LOVE: Start With Yourself then Offer Love to the World, Like a Prayer

What would your world look like if you approached every experience with love?

Perhaps the highest and most transformative of all intentions is LOVE, the intention to approach life—every situation, every experience and every relationship—with genuine, unconditional kindness, compassion, and care. Love is a very powerful intention. It helps you stay strong and steady in the face of difficulty, despair, and fear. Love is healing. It’s what transforms tension into tenderness, conflict into connection, challenges into opportunities. With love in your heart, the world is a much more beautiful, kinder, hopeful place. 

Like all intentions, love is a conscious choice that must be nurtured daily. It can grow from simple acts of kindness toward yourself and others, and from practices that return you to your own heart. When you choose to live with love, you create a strong foundation for your life that softens fear and opens you to deeper connection.

These five practices will help you cultivate LOVE, starting with yourself and then offering love to the world, like a prayer.

1. “I AM LOVE" YOGA PRACTICE
The world needs love and open hearts to share it. YOU ARE LOVE…you vibrate with it.  And every breath, every action can be an expression of this truth. This is a quick and easy practice sequence to help you cultivate the high vibration of LOVE, to embody it and carry it off the mat. It is is intended to open your heart centre, tend the sacred flame that’s always there, and to allow you to shine love out into the world. 10 - 15 minutes. For in‑depth explanations of each pose, click HERE.

1. Easy pose with visualization (Sukhasana)
   
2. Seated twist, both sides
   
3. Seated side bends, both sides
   
4. Cat-cow pose (Marjariasana-Bitilasana)
   
5. Cobra pose (Bhujangasana)
   
6. Downward facing dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
   
7. Crescent moon lunge (Anjanayasana)
   
8. Sage twist (Marichyasana)
   
9. Loving kindness meditation (Metta Bhavana)

2. DIRGA PRANAYAMA - Deep Belly Breathing with I AM LOVE
This version of Dirga Pranayama combines deep, calming belly breathing with the intention to embody “I AM LOVE” not as a wish, but as a gentle remembering of your essential nature. It is a soothing, heart-opening practice that invites a sense of safety and belonging within yourself. Place one hand on your belly and the other on your heart. Inhale slowly through your nose, first filling your belly, then your mid-lungs, and finally your upper lungs, silently or softly saying “I AM” as you inhale. Exhale fully through the nose or mouth, releasing tension and allowing the word “LOVE” to settle into your heart. Continue for 5–10 minutes, letting each breath affirm that love is already your true nature.

3. LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION - To Send Love and Light to the World
One of the most beautiful meditations we can practice to open our hearts and offer love to the world is the metta bhavana meditation, a gentle practice from the Buddhist tradition. In English, it is often called loving-kindness meditation. Loving-kindness helps us soften, open our hearts, and cultivate understanding and compassion. In this practice, we often find healing as well as profound and enduring happiness.
There are four stages to this meditation. For each stage, silently repeat the set of phrases below (or your own adaptation) over and over for as long as feels good... start with 5–10 repetitions, then move on to the next stage. Begin by directing the phrases to yourself, then to a loved one, then to a person who is challenging for you to love, and finally to all beings everywhere. As you send loving-kindness to others, hold them in your heart with care, feel your heart soften, and let that feeling of warmth flow outward, touching the world around you.

May you be happy
May you be well
May you be free from suffering
May you be free to grow and thrive

When we offer loving-kindness to ourselves and to others through this beautiful meditation practice, it flows more freely and creates a more peaceful, loving, and joy-filled life for ourselves as well as others. Ultimately, this practice is meant to remind us that we are all one and to cultivate a sense of connection.

4. SINGING BOWL RITUAL - To Radiate Love and Joy From Your Heart to the World
“Invite” your singing bowl and send love and joy from your heart out into the world on the waves of its beautiful sound and rich vibrations. At Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness retreat centre, they use the kind and gentle term “invite the bell” instead of strike or ring it. Instead of “striker,” the stick used to make the sound is called the “inviter.” Breathe in…breathe out…three times. Then invite your bowl to sing its soft, reverberating tone. As the sound echoes, breathe with its vibrations, letting your good intentions and positive energy travel out into the world on each wave of sound.

5. MANTRA - OM MANI PADME HUM ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ - The Mantra of Love and Compassion
This is one of the most powerful and universal of all mantras, invoking love and compassion. It translates to “the jewel is in the lotus.” By reciting the mantra over and over, we call on universal energy to awaken our own inner wisdom, gently clear away the mud that clouds our perception, and find our pure, compassionate, loving self.
May this love meet myself and others without condition.