In yesterday’s post I wrote about expressing and exploring Big Love. Now let’s consider the receiving side.

Be receptive to other people’s expression of love, even when it’s not individually directed to you. Allow yourself to feel gratitude and appreciation for the gifts that other people share with the world, as if those gifts were meant for you personally.

Can you allow yourself to receive the love expressed in these expressions?

• An actor’s performance
• A song that moves you
• Products you use
• An employee who serves you
• Farmers who grow your food
• Creators of the content you consume
• Fictional worlds and characters
• Good leadership
• The clothes you wear
• The screen you’re looking at
• Recipes you learned
• The tech you use
• Your favorite ring
• Transportation you use
• A face mask being worn

How often do you pause to realize that you’re immersed daily in a field of love and contribution? It’s easy to overlook this or to take it for granted. But look around and you’ll see that you’re surrounded by people’s gifts to the world.

Even if you think other people shared their creations mainly for personal gain, set that viewpoint aside for now. Even if you’re certain that someone’s contribution wasn’t intended as a personal gift for you, try holding that frame for a moment anyway.

Imagine that these creations were intended as gifts for you personally. See how that lands. Someone went to the trouble of creating this value for your benefit. Many people worked hard to contribute, going back for many thousands of years, so you could have a more abundant life.

I can assure you that some creative people do think this way when breathing life into their contributions. They don’t all just focus on personal gain. They don’t all just think about providing value en masse. Some think about how their creations will impact one person’s life in a meaningful way, perhaps one person just like you.

Consider the perspective that I wrote all of the articles on my website, going all the way back to 2004, for you personally – not for the world, not for web traffic, not for income, just for you. Maybe you’ve read a lot of what I wrote, and maybe you haven’t, but suppose that I devoted years of my life to sharing this material just to help you grow.

This is a perspective that you can adopt at any time. You never really know why someone created something, so don’t assume that it was totally impersonal. Play with the perspective that the contribution was deliberately created and shared as a gift for you personally.

The benefit of using this frame is that it gives you access to deeper levels of gratitude and appreciation for that which you enjoy. It gives you the opportunity to receive other people’s expressions of big love in a more personal way.

When I wear a ring, I sometimes pause to think that someone created it just for me. Even if it was crafted by a machine, someone had to design the ring and build the machine. And even if thousands of duplicate copies were manufactured, this particular ring went to me. I don’t really know who created it and why, but I feel a little happier and more appreciative when I hold the frame that it was a personal gift.

Maybe the ring’s designer had no idea that someone like me would buy this particular ring, and maybe their motives were in fact completely selfish, but it still adds value to my life to consider that they may have put some love energy into this contribution, and when I look for this love energy, I tend to feel its presence. So why not enjoy this perspective? Worst case it’s harmless, and best case it’s beneficial.

This is similar to forgiveness. You don’t do it for the other person. It doesn’t matter if the transgressor is sorry or repentant. Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself because of how it affects you. Receiving big love is another type of gift you can access, one that can add some nice value to your life, and it doesn’t require validation from anyone else.

Don’t you feel special when you receive a personal gift intended just for you and sent by someone as an expression of caring? You can also extend that perspective to everything that you use, touch, or experience each day.

Don’t let big love fly over your head and remain impersonal. Don’t exclude yourself from receiving the full value of other people’s contribution. Don’t just receive and use the value impersonally. Let the contribution land as a personal expression of caring.

Try it with this article if you’d like. Realize that I wrote it just for you. ❤️