12 Ways To Fall Madly In Love With Life

Bradley Morris

By falling in love with life, we fall in love with ourselves (and vice versa). When we fall in love with ourselves, we can access our true potential because we become willing to give ourselves the experiences, practices and beliefs that allow us to succeed and give us the self-acceptance to rebound when we fail.

If we don’t fall in love with life and ourselves, then we fall into the perpetual wheel of self-sabotage, struggle and suffering.

I support people (starting with myself) to truly fall in love with life. Here are 12 ways we can all cultivate self-love:

ESTABLISH POWERFUL, SELF-SERVING DAILY PRACTICES

Our habits make us who we become.

BE CREATIVE & DO WHAT MAKES YOU COME ALIVE

This is the zest of life that makes our time on Earth worthwhile.

MEDITATE, BREATHE, AND EXPRESS YOURSELF THROUGH SOUND

This clears the mental fog, allowing us to focus on what we love.

LIVE WITH REVERENCE AND GRATITUDE FOR THE GIFT OF LIFE

Commit to becoming masterful at expressing appreciation for life and all your experiences, especially the ones that challenge you and force you to grow. This journey is a gift.

HEAL YOURSELF BY FINDING PEACE WITH THE PAST

When we carry pain from the past with us, it haunts us and blocks us from being free and fully expressed in our present reality. Deal with it to heal it.

GET CLEAR AND LIVE WITH INTENTION

Having a vision gives us the power to drive forward through the difficult times. We all need a bigger vision for our lives.

CONNECT WITH NATURE

Balance depends on spending plenty of time in nature, whether it’s sitting, hiking or sports. We all need nature time.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY

Putting powerful, clean foods into our body, exercising and doing yoga are some of the most important things we can do when it comes to self-care and loving life. We only have one body.

GROW THROUGH FEAR

Fear is a natural part of life. Because of this, I embrace it and honor it when it comes up.

TAKE 100% RESPONSIBILITY

Recognize that you are the creator of your own life and successes. By taking full responsibility, we allow ourselves the opportunity to learn from our mistakes, rather than blame.

CHECK THINGS OFF THE BUCKET LIST

Each year, we need to have at least one thing checked off the bucket list. This gives us something fun to shoot for.

MAKE A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE IN OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES

This is one of the most fulfilling, energy-giving things we can do in life. It gives us purpose. Every day, try to make somebody else’s day. Big or small acts go a long way.

There is so much we can do to love our lives and blossom into the fullest expression of who we are… and unfortunately, many don’t. People make excuses, they say there’s not enough time or that blah blah blah gets in the way. Truth is, if you’re not loving it, then YOU are getting in the way.

If you want to know what it feels like to be wildly in love with your life, then you need to declare yourself willing and committed now.

You must be willing to change everything and embrace a whole new way of living — if that's what it’s going to take. What I find is, those who don’t love their lives now haven’t been living according to their own passions, dreams, authentic expression and agenda. They have been living to the beat of somebody else’s drum… and that path will always lead to unhappiness.

Here’s the thing. If you’re locked into some negative habits and patterns, then it’s going to take effort to get out. But it’s the fun kind of effort because you will be adding more and more awesome things into your life that you love (refer to above list or make your own), while allowing the other old stuff to fall away naturally.

As these awesome acts become awesome habits, your reality will take the form of an awesome life.

It is highly possible that you will be judged and questioned by the people closest to you who want you to remain a slug and slave to mediocrity, or who just simply don’t understand your new vision, but if you can avoid being deterred from your path and not take their remarks personally, then you will find yourself blazing a trail to freedom, growth and a never-before experienced love for life.

When I meet negative people like that, I try to see them as mirrors of myself or reflections of my own consciousness. When I hear them being negative or pessimistic about my choices I say to myself (and sometimes them), “Wow, I still believe that? Well that’s just silly and definitely doesn’t serve. I let that one go now {while smiling}. Thanks or the reflection, friend, but I choose to believe ___________.”

Bottom line: if you take 100% responsibility for yourself, your dreams and your life, then you will create a reality that you love, a body that feels like your temple and incredible relationships that last into infinity over time.

