How do you expand love in your life?

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Ahhh, here we are in a week that is particularly focused on love. 

All over Paris and Amsterdam, where I just spent a fabulous weekend, red hearts and messages about love have been spotted in shop windows at every turn.

Love matters

I have written a lot about love over the years. It is powerful fuel for living big.

And most of us are not aware of how many opportunities we have to bring more love into our lives. 

In my post around Valentine’s Day last year, I shared my thoughts about the power of love, including ways to feel and spread more love. 

Two years ago at this time, I wrote about what happens when love expands. That post includes links to a number of other love-related resources you may want to explore.

This is a great week to tune in to love in a broader way than ever, and see what happens for you.

Inspiration opens your heart and makes space for more love

My heart is filled to bursting with a combination of love, gratitude and awe. 

Travel to new places and visits to great museums have been wonderful gifts that contribute to all of those feelings, and I am savoring them.

The sights, sounds, tastes and feeling of being in new cities have opened my eyes and my heart.

And while travel is a special way to find inspiration, there are countless ways to add inspiration to your life!

Consider these opportunities

  • You might take a walk, in a new place or someplace familiar, and look for wonder. When you spot a surprising moment of beauty, or something quirky, or anything that captures your fancy, you might want to capture those special moments with the camera on your phone.

  • You can visit a local museum or gallery, or window-shop and people-watch in an interesting area.

  • Experiment with new recipes, or take an on-line or locally-offered class to learn mixed media techniques, pottery, or any other art-making approach. Any of these will open you to new experiences and awarenesses.

  • You might watch a foreign film, or choose some great TED talks that peak your curiosity.

  • Why not crack open the case of an instrument you used to play, or sign up to take music lessons for the first time?

Seeing great art powerfully fuels love

I particularly recommend that you seek out great art!

If you can do that in a museum or gallery you will have an especially rich experience. When you stand before a painting or sculpture you not only see the true colors and details, you make an energetic connection to the work.

This gives you feelings of awe, appreciation, inspiration and admiration that go well beyond what is palpable in a photograph of a work of art, in a book or on a screen.

Your own new thoughts and expansive feelings — including loving feelings — are catalyzed when you find art that excites you and you have a proximate experience.

I am sharing some photos of amazing paintings I have loved seeing, and have taken into my heart, in my recent travels. Perhaps you can imaging how moved I felt being close to each of them.

[Artists: Joan Mitchell, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Josef Albers, Jean Hélion, two of many Johannes Vermeer masterpieces seen at the Rijksmuseum, and Sonia Delauney]

Your heart can open wider than you know

There’s no limit to your capacity to feel love and to give love.

In whatever way you choose, invite experiences that will fuel your heart. You will be richer for it, and the world will be enriched as you share your full heart.

Here are a few photos I’ve taken as I have explored Amsterdam. Check out my Instagram feed to see more of the places and moments I have captured.