The Power of Intention: Acting from Love, Not for Love
Teaching yoga in the park to my family and friends
Introduction: The Profound Power of Genuine Love
“Do things from love, not for love.”
When I saw this quote from an Instagram account called “Sunbeam.child” back in 2022, it deeply resonated with me.
Love is something nearly every human being desires in some way, shape, or form. But as you seek out the love you desire in life, are you acting from a place of love, or because you are looking for love?
I'd be lying to myself and to all of you if I said I’ve always taken action from a place of giving rather than receiving love. This is why I’ve posed this question. It requires cultivating more awareness of your actions and the feelings behind them. Once you can do this, you begin to activate a new part of your brain, heightening your awareness.
Originally posted by Sunbeam.child on Instagram
Understanding the Difference: From Love vs. For Love
There is a significant difference between doing things from:
a) a place of pure, genuine love, and
b) a place of wanting to receive love.
It's all about the intention behind your actions. And trust me, you can actually feel the difference, once you become conscious that it’s happening.
When you act from a place of love, you're not looking for anything in return. You have almost no expectation of what you will receive back. You’re acting because you know deep down this feels like the right thing to do, no matter the outcome.
When you act from a place of wanting to receive love, you're looking for something in return. Therefore, you have expectations, and if they're not met, you will likely feel frustrated, hurt, or confused. You're acting because you are lacking love somewhere deep inside and hoping to find it externally. Instead of leading with loving energy, you are doing things to receive love through outside validation or praise, attention, affection, and so on.
Like I said before, you can feel the difference between the two.
When you lead with love coming from within, you speak more softly, feel lighter after leaving a room, and paradoxically, you begin to receive more love in return. Without having to beg for it, it slowly starts to flow your way, as if you were a magnet for it.
This idea of coming from a place of love also influences how you treat yourself. Leading with love means setting boundaries and removing toxicity from your life. It means treating yourself the way you would treat the person you love most in the world.
When you seek love externally, you will always feel incomplete and in search of more; therefore, doing things for love and not from love.
Practicing Love: A Lifelong Journey
So often in life, we are so focused on ourselves that we forget to think about how our actions affect others, especially regarding something as sacred as love. If any part of you feels bitter, angry, frustrated, or unsure of yourself, I’d argue that the root cause of these feelings might be that you have been acting for love, not from love.
Like many things in life, this is a practice. You must work at it. But the more you do it, the more intuitive you become. You start to understand that the love you seek must start within you. The level of love you can receive is connected to the level you can give to yourself. Every human being has wounds related to love, whether from family history, childhood, or other personal experiences. Learning to heal those wounds is part of the human experience.
I have had my own wounds with love. Though I love my parents deeply, watching them go through separation and divorce at a young age has made it challenging to trust and get close to others. The undeniable pain and heartbreak I felt after my first love and I ended our relationship changed me as well. It made me extremely guarded for years, unwilling to open up and connect deeply with someone else. And, I’m still working on this. A few other moments in between and after these ones definitely left some scars. Everyone has stories of their own related to love that have transformed them throughout their lives.
The thing is, we cannot let these wounds hold us back from the beauty that love has to offer. And, when I say love, I’m referring to all its forms — romantic, platonic, familial, and self-love.
A Lasting Reminder: The Tattoo
Shortly after seeing Sunbeam.child’s post, I joked about getting the quote tattooed on myself. I never thought I’d have words tattooed on my body, but the more I recited this quote to myself and others, the more connected I felt to it.
A few months later, while traveling in Cusco, Peru, I decided to have it done by Fabián López Barreda, an amazing tattoo artist known for his fine lines and detailed work.
My tattoo shortly after being finished by Fabián López Barreda
Since then, I’ve received many compliments on this tattoo, saying how beautiful the message is and how lovely the line work looks. Others tell me it’s too small to read, but I respond gracefully, “It’s not meant for the world to read; it's simply meant to be a reminder for myself.”
Final Thoughts: Embracing and Navigating the Abundance of Love
Despite what you may believe, there is an abundant supply of love within you. The more you give, the more it comes back to you. But not in the same way you’d expect. Like anything you practice, the more you practice giving love, the more love begins to exist within you. The more you do things from a place of love, the more that energy comes back to you in different forms.
Don’t get me wrong, there are moments or situations where it is not safe or warranted to give love so freely. That’s something you have to navigate on your own, guided by your intuition. But I can guarantee that there are likely multiple areas in your life where you can benefit from practicing ~ doing things from love, not for love. ~
Conclusion: Share the Love
If this post resonated with you, please share it with someone you love. If you’re interested in working together one-on-one through my coaching offerings or attending my weekly virtual and in-person yoga classes, please reach out.