10 Lessons I Learned From Thich Nhat Hanh That'll Change Your Habits of Expressing Love
So You Can Love Yourself and Others With Authenticity and Ease
The Near Enemies Of Love
Love can be challenging.
Many forces get in its way. In mindfulness practice, these forces are the near enemies of love.
These forces include:
Attachment
Desire
Greed
Each of these forces cloud the mind and heart into believing love is present when in reality, it’s one of these forces at play.
Attachment is often found in romantic relationships.
You get into a relationship with someone and believe they’re truly the one. However, you may not realize you’re attached to them. Because heaven forbid they up and leave, your world would come crashing down. You would feel as if you couldn’t move on.
That is not love. That is attachment.
Where does attachment stem from?
Desire and greed.
Desire and greed make you hungry to succeed in ensuring your needs are met the second they pop up. And when those needs aren’t met, your mind starts to plan how to meet those needs as soon as possible.
This causes deep, strong suffering.
The longing for needs to be met instantly is insatiable.
But there is hope.
Love doesn’t have to be so difficult.
You see, for most of my life, I’ve believed love was difficult to express and feel.
I turned 31 just a month and six days ago, but I feel like I’m being reborn again as I look deeper into my heart and life expression. I’m learning how much of my life has been fueled by attachment, desire, and greed while pursuing love.
If it weren’t for Thich Nhat Hanh’s book How to Love, I may still be pursuing love in unsatisfactory ways that make it so difficult.
But these 10 lessons have brought a deep understanding of authentic love and how to express it in a simple, easy fashion.
Let’s dive in:
Lesson 1: Love Is Understanding
Without understanding, there is no love.
Understanding is the foundation on which love is built. Cultivating love requires a deep understanding of yourself and others. It’s a demonstration of kindness and caring for all beings.
When you start to understand, you start to love.
But love cannot grow without nourishment.
Lesson 2: Love Must Be Nourished
To build a garden of love, you must tend to that garden.
Your actions must show your garden plenty of attention because your actions determine whether love grows or withers. This is your ‘love karma’. Growing love is simple, but that doesn’t make it easy.
Nourishment must be provided daily.
Without nourishment, love will die.
But first, you must know how to nourish love.
Lesson 3: Know What Makes People Happy
Do you know what makes you happy?
Do you know what makes others happy?
You might think you know, but do you really know?
This deep knowing is how you nourish love. It is reflective and contemplative, and it involves asking questions. This is why Hanh recommends asking ourselves and others:
What makes you happy?
Answers will arise from the heart. And those answers should fuel your action.
And that action can take a few forms.
Lesson 4: Love Can Be Nourished In Four Ways
Nourishment isn’t always food. But nourishing love starts there.
The food you put into your body is an expression of love or near enemy. That’s why it’s important to be mindful of what you eat.
The same goes for what you consume through your sight and sound.
Paying attention to what you see and hear and how those senses influence your thoughts and beliefs informs you whether you’re nourishing or poisoning the mind.
Your volition should also be a source of love.
It should expand feelings of care and well-being toward others, and not be a source of greed or desire.
Lastly, your consciousness.
How you perceive the world, your environment, and the actions you take all influence your consciousness and perception. Perceiving only doom and gloom blinds you to love and beauty. But perceiving the totality of the world opens you to it.
So, nourish your love carefully in these ways.
Lesson 5: Non-Fear and Non-Attachment Are Gifts
Fear and attachment are obstacles to love.
When you’re afraid someone will leave you because you’re attached to their presence, that energy ripples outward. It becomes a boundary to connection.
However, retraining the mind to let go of fear and attachment through your presence and appreciation of moment-to-moment experience is the antidote.
Those practices create the energy of love because you’re not trying to grasp for something you know will be gone. That energy radiates toward others. No longer are they afraid of the moment. They’re simply present with you.
And that cultivates a deep connection you can’t create any other way.
Understanding impermanence helps deepen those experiences.
Lesson 6: Impermanence Can Cultivate Love
Everything is changing all the time.
This deep truth of life cultivates attitudes of gratitude and appreciation. Instead of worrying about your loved one leaving or getting let go of the job you love, you can appreciate them while they’re here.
You cannot reach these states without understanding impermanence.
Knowing those things will eventually come to an end makes the expression of love that much sweeter.
Because everything grows. Everything decays. Everything dies.
Even if you’re with someone until your death, or you work until retirement.
Another way to create authentic love is to remove conditions.
Lesson 7: Love Is True When There’s No Need For Returns
Have you ever done something kind because you wanted something in return?
If so, it’s okay. You’re human. But the truth about that action is it was rooted in desire, not love.
Real acts of love need no return.
Real acts of love are done for the sake of expressing love itself.
This helps release attachments to return, along with the fear reciprocity will not be returned.
So to express love authentically, do it out of the love in your heart.
If you’re having trouble tuning into that frequency, try mantra practices.
Lesson 8: Mantras Make The Mind And Heart Feel Love
Mantras are like trusty friends.
They guide you to states of love-consciousness you may not be able to reach on your own. They point you in the direction of the expression of love.
Some simple phrases include:
May I be filled with love
May I express love outward
May I love all beings, including myself
You might be surprised how these phrases shift your bodily energy.
They also help you treat yourself and others like a friend.
Lesson 9: Treat Yourself And Loved Ones Like A Friend
Passion fades, but kindness stays.
When you’re in a new relationship, especially a romantic one, it’s often passionate, exciting, and novel. But over time, that spark fades into the background and your normal relationship habits emerge. This is how relationships deteriorate.
But they don’t have to.
If you treat yourself and others like a friend, you can grow your relationship. Not everything in a romantic relationship needs to be sexual. In fact, those who are best friends with their partner often have lasting relationships in comparison to those who don’t.
Why?
Because they include elements of kindness, trust, compassion, forgiveness, and equanimity.
But none of this is any good if you can’t love yourself.
Lesson 10: You Can’t Love Others If You Don’t Love Yourself
Love is an outward expression that begins with an inward journey.
Without building a foundation of self-love in your heart, you cannot build a house of love to invite others into. Nor can the house be strong and stable.
A quick framework that has been helpful for me is the 4A framework:
Acknowledging
Allowing
Accepting
Abiding
We all have flaws. That’s our human nature. But few of us acknowledge this with a loving heart. We often acknowledge our flaws and treat them like they’re some malfunction that must be fixed. Maybe they do; maybe they don’t. But without acknowledgment, you cannot move to allowing.
Allowing is simply allowing those flaws to be. It’s okay to judge, but don’t judge yourself too harshly. After all, we’re all works in progress.
From there, you can start to change your attitude toward acceptance. Accepting things as they are, but accepting without judgment. That is where the rubber meets the road. If you can accept yourself, you can truly start to love yourself.
From there, your heart starts to shift into a state of abiding. You’ve created a spacious home for your love, so you start to abide in that bodily space, no matter the circumstances. You’ll still judge yourself now and again, or perhaps more often than you’d like, but you can offer yourself the compassion needed to take care of it.
It’s truly a beautiful place to be.
Where To Now?
Well friend, if you’ve made it this far, I appreciate and love you.
You might be asking, where to now?
I’m planning to launch a course in late May called Loving Yourself: The Journey from The Head to the Heart.
Reply “heart” to this email or in the comments if you’d like to reserve an early bird seat for 25% off.