The Energy Body - Yoga: The Path to Liberation

The Energy Body

“The second body, pranamaya kosha, gives you a new freedom, gives you more space. The second body is bigger than the first; it is not confined to your physical body. It is inside the physical body and it is outside the physical body. It surrounds you like a subtle climate, an aura of energy. Now in Soviet Russia they have discovered that photographs can be taken of the energy body. They call it bioplasma, but it exactly means prana. The energy, elan vital, or what Taoists call chi, it can be photographed now. Now it has become almost scientific.


“One very great discovery has been made in Soviet Russia, and that is: before your physical body suffers some illness, the energy body suffers it — six months before. Then it happens to the physical body. If you are going to have tuberculosis or cancer or any other illness, your energy body starts showing indications of it six months before. No examination, no testing of the physical body shows anything, but the electric body starts showing it. First it appears in the pranamaya kosha, then it enters into the annamaya kosha.


“So now they say that it has become possible to treat a person before he has fallen ill. Once it becomes so, then there is no need for humanity to fall ill. Before you become aware that you are ill, your photographs by Kirlian methods will show that some illness is going to happen to your physical body. It can be prevented in the pranamaya kosha.


“That’s why yoga insists very much on the purity of breathing, because the pranamaya kosha is made of a subtle energy that travels inside you with the breathing. If you breathe rightly, your pranamaya kosha remains healthy and whole and alive.


“Such a person never feels tired. Such a person is always available to do anything. Such a person is always responsive, always ready to respond to the moment, ready to take the challenge. He is always ready; you will never find him unprepared for any moment. Not that he plans for the future, no, but he has so much energy that whatsoever happens he is ready to respond. He has overflowing energy.


“Natural breathing has to be understood. Watch small children, they breathe naturally. That’s why small children are so full of energy. The parents are tired, but they are not tired.


“From where does the energy come? It comes from pranamaya kosha. A child breathes naturally, and of course breathes more prana in, more chi in, and accumulates it in his belly. The belly is the accumulating place, the reservoir. Watch a child; that is the right way to breathe. When a child breathes, his chest is completely unaffected. His belly goes up and down. He breathes as if from the belly. All children have a little belly; that belly is there because of their breathing and the reservoir of energy.


“That is the right way to breathe; remember not to use your chest too much. Sometimes it can be used — in emergency periods. You are running to save your life; then the chest can be used. It is an emergency device. Then you can use shallow, fast breathing, and run. But ordinarily the chest should not be used. And one thing to be remembered: the chest is meant only for emergency situations because it is difficult in an emergency situation to breathe naturally, because if you breathe naturally you remain so calm and quiet you cannot run, you cannot fight. You are so calm and collected you are buddhalike. And in an emergency — the house is on fire — if you breathe naturally you will not be able to save anything. Or a tiger jumps upon you in a forest and if you go on breathing naturally you will not be bothered; you will say, “Okay, let him do whatsoever he wants.” You will not be able to protect yourself.


“So nature has given an emergency device; the chest is an emergency device. When a tiger attacks you, you have to drop natural breathing and you have to breathe from the chest. Then you will have more capacity to run, to fight, to burn energy fast. And in an emergency situation there are only two alternatives: flight or fight. Both need a very shallow but intense energy...shallow, but a very disturbed, tense state.


“If you continuously breathe from the chest, you will have tensions in your mind. If you continuously breathe from the chest, you will always be afraid because the chest breathing is meant to be only in fearful situations. And if you have made it a habit then you will be continuously afraid, tense, always in flight. The enemy is not there, but you will imagine the enemy is there. That’s how paranoia is created.


“Watch a child and that is the natural breathing, and breathe that way. Let your belly come up when you inhale, let your belly go down when you exhale. And let it be in such a rhythm it becomes almost a song in your energy, a dance — with rhythm, with harmony — and you will feel so relaxed, so alive, so vital that you cannot imagine that such vitality is possible.”


Osho, Yoga: The Path to Liberation, Talk #1