comes to love and gratitude however, this can be a little difficult. Gratitude is actually kind of easy for me because I was raised in a household where we always say thank you and use our P’s and Q’s. However, love is more difficult to express because there’s a chance it may be rejected. In a sense though, that’s what love is all about. By taking the chance to put oneself out there in the open, that person is showing how much they love that person as well as telling them. It’s like a double wammy! But, even though it may be twice the love, the whole point of love is take a chance and not care that you might get hurt. If that’s all we cared about, our worlds population would be a lot smaller then it is now!

How to use the Exercises To use these amazing exercises, we must put ourselves out there. In doing so, we are realizing what it is we truly want and how badly we want it. For example, should a guy say that he really loves his girlfriend but refuses to come up with activities to do on the date, he isn’t showing much love much less putting himself out there. However, should he decide to surprise her with a date that he planned then he’s putting his heart on the line to be rejected, but is still making the big effort to show he cares and that he does listen and want to make it work. By using the exercises to their fullest potential, people can learn that there’s so much more to love than a simple rose here and small kiss there.

How is Love and Gratitude Mishandled? “It is apparent that the theory and practices of some individuals and groups in our society today who use words, phrases and slogans of love do not convey its real meaning, and are used out of context” (“Love…”). Here we see that sometimes the right message doesn’t get through. There are so many variations of love, the actual meaning is sometimes lost in all the different translations and uses. While someone may say they love a certain candy and another person says they love to play soccer, then what happens when we say we love each other? In some cases, it may come across that you love that person like you love going shopping: something to do when you’re bored. “It is true that in past centuries, as well as today, love has been exploited by individuals and groups, but it always was found that this kind of love was wrong and needed correction and refinement” (“Love…”). In other words, there are many times when love is exploited for something that it’s not. For example, when a man tries to have sex with a female just to “get some”, he may say that he really loves her, just to leave the next morning before she wakes up. Here, love was misused in order to give a man pleasure for one, but will probably end up haunting the girl for quite some time. In this case, the man used love to get her to think that he had feelings for her when really he just wanted to have sex. However, for the girl, she thought she was making to love to someone she thought truly cared for her. Therefore, love can send mixed signals and is quite powerful. However, if it’s mishandled (like in this situation), love is exploited as something gross and unwanted.

Works Cited "Love and Its Misuse and Misinterpretation." Love and Its Misuse and Misinterpretation. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013. Walsh, Robert, Ph. D. "Essential Spirituality." The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind: Exercises from the World's Religions to Cultivate Kindness, Love, Joy, Peace, Vision, Wisdom, and Generosity. JOHN WILEY & SONS, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.